Happy Birthday Take 2

Every year I try to figure out a way to keep the kids birthdays from spreading out into a week long celebration. It's not that I don't want to celebrate them, I certainly do, it's just that it gets exhausting and seems like too much to me. By the time you have the kids party, family party, and take treats to school for the class, it can spread over several days. And if the parties don't fall on the kids actual birthday, we do something special on that day too.

The problem is you don't really want to combine any of these events (except for the lucky occurrence of having one of the parties on the actual birthday) so short of skipping one, I haven't figured out how to simplify yet. This year we kind of did that by forgoing the kids party and going to the beach for the weekend. I'm not sure if taking all the kids on a weekend trip was really "simplifying" though. I've racked my brains about this and I think we are stuck. Skipping a kids party or the family party is not really a great choice and it does not work to combine the two. Treats need to be brought for the class. This year, Miss E's birthday fell on a Saturday, so we celebrated over the weekend and today was the day of treats for the class. Honestly this felt like the easiest birthday of the last 3 years because I only had one event to plan (beach trip) and the class treats and it was over in 3 days.

Today she took cupcakes to school. They have to be store bought which I kind of hate because the store bought ones are full of all kinds of crap but I guess I understand the rule.  By fortunate chance, today was my day to shelve books in the library which is right across the hall from her classroom so I was able to run over and snap this picture as they were passing out the cupcakes and getting ready to sing to her. I'm not sure why her face was so red. I asked her afterward if she was hot and she said no. I'm guessing she inherited her mother's love (not) of being the center of attention. Even on her birthday.

Also, in a side note, I kicked ass in fantasy football this week. Really. After losing for many weeks in a row, not only did I win my match up but scored more points than any other player in the league. And it wasn't a fluke - my team is just that good. OK, we'll have to see on that last one after a few more wins but it felt good to win. Really really good.