It’s already June. What happened to the first half of 2019?! I’ll tell you…it is FLYING. With June, comes the start of what I usually refer to as “birthday season” in the Hazel household. It officially starts on June 2nd with our middle guy Henry. Just as the first half of the year has flown by, so has the first six years of this little guy’s life. We blinked and he turned SIX.
SIX!
The Days are Long, but the Years are Short
For some reason it’s more believable to me that in another short 4 weeks our oldest will be turning EIGHT. That, I can wrap my mind around. The fact that my little Henry is now six is just absurd to me. It seems like just yesterday he was my 9 lb. 12 oz. gigantic, roly-poly, happy baby. (Yes. He was nearly 10 lbs. The look on Shane’s face when he arrived is still imprinted in my mind. He looked absolutely shocked!)
Now, he’s all legs, slim, and lean. When you ask him his favorite part of a movie, 9 times out of 10 he’ll talk about something related to the music. (Thor Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy are HUGE favorites of his for that very reason). He loves to build and create with LEGOs. Drawing and coloring are absolute gifts of his, and some of the things he’s drawn AMAZE me.
How We Celebrate
Since all of their birthdays are so close, we tend to keep birthdays simple and within our family. Historically we haven’t done big parties. Now that the kids are getting a little bit older, we love to take them out for a fun event or activity too. For example, we discovered there was an outdoor movie the night before his birthday and decided to surprise the kids with it. We ventured out for dinner and dessert of his choice (Culver’s….so delicious), packed up some blankets and cozy sweatshirts in case it got cool, and drove over to a nearby town to enjoy Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. It was such a fun night, and he was so thankful.
Birthday Traditions
Some of our other birthday traditions include:
I tape a few streamers at the top of their bedroom door, so when they open their door in the morning it’s a fun surprise (not so much a surprise anymore, as they kind of expect it, ha). Streamers are super inexpensive. Buy a few rolls in different colors, and they’ll last you a few years.
I’ve saved several birthday banners over the years, and choose one of those to hang up on the window near our kitchen table.
The kids get to pick out what kind of cake they want. If they mention a theme or a character I will typically try to either make or find a cake topper or figurine of some sort to put on top of a very simple and much more inexpensive cake. We usually ask them what they’d like us to make for dinner that evening as well.
Even if we celebrate a day or two early with family, we save a few gifts for the kids to wake up to on their actual birthday.
As I mentioned before, we’re loving “experience gifts” more and more as they get older. Some fun things we’ve done lately are iFly (indoor skydiving), an outdoor movie screening, and strawberry picking. Check out events in your area on Facebook, and I bet you find something for free or super cheap (especially in the summertime).
The night before we ALWAYS take a photo with the birthday kid, and the day we celebrate we ALWAYS take a photo in front of their cake. It’s fun to see the changes over the years!
Each year I ask them the same 21 questions and keep their answers in what I’ve called their Birthday Book. That’s also super fun to look back on each year.
Overall, I’d say he had a pretty spectacular birthday. He got to eat lots of cake, saw one of his favorite movies under the stars, got a brand new bike, and his first loose tooth. I think SIX is going to be very exciting year for our Henry!
Brief announcement for Wait ‘Til Your Father Gets Home blog…we are in the process of renaming and rebranding the blog. As our family has grown and my time demands have shifted, I’ve not had the time I’d like to devote to the blog. The content will change somewhat, as I’d like to turn to a bit more of a lifestyle and family kind of blog. I love writing and documenting our lives, and plan to share all of that more in depth here. Please continue to follow along on the blog and on social media. You may see things changing slowly at first, but I’ll make a full announcement and reveal once the renaming and rebranding is finalized! Looking forward to sharing more with all of you in the future.
Leave a Reply