I LOVE celebrating birthdays!!

I grew up in a large family. My father is a civil engineer. I know it wasn't easy raising ten children on his salary, but he was always smart with his finances. My mother never had a job nor a penny in her purse. As a girl, I knew we didn't have a lot of money floating around our house. As a woman, I feel grateful for my "poor" upbringing. I believe my parents raised their children to be responsible, frugal and non-materialistic. I hope I can do the same with my boys.

Even though we didn't have a lot of money, birthdays as a child were always special. If it was someone's birthday, everyone in the house was excited because that meant we were going to have cold cereal for breakfast. I realize it's such a silly thing now, but we didn't buy Lucky Charms or Cocoa Puffs often. After our sugar-coated cereal, we opened birthday presents. The presents were never wrapped in pretty paper.. instead they were brought to us in brown paper grocery bags. Inside the brown bag were items that we needed, hardly ever something that we wanted. I often got socks, deodorant, new underwear, contact solution and so forth. Talking about it now, it almost seems sad. But I never remember feeling sad about it. I honestly thought that's how every family celebrated. (In fact, for Aaron's first birthday after we were married, I wrapped items he needed. When he opened contact solution he laughed. I wanted to know what was so funny.)

I honestly can't remember a single present I received for my birthday as a child... not a single one. But I remember the attention I got. If my parents could afford it, they would take me out to dinner somewhere special like Chuck-a-rama. If money was tight, my mom would make our favorite dinner at home. In the evening, my mom would read stories of our childhood from her hand-written journal. Then we would go around the room and say what we loved about the birthday boy/girl and why they were a special part of our family. We always had a homemade cake with mismatching (and often not enough) candles. And best of all, we got to pick our favorite flavor of ice cream. I always chose mint-chocolate chip.

But this entry isn't about me (why do I think everything is always about ME??) Today is Luke's special day. Last night as we were talking before bed, I asked Luke to tell me what he would like to do for his birthday. It usually takes him forever to make up his mind so I gave him several options... museums, circus circus, the rainforest cafe.. He thought about it for a minute and then told me his "perfect birthday" agenda: cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate for breakfast, a picnic at the park for lunch, a few games of chess, jumping on the trampoline with his brothers, and homemade breadsticks for dinner. Ice cream and cake were optional.. and if it wasn't asking too much, he would like to put up the tent in his bedroom like we did last year. I think it sounds like a perfect way to spend the day.

the birthday boy eating breakfast in his new Snuggie
(which came with warm snuggie socks too!)

as soon as he opened his present from Grandmother (a Batman helicopter)
he handed it to Zack and said, "Oh!! You're gonna love this, buddy!"
If you can't tell by the look on Zack's face, Luke was right..