Birthdays

Five things about birthdays taken from Molly.

1. What are your feelings about celebrating birthdays, especially your own?
I always made a big deal out of my birthday when I was younger because I was the absolute YOUNGEST person of my friends because I have an August birthday.  It was always a feeling of "ugh..FINALLY I'm turning 16" because I had some friends that had been 16 (or whatever other age) for almost a full year by the time I blew the candles out on my cake.  I love celebrating people's birthdays and making them feel special.  This year I had a different feeling on my birthday - I was barely pregnant but I realized that my birthday wasn't just a celebration of ME on that day, but also a day to celebrate what my mom went through for nine months to give birth to me on that day.  Being the "mom" put a different perspective on celebrating a birthday - I made sure I called her on that day to tell her thanks for having me.  Ha!

2. Do you have any family traditions about birthdays?
Craig and I try to do birthday celebrations really big for each other.  My birthday always seems to coincide with our summer vacation (Vegas, Bahamas, Europe and Vegas again this summer) and there is always a Stars game on his birthday in December for which we rent a suite and invite all our friends and family to join us in the celebration.

3. Is it easy to remember friends' and family members' birthdays? If so, how do you do it?
I'm old school.  I have a planner.  Like the kind you write in...as in not on my iPhone calendar.  I just like to have everything written down.  I also have a massive Excel spreadsheet document with all my addresses and spouses and children and birthdays of all my friends.  And Facebook reminding me of their birthdays helps as well.  But there was the year that I forgot my mother's birthday.  Whoops. 

4. What was one of your favorite birthdays? (or your unhappiest?)
Craig has definitely made my adult birthdays very special - he is great at planning trips and surprises for me.  One of my favorite birthdays was actually not my own.  For my mother's 60th birthday my brother Stephen and I planned a small Mardi Gras themed dinner party with our family (minus Mike because he was in Maine) and a few of my mother's closest friends and their husbands.  Stephen and I had worked diligently to get decorations, Cajun food and we each even made "tributes" to our mom - mine in the form of a family scrapbook and Stephen's was a beautiful DVD of pictures of her growing up.  As I arrived at my parent's house the afternoon of the party, I walked into the house laden with gold, purple and green decor...I heard a familiar voice call out "Need help Munch?"  It could only have been one person - my middle brother Mike had flown in from Maine to join the festivities.  (And his nickname for me is Munchkin Butt...or Munch for short...don't ask.)  My mother was really touched by all the hard work that my brother's and I had put into her special day and it was probably one of my favorite family memories.

5. Post anything else you want to share about birthdays, including favorite foods, songs and/or pictures.

Craig and I about to go to dinner at the Wynn hotel in Vegas for my 25th birthday.

  

The cake he surprised me with at dinner.

Our little family celebrating my 26th birthday at our house.

My mint choolate chip ice cream cake with the picture of a sand volleyball court on the top.

My most recent and another of my favorite "birth" days...my Natalie.  Here is her birth announcement that we recently sent out to our friends and family.