Dylan's Birthday (at home celebrations)

I mentioned it briefly in a previous post,

but birthday are a big, big deal here in the

Hilburn house. We like to go all out!

By we, I mean me, of course. I never fail to make tons

of work for myself, pouring all sorts of details into the day.

My hope is that I also am not failing to make magical memories

for my babies.

My parents always did it big for birthdays, and I have the

BEST memories from them. So, I guess we know where

I get it from.

But by the end of a "birthday week", yes we celebrate as much

as possible for a whole week, I am so tired that I can barely

stand up straight.

But the kids talk about their birthday week ALL.YEAR.LONG.

Worth it.

So, so worth it.

So lets get started with Dylan's SEVENTH birthday week.

Birthday Breakfast!

Per my Birthday Boy's request, Power Ranger Pancakes.

Every year, I leave the kids gifts on the kitchen table so that theysee them as soon as they wake up. We open them after breakfast.

A few months ago, I was online and saw the neatest idea tothe birthday boy/girl's room up with balloons the night before their birthday.I knew instantly that this needed to be a new family tradition.Once the kids were asleep (they both slept in Dylan's room), Daniel and I blew up a tonof balloons and threw them in the room. I was so scared the cat or dog would popone and wake the kids up in state of panic (NOT the surprise I was going for, but thankfullyall went well. Dylan and London were both just beside themselves about the balloons.

Another thing we do every year is let the birthday person (we do this for grown ups too!)pick a special place to go eat. Dylan has chosen hibachi several years now.

Everyone loved it.At the end of our meal,they brought out this cute hat and sang happy birthdaywhile someone played bongos.It was so fun.Londy says she would like to go there for her birthday too!

As our big gift to Dylan, we took the family to Lego land.

For dinner, I told Dylan I would cook anything he wanted.He asked for chicken nuggets and mac and cheese.I didn't complain about the simplicity of it, not one little bit.That evening, I baked Dylan a cake and let London decorate it all by herself.Ya'll. Its hard for me to let go and not worry about thing being pretty.But London was SO proud of her cake and Dylan was too.Worth letting go.

Our sweet friends and neighbors came over and sang Happy Birthday and had cake with us.