birthday fun!

Yesterday was two of my little troublemakers' birthday.  That's right--my oldest and my youngest were born on the same day, six years apart. 

You would think that with 365 days in a year, I would be able to give my kids each their own special day . . . nope!!

It's been a lot of fun so far because Samuel (my oldest) is so smitten with his baby brother, and Zoram (my youngest) is only 1.

We had a fun day yesterday, and there was not much money spent, so I thought I would share a few fun celebration ideas with you:

Balloons: roughly $2.00 per bag at Wal-Mart.

After Samuel, and his bunk-mate, Xavier were sound asleep the night before his birthday, I snuck into their room all Tooth Fairy-like and littered their floor with balloons, which I thought would be a really fun way to wake up in the morning.

Unfortunately, that "fun" waking-up happened at 5:30 in the morning when Xavier (who has a whisper that sounds like a Mack truck firing up on a cold winter morning,) saw the balloons first, and informed Samuel that it was his birthday!!  I had to go into their room and tell them to calm down and try to go back to sleep until 7 am, since they both had school in a few hours!

Still fun, but maybe not a good idea for light sleepers, or kids who go to the bathroom frequently at night.

Another fun idea I had was to decorate the ceiling with crepe paper!

My mother-in-law's 50th birthday party was a few weeks ago, and I used black crepe paper in lines stretching from one side of the room to the other, which created a kind of canopy.

This time, my husband thought it would be more fun if the lines were more random across the ceiling.  When I got done, he asked, "There now wasn't that easier, not having to be so exact?"

If you know anything about me, it's that I don't do random very well, so I found myself analyzing each piece wondering if I had too much yellow in one spot, or if there were too many blank spaces in one area of the room, etc.

And since my husband knows about most of my faults better than I do, I answered honestly, "No, it was definitely not easier this way."

He laughed, kissed my forehead, and thanked me for trying anyway. **gushing**

Isn't he great?

Samuel, on the other hand loved the effect, and felt very special.

Total cost: $3.75 at Wal-Mart

Finally, I won Mother of the Year award when I told Samuel I would bring his lunch to school later, and then showed up at his classroom as they were leaving for lunch with a McDonald's Happy Meal.  All his friends gasped with jealousy, he turned bright red, and I got a huge hug when he got home from school! (Cost $4.)

This all sounds like a lot of effort for one child, and no effort for the one-year-old, right?

Zoram couldn't have balloons in his room because he shares a room with troublemaker #3 (Rora) who loves to share fun things with Zoram by putting them into his crib for him.  A baby toddler sleeping with balloons in his crib didn't sound that safe to me, so we skipped that part and let him play with Samuel's balloons (supervised) while his older brothers were at school.

He could have cared less about the crepe-paper ceiling, but since he loves fries, and it was his birthday, I let him just eat McDonald's fries for lunch.

So, there are a few simple ideas costing around $10!!