Birthday Blessings

I come from a long line of week long birthday celebrations. Every year when I was a kid, we had a family lunch with my grandparents, a nice dinner with my mom and dad and a friend party to celebrate another year of life. It was simple, but it was magical.

Now I have children.

Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and other social medias have made kid birthdays a mom competition. I ask this - is it about us, or about the kids? When we check ourselves and our motives, and then ask ourselves if the birthday celebration will really be any more meaningful to our babies if we stay up til 2 am working on a banner on our Die Cutting machine, the answer is probably no. Do they care if you have a themed party? Probably not. Their joy comes in the celebration and the attention.

How do we tone it down and still feel like we are doing something special for our kids? Here is an awesome product that I have the pleasure of reviewing for you today and even choosing one lucky winner to receive one for free!

Birthday Blessing is a way to spend special time focusing on your child the week of their birthday. A beautiful, hand crafted, wooden birthday cake sets the stage for a week long celebration. This beautiful cake is to be displayed in a prominent location in your house the week of your child's birthday - a symbol to others that something special is going on!

Here's the awesome part - Birthday Blessing created this beautiful notebook to help you intentionally celebrate your child. Each day the week before your child's birthday, the Birthday Blessing journal guides you through a devotion with your child about how special they are. There is a space to write about them each year, too!

I love the idea of keeping this for my girls and presenting them with it when they are older!  What a great acknowledgement of how special they are to you.

How would YOU like to win a Birthday Blessings set for your little one?

It's so simple!  Check out the Rafflecopter below to enter!  I hope you win ;)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Lego Birthday Party

Saturday was Izzy's THIRD birthday!  I can not believe that my little baby is growing up so fast.  She is such a delight to us all, and our family went above and beyond to make sure that her birthday was special.  Legos are her favorite, so we went with a Lego themed birthday party.  Here is how I did it:

Being a working mom of two toddlers does not allow for much extra time to plan a party.  Thankfully, Legos were a fun, easy thing to incorporate into many different areas of the day.  The dining room table became the building area.  We had 7 sets of Legos constructed for the kids who all joined in, sharing the pieces, building new things and having a blast. 

Here are a few of the Disney Lego Duplo sets we had at the party: 

Jake and the Neverland Pirates - Bucky the Pirate Ship
Jake and the Neverland Pirates - Neverland Hideout
Planes - Skipper's Flight School

The cake was one of my favorite parts!  Three cake mixes (modified) later, and I had a giant Lego cake!  I made 2 sheet cakes and 6 cupcakes, cut the cupcakes in half and turned the bottom part upside down and iced the entire thing.  Instead of "LEGO" on the tops, I put Izzy's name. 

Thanks to House Party, I had some awesome Lego stickers and coupons to pass out, and for our part of the party favors, I went to Central Market's bulk section and found Lego shaped candies.  How fun is this!  I built a Lego shape in my Cricut and cut them out and glued them on for the top portion which I stapled to individual baggies.

We also had a Jake and the Neverland Pirates episode playing in the den for anyone who wanted to have a seat and watch.  Since it went along with the Lego sets, it sort of fit with the theme :)

The kids had an absolutely fantastic time and I loved getting to throw a party for my very favorite 3 year old girl.  Izzy, here's hoping your year is the best.  Mommy loves you!!