The Birthday Month

So this month is our Birthday Month!  I am sure you all know what I am talking about.  Two birthdays in March and one the beginning of April.  And that’s just the people that live in the house.  There are also six other birthday’s in the immediate extending family.  This year my daughter is turning eight and getting baptized.  So yet another event to plan for.  I have stupidly planned the fun things to all happen on this eighth birthday as well.  What have I done to myself?  Since we do have three sibling birthday’s so close we do have to plan.  Our family has had the tradition of having a “BIG FRIEND PARTY” every four years.  This was to eliminate the stress and cost of having big parties every year, but yet still give the kids the experience of getting to have a big party.  So they get a friend party on their 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th birthday’s.  I thought these were good milestone years and were good for having birthday parties.  Luckily the three girls birthdays land on different years for their “friend parties" so that is going to work out great.   I have an 8, 6, and one year old this go around.  So not only do I have the three birthday’s, my eight year old gets a friend party, and a baptism, and one more thing my nine year old got to do on her 8th birthday is that she got to get her ears pierced and have a special dinner with mom and dad.  Whew!!!  One things for sure once you do it for one, the rest do not forget!  Not to mention Easter on the Horizon!  So now what to do the stress of the events are starting to add up...Where do I start?

Here is a List I am going to use to get myself straight and maybe it can help you with your birthday month too:

1.) Budget how much money I’m going to spend
2.) Pick the times and Dates of the events
3.) Book any locations that are going to be used
4.) Order or make invitations
5.) Mail or Pass out invitations
6.) Delegate some of the responsibilities
7.) Start making cakes, or order them
8.)  Plan the meals for the baptism, guests, special birthday dinners, and Easter
9.)  Make a grocery list
10.)  Make a gifts list and order any gifts that need to be ordered:  Also Add Easter Gifts to the List
11.)  Go Shopping
12.)  Make a list of needed decorations and start making and ordering them/Make Programs
13.)  Prep any foods that can be done before hand and freeze some things like desserts or casseroles
14.) Finish decorating cakes a couple days in advance, and put them in the freezer/fridge
15.) Plan any games or activities and prepare any items necessary
16.)  Go in before hand and decorate and have things set up/Print and Copy Programs
17.)  Finish foods and setting up
18.)  Clean House
19.)  Get everyone ready including nice Hair
20.)  Enjoy the Celebrations!

*Number One tip! Write it all down and plan a time for it all.  Do not leave it up to chance, but be prepared to be flexible when things do not turn out the way you planned.

I use COZI family planner to organize my To Do Lists, Menu’s, and Shopping Lists.  It is an online Calendar as well as an App for your Phone or Tablet.  It is nice to have everything in one spot!

I really like the idea of letting them have their own parties with their friends because it is not very often that we get to celebrate them individually and show them how special they are to us.  So I really like to be able to take their birthday and do that.  I know a lot of people say to do a combination birthday but I would rather make a plan and make each birthday special because if they weren’t so close together they would get their own day.  On their birthday when they are not having a friend birthday we usually let them pick dinner and have cake and ice cream and some gifts from family and then they can usually have one friend over and depending on the day we will do something together as a family.  We do not live close to extended family so it is not usually a big crowd.

What do you all do for birthday’s?  Did I forget something that you like to do when planning for parties?