Category Archives: Birthday Traditions

Half Birthday Celebrations

Yesterday was Adaline’s Half Birthday!
She turned 3.5 🙂

I’ve always wanted to celebrate her half birthday but never have before. When she was younger I didn’t really want her to have the extra cake…and without the half-cake it seems kinda pointless to celebrate the half birthday. Last year I was super pregnant so we skipped it again.

This year seemed like the right time to start. Jonathan’s first birthday is a few days away (can you believe he’s already a year old?!) and Adaline was a little jealous and having a hard time understanding that this is not her birthday, or party, or cake. Giving her a little half-birthday celebration was something special for her before all of the focus shifts to Jonathan.

We celebrated with half of a cake, 3 and a half candles, and half plates.

We also sang Adaline “Halfie Birthday”.
It still sounds like “happy”. Oh well.
(Email and feed readers click here to watch the video.)

At the end of the video she’s running away from the candle smoke. She told us to “Get that stinky thing outta here!”

Adaline received half of a birthday card and a small present from the dollar store. We gave her the whole present. Only giving half of a present to a 3.5 year old would be a little cruel since she doesn’t quite understand it yet.

She was happy with her little celebration but she did get upset because there weren’t any balloons and she asked, “Where are all the people?”. All of those big birthday parties are coming back to haunt me.

In addition to measuring height on their birthday each year it has also been our tradition to measure height on each half birthday. Now I know why none of her clothes fit anymore!

Look how grown up she looks after just 6 months!

This half-birthday took me less than a half hour to plan 😉 All it took was a trip to the dollar store and making/buying a small cake.
(The cake looks deceiving big in the photos…it was very small.)

The scary part is that I only have 6 more months to plan her 4th birthday party!

Do you celebrate half birthdays in your family?
Let me know in the comments!

BIRTHDAY TRADITIONS

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Posted in Birthday Traditions, Birthdays, Traditions

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Tags: Birthday Traditions, half-birthdays, tradition

Birthday Traditions: Personalized Birthday CD

Sep 20

Posted by Jenn Rian

On her birthday our little one wakes up to the sound of her very own personalized birthday cd.

Hip-Hip Hooray It’s Your Birthday Personalized Kids Music CD

She loves dancing around to the songs and gets so excited when she hears them say her name. She asks to listen to it for a week after her birthday and then we have to slowly back off of it so that it doesn’t lose its appeal 😉

2010

2011
(Click on photos to enlarge)

I love the idea of this cd so much that I plan on getting one for all of my future children and I gave one to my nephew for his birthday!

Watch the videos below of Adaline’s birthday dance the past two years to see a cute baby and hear some samples of the songs.
(Email and feed readers, please click through to the blog to watch the videos.)

2010: 1 year old!

2011: 2 years old!

Do you wake your kids up to the traditional Happy Birthday or another birthday song?
Let me know in the comments!

Posts COMING SOON…
Balloon Wreath Tutorial and Links Post
Ladybug Picnic Centerpiece Tutorial
Free Ladybug and Bug Fonts Links Post
Ladybug Picnic Products List
(I’ll be creating a separate post that contains all of the info and links for the supplies from this party. In the meantime if you want to know where I got something just ask in the comments.)

BIRTHDAY TUTORIALS
*DIY No Sew Party Hat Tutorial

*Ribbon Topiary Video Tutorial (Centerpiece)

*Tissue Number Birthday Sign (Mini-Tutorial)

BIRTHDAY PARTIES
*Birthday Girl…2 years old: Photos of Adaline at her birthday party
*Ladybug Picnic: 2nd Birthday

*Pink and Green Polka Dots and Cupcakes Party: 1st Birthday

*Ham and Man Party: 30th Birthday

*Celebrating 30 years in 30 days! All of my birthdays from 1980-2009

+Birthday posts will be published all throughout September 2011 including tutorials, party decor ideas, and birthday traditions!

Posted in Birthday Traditions, Birthdays, Traditions

Birthday Traditions: Cake Server and Knife

Sep 17

Posted by Jenn Rian

One of my most favorite and easy birthday traditions is both sweet and savvy 😉 Did you buy a beautiful cake server and knife for your wedding that is sitting in a box somewhere?

Starting on Adaline’s first birthday we dug our wedding cake server and knife out of storage and used it to cut her birthday cake. Last year we also used it to cut my birthday cake and my husband’s.

For Adaline’s second birthday we used it once again to cut and serve her birthday cake.

Don’t let your wedding knife and cake server go to waste!
Start using it on all of your family’s birthday cakes this year and start a new tradition.

Do you use your wedding knife and cake server for special occasions?
Let me know in the comments!

BIRTHDAY TUTORIALS
*DIY No Sew Party Hat Tutorial

*Ribbon Topiary Video Tutorial (Centerpiece)

*Tissue Number Birthday Sign (Mini-Tutorial)

+Birthday posts will be published all throughout September 2011 including tutorials, party decor ideas, and birthday traditions!

Posted in Birthday Traditions, Birthdays, Traditions

Birthday Tradition: Professional Birthday Photos

Aug 17

Posted by Jenn Rian

One of our birthday traditions is to have professional photos taken each year. For the past two years I’ve taken Adaline to J.C. Penney’s on her actual birthday, August 4, where she has pictures taken in her birthday dress. We might not always do it on her actual birthday but it worked out that way the past few years and I’m glad that we have some good birthday photos of her.

Birthday Photos 2011
Adaline is 2!
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Birthday Photos 2010
Adaline is 1!
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Adaline also had her 1st birthday photos taken in a romper that I wore in my 1st birthday photos. There’s at least one slight difference in our appearance 😉
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

I know that’s way bigger than a smash cake. I forgot to ask my mom to make a little cake to take with us so she stopped by the grocery store and this was the smallest cake they had! Let’s just say that between this and her actual birthday cake, smash cake, and cupcakes we were eating cake for weeks and I literally gained 10 pounds!
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

BIRTHDAY TUTORIALS
*DIY No Sew Party Hat Tutorial

*Ribbon Topiary Video Tutorial (Centerpiece)

*Tissue Number Birthday Sign (Mini-Tutorial)

+Birthday posts will be published all throughout September 2011 including tutorials, party decor ideas, and birthday traditions!

Posted in Adaline, Birthday Traditions, Birthdays, Traditions

2 Comments

Tags: Birthday Traditions, photos, Traditions

Happy 2nd Birthday Adaline!

Aug 4

Posted by Jenn Rian

Today my beautiful baby girl is turning 2 years old! I can’t believe how grown up she is and how quickly time goes by. I’m so proud of her 🙂

We have some plans for today, but we’ll see how that goes.
Things didn’t exactly go as planned last year…

I wanted to get a photo of Adaline in this chair each year on her birthday so that we can watch her grow. She wasn’t entirely cooperative 😉 These are the best photos in the bunch!

I also wanted to get a picture of Adaline standing in front of her daddy and I each year. You can see how that went…

I wanted to take a photo of Adaline exactly at her birth minute, but (because hubby had been called into work all week when he was supposed to be off) we were behind on party planning and had to go out to the store in the evening. She spent her birth minute in the car eating puffs.

And it wasn’t until after I took the photo that I noticed the time was off on the camera so it actually says the photo was taken an hour earlier!

I wanted to measure Adaline’s height on her birthday. The actual measuring went fine, but notice the date. Because we were busy we didn’t get around to measuring her until a month after her birthday.

Another thing we didn’t have time for until a month later was to do her keepsake handprint.

We attempted this in September, but I waited too long to stick her hand in the mixture and it had dried up already. I then had to break it all apart and mix in more water, but it still had chunks and lumps. This is the lovely final product.

We bought this awesome birthday candle (you burn it down every year until they turn 21!) and forgot to burn it. We went ahead and lit it that fateful day in September while we were measuring and messing up the handprint. We never got very far so this year will have to burn it twice as long.

I also wanted to get a photo of Adaline next to her candle (when it wasn’t lit) each year so you can watch her grow as the candle gets smaller. We never got around to that 😦

So, last year I had me some big plans for establishing some birthday traditions and things didn’t go exactly as I hoped. This year I’m going to try to get the handprint and measuring done this week and I’m going to try not to mess up the handprint 😉 I don’t have too many big hopes for the photos just yet as she still isn’t too keen on sitting still for pictures. Wish me luck!

Related Posts
BIRTHDAY TUTORIALS
*DIY No Sew Party Hat Tutorial

*Ribbon Topiary Video Tutorial (Centerpiece)

*Tissue Number Birthday Sign (Mini-Tutorial)

BIRTHDAY TRADITIONS
*Birthday Traditions: Personalized Birthday CD
*Birthday Traditions: Knife and Cake Server
*Birthday Traditions: Professional Photos
*Birthday Traditions: Photo Puzzle
*Happy 2nd Birthday, Adaline!

+Birthday posts will be published all throughout September 2011 including tutorials, party decor ideas, and birthday traditions!

Posted in Birthday Traditions, Birthdays, Traditions

4 Comments

Tags: Birthday Traditions, Traditions

A “Puzzling” Birthday Tradition

Aug 30

Posted by Jenn Rian

I love puzzles. Building puzzles is something that my mom and I have always loved to do together. When I saw that ArtsCow.com was offering 200 piece photo puzzles for $9.99 shipped…I knew I had to get one made for Adaline’s birthday. I chose the following photo from her birthday party.

I received the puzzle in the mail a few days ago. I decided to build it to make sure all of the pieces were there. Here’s the final result.

Yay, all the pieces were there! I think this is something that I’d like to do for birthdays every year (and maybe Christmas too!). (Once they’re old enough) during the month leading up to the child’s birthday they can build their different birthday puzzles. Hopefully they’ll enjoy building puzzles with their mommy as much as I did! If not, I guess my mom and I will just build them anyway in honor of the birthday kid.

My only problem with the puzzle was that it didn’t come with a box. I didn’t know that. It didn’t say anything about a box, but I just assumed (my first mistake). It didn’t even come in a box, it was shipped in a bag. And the bag isn’t even a resealable one 😦

Right now I’m keeping it in a zippered plastic bag. I’m wondering if I should try to find/make a box to resemble a puzzle box or just do a plastic container with a copy of the photo on it. Any suggestions?

If you are intrigued with how I was able to solve this mind-boggling 200 piece puzzle you might want to check out Pointless Tutorials: How to build a jigsaw puzzle so that you too can become a puzzle building mastermind like myself.

Good day to you.

P.S. I’m sorry to tell you that the $9.99 shipped deal for the puzzles is over now. They always have something going on sale, so if you’re interested sign up for their emails.