Ryan's Birthday Recap...

We decided, now that we have four kids, that doing birthday parties for each kid was getting ridiculous. And it really had nothing to do with any friends the kids were inviting, it was because we have such a large, wonderful family that always wants to come and celebrate with us. But with that comes trying to accommodate everyone’s schedule, and feeding a lot of people…four times a year now.

So we decided that we were going to start celebrating each child’s birthday on (or very close to) their actual birthday. Anyone who is around and wants to join us for dinner and cake and ice cream is more than welcome to, but there is no obligation to be there. We started this with Ryan’s birthday and let me tell you, it was so nice to not be stressed about a party!

So we asked Ryan where he wanted to eat dinner. He got to pick anywhere he wanted to go, and his answer was “the hot dog place where we play hockey on the table.” That would be Skyline Chili. They give you oyster crackers while you wait for your dinner, and my dad started a little thing where they use their forks and the crackers are the pucks and they play hockey while they wait for their food. So Skyline it was!

We celebrated his birthday the night before his actual birthday because we had a lot of stuff going on the evening of his actual birthday (gymnastics, softball, etc.) No one else from our family ended up coming, so we were able to take our time have a very relaxed evening. We got there and picked our table and we had a fantastic server who brought the crackers right away and immediately after ordering the kids got right to their hockey game! Meanwhile Colton ate some Oyster crackers for the first time :)

We had a great dinner and when we were done we headed home for cake. Ryan opened his presents, the kids did some homework, and then we had cake. After the kids were in bed I hung up the streamers and blew up balloons like I always do for a birthday (so the birthday kid wakes up on their birthday and sees streamers hanging at their door and balloons all over outside their door).

For his actual birthday, my mom and sister took Ryan and Josh to a CBJ pre-season game. When they got home they were so excited and Ryan had so much to tell us! He really had a great time!

So I think Ryan’s third birthday was a success! And to top it off, he really hasn’t gotten many of his presents yet from the family, so he’ll be opening presents over the next couple weeks! You can’t get any better than that!