A while back I read Captivating by John and Staci Eldredge (author of Wild at Heart). In the book, they tell a story of a little girl who knew her parents loved her because of all of the little things they did for her. For example, every birthday, she would wake up to a bedroom filled with balloons. I liked this idea and decided to add it to our list of family traditions. For the past 3 years (birthdays 2,3 and 4), Grant has woken up to a bunch of balloons floating around his room. When he turned 3, I had the baby monitor on really loud so I could hear his reaction. I heard him gasp and say, “Thank you for the balloons mom!” He ran to my room to tell me all about it.

So, although we didn’t do it on the 12th, we did continue the birthday tradition. Since our plan was to celebrate his birthday with the Ratzlaff side on Sunday, we decided to “balloon” him Sunday morning. He woke up to Red, Purple and Orange balloons (his current favorite colors) all over his room. He loved it and brought some to our room to wake us up. (He has since “surprised” me by sprinkling all of his balloons around my bedroom ceiling.)

Another birthday tradition we have is a special cake. For Grant’s 2nd birthday, I made a car that ended up looking a lot like Bob Parr’s car (Mr. Incredible). Grant loved it. For his 3rd, I made him a shark cake that was pretty pathetic, and yet Grant knew what it was right away. For his 4th birthday, I made him a pirate ship! It was by far the easiest cake so far. The hardest part was shopping for the candy to decorate the ship the night before. I put it together in about 15 minutes! Grant loved it and I was pretty impressed, too!

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