Birthdays were always a big deal in our family. Now, they weren't the super expensive extravaganzas that people seem to have these days. But they were always done up right. We always had a theme with decorations and a cake to match. Mom was SO creative! I LOVED seeing what she would come up with. There were a few times that we got to have our parties at a place (our favorite party place was Crystal's Pizza), but for the vast majority of the time, we had our parties at home....and I loved every one of them. I've tried to carry on Mom's birthday party philosophy with my own kids, and so far I think I've done pretty well.
But right now, in honor of my 29th birthday, I want to take a little trip down memory lane with some of my favorite birthdays (I was going to have pictures, but unfortunately my scanner is not working. So, we'll just have to use our imaginations!):
~9 years old~ It had "the right stuff, baby". Yes, that's right...it was a New Kids on the Block theme!! We had plates and napkins to match, and my mom decorated the cake to look like the album cover. It was pretty awesome...
~10 years old~ Beach theme. The cake was a life buoy. The table cloth was a big turquoise beach towel. We had pails with all kinds of water/sand toys as favors. And what's even better is that the pink plates with the turquoise towel TOTALLY matched my pink and turquoise school t-shirt. Yeah, it was pretty rad.
~11 years old~ One of my all-time fav's. It was a black/white/polka-dot theme. The cups, plates, and table cloth were all white with black polka-d0ts (they had some color around the edges so they didn't all just blur together). I had a domino cake (white with Oreo dots), and we scattered black dominoes all over the table. It just turned out super cute!
~12 years old~ Summer theme. The cake was a giant pair of sunglasses. We handmade place mats in the shape of orange and yellow suns. It was on a back drop of a sky blue table cloth. We had fun plastic cups that we drank lemonade from. It was so sunny and happy...totally fit my personality, right?!
~13 years old~ Picnic theme. We had a table cloth made out of this cute material (red/white checkerboard with black ants all over it). The cake was a watermelon, and we drank out of mason jars.
~14 years old~ Cooper Cougars theme! It was the summer before I started high school, so we decorated with everything Cooper High School! I had a cougar paw print cake. We had the traditional cougar head with the mouth open, making a "C" place mats. We decorated with pennants and red/blue painted cowbells for making noise at the football games. It was greatness!
~18 years old~ It was oh-so-maturely decorated in lavender and sage green (which were the colors I was going to be using in my dorm room). And so, naturally, the decorations were all things that I would be using in the dorm: posters, bed spread, pillows, cups, etc. It was SO not a kid's birthday...it was just pretty!
Now, my kids know what their birthdays are like, and they've seen the pictures of my childhood birthdays. They just don't understand what happened. Why is it that grown-up birthdays are SO boring?! They just can't believe there are no decorations, no presents (well, maybe there will be one every once in a while), and if there is a cake, it certainly isn't a fun cake! I try to tell them that we just want their birthdays to be that much more special. But they're not buying it. They are SO not looking forward to being grown-ups...just for the boring birthdays!
Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't have pictures for this trip down memory lane. But hopefully some of you (Mom and Jenn for sure) will be able to remember, and hopefully the rest of you will be able to picture them. Either way, thanks for letting me reminisce as I get one year closer to the big 3-0!
I remember all those!!! Your parties were always so awesome!
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