Birthday Season

Its Birthday Season over at the Middlemiss house. My Birthday was first on March 25th, Matts is in April, Knox May and Ava June. The start of this season always gives me a bit of anxiety because I am a planner and I like to have ideas and lists and a plan of how we are going to celebrate everyone’s Birthday. Since we have had kids it seems like we no longer really celebrate our birthdays and just focus on theirs. Both Ava's first and second birthdays were pretty big parties with lots of guests and food. Now that we have done that twice I am thinking we/I may need to cut back this year. It just feels really overwhelming and I know the kids would have fun regardless of the amount of people that are here to celebrate with them.

For my Birthday one of my sisters graciously offered to take the kids overnight. It was only the 2nd night i had been away from Knox since he was born, so I was a little nervous but we really needed a date night. We went out for supper and talked, without interruption. We just sat and enjoyed each other for a few hours, and it was really really nice. We had big plans to go out and see a movie or catch a live band but the lure of an empty quiet house was too much for us. We watched a few hours of Netflix and then slept in as late as we wanted to, it was honestly the best kind of Birthday.

Since Ava's birthday is the end of June I have always tried to do something outside. I have planned games and filled kiddie pools in anticipation of being able to celebrate in the sunshine. Each year the weather turns on me and it ends up raining or being too cold to go outside at all. So this year I am thinking of doing something even easier, maybe renting out the pool and having a pool party? This would mean not having to clean up my house before and after the party and I would also be able to control the length of the party since the pool has scheduled times we would need to be in and out of there by, it kind of seems like a genius idea the more I think about it.

To reminisce on Ava's previous parties here are a few photos from her 1st and 2nd Birthdays, I can't believe how much she has changed over the last 2 1/2 years!

 Knox's Birthday is the one I am having trouble with. Since I did such big parties for Ava I feel like it would be unfair not to celebrate our little man turning one without a big party, but I don't really feel like I have the energy for it. This winter has really drained me. The endless days that have been spent inside, the monotony of doing the same activities everyday, it’s made for really long days.  So I think to celebrate Knox's first year of life, we are going to have a more intimate party and just celebrate with the people that are apart of his everyday life. With my family this still means 25+ people but that’s a lot less then the 40-50 we had at Ava's.