Birthday Invitations

Well, it’s that time of year again . . . birthday season at the Bradshaw house. All of our boys happened to be born in the fall and winter, so that makes for a lot of birthdays right around the same time. We’ve got Camden on September 20th, Isaac on October 23rd, Kolby on October 31st, (and then we get a little break for Thanksgiving and Christmas), Eli on January 31st, and Courtland on February 5th. So, I started making Camden’s birthday invitation the other day, and all the boys wanted one, so I just decided to get them all made at once (I don’t know what dates we’ll have some of the later ones on, but that will be easy to change if needed). When it comes to kids’ birthdays at our house, we have never had a lot of organized games or anything like that, but I do let the boys choose a theme for their birthday, and then I try to incorporate that theme into an invitation and decorating a cake (and sometimes their gift from Mommy and Daddy will have something to do with that theme). Usually I ask them what their favorite movie or toy is, and use that as their birthday theme. (Although, when Eli told me that his favorite movie is Snow White, and his second favorite movie is Sleeping Beauty, I just couldn’t bring myself to throw him a princess party, so I asked about his favorite toys until he came to dinosaurs).

So, lately Camden has been playing with a little box of rubber snakes, bugs, and lizards, so I suggested that as his theme (and if I can find some more of those little toys plus some plastic frogs for his birthday gift, that will be perfect). Isaac sat on my lap while I made his Elmo invitation (he pronounces it “Nelmo.”) I went online to look for some good Elmo pictures to make his invitation, and he got so excited – he kept yelling, “Nelmo, Nelmo, Nelmo!” and pointing excitedly at each Elmo picture over and over. (I’m not really sure why he knows who Elmo is and likes him so much – we barely watched tv over the last year living in Utah and here at the new house we don’t even get PBS, but he definitely recognizes Elmo and likes him a lot). But that invitation was pretty easy to make, since Camden wanted an Elmo party last year, I just changed his invitation around a bit for Isaac. And when I asked Kolby what kind of party he wanted, he started listing off his favorite toys, and one was “blocks” (the large-size legos), and I decided to do a lego theme. Michael and I have been thinking Kolby and Eli are now old enough that they would really enjoy the little legos (and we’ll just have to keep them all in the study or something, so the little boys don’t choke on them). So, I’m planning to get a lego collection for his birthday gift (I’m crossing my fingers that I can find a big box of them at a garage sale or something). Eli is having a dinosaur party – and I found that it’s surprisingly hard to find a high resolution, realistic-looking, not-too-scary-looking tyrannosaurus rex picture on Google, but I think his invitation turned out pretty good. And Courtland’s invitation was the easiest of all – I had made an invitation for Isaac’s 1st birthday last year and then we were out of town on his birthday so we decided to combine his with Kolby’s last year and didn’t use that invitation. So I just changed the wording and that was all ready.

So, here they are. For anyone who wants to make a quick trip across the country, you’re all invited. :)