Celebrating special occassions….how do you do it? Big? Small? Decorations? No celebrations at all?

Be it a birthday, Christmas, Easter or a special public holiday, we embrace everything there is to celebrate a special occasion!

From Christmas until now, we have celebrated many wonderful events with family and friends! The new year started with Australia Day where we wore something that symbolised the Australian flag or Australian colours and enjoyed a good old BBQ and backyard footy. Next was our precious little girl’s 1st birthday, followed by our son’s 6th birthday, my husband’s birthday, my dad’s 60th birthday, my birthday and recently Easter!  Yes that is a lot of cake eating, present buying and wrapping, happy birthday singing but most of all lots of fun times shared with the people we love and care for the most!

Wearing the birthday hat at the Runcorn Tavern!

I love EVERYTHING that goes with celebrating…..themes, cake baking and decorating, presents, parties, dinners, decorations – love, love, love it! When growing up, we always celebrated birthdays, Christmas and Easter with family and enjoyed the fun side of these events which included presents, parties, cakes and decorating! These traditions I have followed and am now allowing my own children to embrace in the excitement of celebrating!

Creating Traditions…..This is how we roll:

Birthdays!

A birthday in our family is considered a very special day as it is the only day you can truly celebrate and be spoilt on your own (that is if you don’t share it with anyone)! I love making such a big deal about the kids birthdays especially! I have a red feature wall that separates our toy room and lounge room which we have deemed our celebration wall! The night before a birthday I always decorate it with a happy birthday banner some streamers and balloons and have their presents sitting out ready for them to wake up to….the kids love it!!!

On Mia’s 1st birthday…our ‘red wall’ is our celebration wall we decorate for all special occasions!

When purchasing birthday presents, we always make sure they are a surprise, but we do ask them to make a list of what they want! I am a strong believer that everyone deserves to get what they want for their special day, provided it is within budget! We have a budget on presents for all occasions, usually between $100-$150, Easter is about $50.   I would far rather spend money on something someone wants!

My favourite part of a birthday is making their birthday cake:) I love making and decorating cakes, again the choice of cake and style is up to the person, once they’ve told me what they want I get to be creative!  On the day, the biggest highlight for the kids is singing happy birthday and blowing out the candles…sometimes twice ok three times on occasions, if someone missed out on blowing out a candle heheheh!

I love doing birthday cakes! Dad’s 60th horse race track I made!

Lastly we always celebrate a birthday with family. If  it’s on a week day we go out to dinner and if you’re lucky enough to have it fall on the weekend, we do something during the day! The kids don’t get big parties each year. I always do a big first birthday, a reasonable size second birthday and from then on they get to choose to do something special around the time of their birthday but not always a party! Bailey had his first “school friends” party this year, as he is in grade one and turning 6 was a major thing for him:) but the next time he has a party will be when he is 10! 21st are also very big in our family….I still remember mine and how awesome it was!

Christmas!

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” We love Christmas and everything that goes along with it!!! My husband is nicknamed Clark Griswall (from Christmas vacation) as he loves Christmas as much as I do lol! Traditionally I was brought up not to put your tree up until 1st December, Kane’s family tradition was November 1st so we compromised and we decorate our house and tree mid November! When Bailey was little we put a few extra fairy lights around our windows and then each year we would add to what we did the year before! Last Christmas was out biggest display yet – over 1000 lights, window displays, garden displays and this year will be even bigger, as I stocked up on the boxing day sales:) the kids absolutely love it and really so do we:) Once our decorations are up, we take our own annual Christmas photo of the kids which I use to make my Christmas cards.

Sitting out the front of our house enjoying our Christmas display!

The month of December is my favourite month of the year! During the lead up to Christmas we spend many occasions catching up with family and friends and we spend our nights looking at christmas lights and listening to Christmas carols. The kids love wearing christmas shirts and outfits and thank you to my wonderful mother who sews, they are very lucky to have alot to choose from.  Three things we make an effort to do is take the kids to Movie World’s Winter Wonderland night, which is absolutely magical, get our annual photo with Santa and we take the kids in town to see the big tree! Our visit to Santa last year was so sweet, the kids drew pictures for him and they posted in Santa’s letter box what they would like for Christmas!

I love this photo!!!! First year with 3 children sitting on Santa’s lap!

Our Christmas day is always so full on! On Christmas eve, the kids leave cookies and milk for Santa and his reindeers and a note thanking him for his presents:) Playing Santa is always so much fun:) I love setting up their Presents in their stockings and making sure a note has been left by Santa:)  Christmas morning is always so precious! Watching the excitement on the kid’s faces as they venture into our lounge room and see their presents and read their note from Santa, are moments I cherish! From then on we hit the ground running! After presents are exchanged and opened, we have breakfast with Kane’s family and from lunch time until bed time, we spend it at mum and dad’s! I love going back to the place I’ll always call home on Christmas day, as mum and dad have always put on the best Christmas lunch and dinner and the pool is always a real hit on Christmas day!

Santa has been and delivered!

Easter!

We have always celebrated Easter but this year was our biggest yet! I love Easter. I am an Easter baby as I was born on Good Friday so usually my birthday is always around Easter.  I love how the kids embrace the spirit of celebrating. Bailey is the biggest driving force behind all of our decorating. I loved decorating our red wall this year.  It was the first time I’ve decorated at Easter and will now definately be a yearly tradition. I even made and decorated my first Easter cake:) I always make sure we venture to the shops a couple of days before Good Friday so the kids can see the Easter bunny and get their annual photo with him.  A lot of our friends and family go away at Easter but we never have and I never did when I was growing up either. It is so nice having Kane home for the 4 days and we try and cram so much into that time too! This year we went to Movie World on Good Friday, did a clean up and organised everything on Easter Saturday as this year was the first time we have had Easter at our house on the Sunday.

Our first Easter display on our ‘red wall’!

Like Christmas I love setting up the kids presents and eggs after they go to bed.  The kids left the Easter bunny some carrots and milk, oh and Bailey left him a magazine…lol! I made sure the Easter bunny left behind some footprints….the kids loved waking up to that, even Mia who is 14 months old was very intrigued by the Easter bunny footprints:)  Once the kids open their presents from us the hunt begins.  We make 3 trails so all the kids get the same amount of eggs from the Easter bunny….again a tradition they absolutely love!

The Easter bunny has been!

We then spend the rest of the day catching up with Kane’s family in the morning and my family at lunch.  This year was the first year we have done an Easter egg hunt with the kids’s cousins, which was a real hit.  Easter is so much more relaxed than Christmas.  It is so nice just to sit back and watch all the kids play, eat chocolate and have fun!

My 3 little bunnies!

Public Holidays/Special occasions!

My son is such a breath of fresh air. Every now and again out of the blew, he will go through with me what is next to celebrate. The year always starts with such a great public holiday in Australia Day.  Each year we go to the beach and Kane cooks everyone a big Aussie Breakfast! We dress in Australia Day attire and have a wonderful time relishing in the beautiful Queensland weather!

Bailey embracing Australia Day….such a proud Aussie!

Other things we do throughout the year are: wear green on St Patrick’s Day, Bailey participates in anything the school celebrates and we always buy ribbons on days like Anzac Day and Daffodil Day. We are also very traditional when it comes to engagment parties, weddings, baby showers mother’s and father’s day.

Our last celebration before the Festive season starts, which Bailey talks about all year is Halloween! I know traditionally Halloween is an American tradition, but who doesn’t like dressing up and going trick or treating! The kids spend a week before Halloween working on their costumes and on the day of Halloween I always put a few decorations up and the kids go trick or treating, only to houses of the people we know in our area…it’s all in a bit of fun:) I always have my bowel of goodies ready for kids who come trick or treating, but our kids seem to be the only ones in our area who do it!

All ready to go trick or treating!

So there you have it! I know we may go overboard on some things, but that is how we roll and we wouldn’t have it any other way!