When we first had Mikayla I knew that I wanted to start some sort of tradition surrounding her birthday to make it extra special.  The first two birthdays we did countdown days based on the year she was turning.  Each day she would get a small present or activity to do as a family.  For her first day we did a one day countdown to her birthday and her second birthday a two day countdown.  In theory this year we would have done a three day countdown to her birthday.  But then I got to thinking about future birthdays, when she turned ten we would need to do a ten day countdown and at 18 an 18 day countdown…that seemed a bit daunting!  So, this year I instituted a five day countdown for her birthday and will hopefully continue this in years to come.  Each day she got to open a small "gift" or as she called them "prizes" (that is how she has been saying surprises as of late).  I think she really enjoyed each one, plus it helped her to get really excited about her birthday!  Here are what we did for each day of the countdown.

5 – She got a small notebook and several pages of stickers.  She loves to stick stickers inside a notebook so this was a hit.  Unfortunately, she used most of her stickers that day!

4 – Popcorn and movie night.  Ben said up a projector to project the movie on our living room wall.  We popped a big bowl of popcorn and let her go to town!  She thought it was really neat watching a movie that big and sat really nicely for the whole thing.  I think she might be ready for a real theater experience!

3 – Campfire complete with roasting marshmallows and hotdogs.  Sister Diane walked over during this "event" and Mikayla told her all about what was happening!

In her bag I put a felt hot dog, a marshmallow and fire made with pipe cleaners.  Here she is "starting a fire" with her pipe cleaner fire.

2 – Felt finger puppets.  I whipped these out during her nap one day.  She hasn’t quite figured out what to do with them and how to put them on, but she plays with them like they are stuffed animals or babies!

1- Mickey Mouse dress up kit made from a little felt and some hot glue!  This one was placed in a special purse made from our friend Dacia back home.  She is loving some Mickey Mouse lately and so I thought this would be perfect and it was a HIT as was the purse!  Now when she watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse she wants to put on her Mickey outfit.  So cute!  I wonder if she will want to wear it to her Mickey birthday party next week?

We did lots of fun things on her actual birthday, more to come soon when I am not so tired!

Tags: birthday, Mikayla, Traditions

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2012 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.