Today is a special day…my daughter’s 11th birthday! Chopsticks!

Honestly, it feels surreal that more than a decade has passed.

As she got ready this morning, I started thinking about birthdays and all the things I do (or don’t do) around them.

I don’t go all out. Let’s be real. His birthday is right before Halloween and hers lands smack in the middle of Maycember. I barely know what day it is half the time.

I don’t throw Pinterest birthday parties.

There are no elaborate themes. No custom balloon arches. No color-coordinated snack tables with little labels.

And honestly? My kids don’t seem to care.

They just want to run around outside with their friends, eat cake, and stay up too late. So that’s what we do. Backyard parties. Simple.

But this morning, I realized something funny.

I may not be a Pinterest birthday mom…but apparently I am a birthday traditions mom.

Each kid has a birthday book where I document every year — what they loved, funny things they said, details from their party, little interviews with questions like:
“What comes to mind when you hear this word?”
or
“What do you think Mom and Dad were like at your age?”

Every year, I make them a birthday chalkboard with their height, favorite things, and whatever phase they’re currently in.

And every year, I write them a letter.

Not a perfectly polished keepsake letter. Just reflections from the year — what I noticed, what made me laugh, what challenged us, what I never want to forget.

And like the Duchess of Cambridge, I always make their birthday cakes myself.  

Which usually means staying up way too late the night before decorating them while questioning my life choices. 

Not just a simple round cake either.

They get to choose.

Minnie Mouse. Santa and Rudolph. Unicorns. Pandas. Skateboards. Rainbows. Shooting stars.

Somehow, despite all my imperfections as a baker, they can still name every single cake I’ve ever made them.

And maybe my favorite tradition of all?

We celebrate half birthdays too.

Half of a cookie cake.
Half of the Happy Birthday song.
Just the first two lines before we cut ourselves off and start laughing.

I never did that growing up. One day I just thought it sounded fun, so we started doing it.

And now it’s ours.

I always tell myself I don’t “do much” for birthdays.

But when I started listing it all out this morning, I realized maybe the magic was never in doing the most.

It was in doing the same small things, over and over again, until they became part of our family story.