A celebration!!!

Birthdays are all about celebrations! When your little one's turned one.... It's a celebration for the parents for having made it through one of the toughest phases of parenthood! As our little ones are growing up, it's a celebration they look forward to each year .... even dictating how it should be celebrated as they grow older! During their tween and teen years, the centre piece of their celebration moves away from home to friends! During adulthood, the hullabaloo surrounding birthdays may be a lot more subdued, but nevertheless wishes pouring are far more widespread given our ever growing virtual connections.......and not to forget birthdays during adulthood are also testing times for the spouse/partner!:-) 

Today's reading prompt "Birthday" for 30 books in 30 days challenge had us go down memory lane recalling my little one's birthdays from his first year to now. We’ve always had a celebration of Abhay’s birthday, starting with.....
......a gala event with extended family and friends on his first birthday .....

.....to an at-home maiden celebration in the US for his second birthday ....

followed by an outsourced fun event at Chuck-e-cheese for his third birthday...

an advance birthday celebration for his fourth birthday to coincide with his grandparents' visit to the US ;

 

 from a quiet gathering of  close family immediately on our return to India for his fifth birthday...

 to a more settled celebration with a bigger gathering of friends and neighbours for his sixth birthday ....

 and finally a rather unconventional celebration at our farm house for his seventh birthday!

 Phew!……celebrations are hard work actually!!!!  

I began blogging at Onestoryaday when Abhay was over 4 and ever since we’ve  celebrated his birthday on Onestoryaday too…with a birthday themed book! With today’s prompt being birthday…the first book that comes to my mind is Dr. Suess “"Happy Birthday to you"”…no matter what you do…you cant match the celebration at Katroo! Then there is the much subdued but colourful birthday message with " The Secret Birthday Message" by Eric Carle.

Today we read Charlie and Lola's "This is actually my Birthday Party" by Lauren Child.  It is Charlie's birthday and his little sister Lola is all excited as her mother asks her to help out. Lola  takes it a little too far and decides to surprise Charlie with pink iced cup cakes, as she feels that no birthday party is complete without pink cup cakes!  In her excitement, she almost hijacks Charlie's monster themed party by opening his birthday cards, suggesting they play musical chair and blowing out his candles! Charlie then chides her  that it is his birthday after all but when he sees that his little sister only meant to help, he relents, taking solace in the fact that  at least she didn't frost the cupcakes with pink icing in an all boys' monster party! (Oops!) Just as Lola is about to scrape the icing off the cupcakes, one of Charlie's cake starved friends asks to try one of her pink cupcakes and soon the whole crowd is begging for more!!! So, the brother-sister duo conclude that even monsters cannot resist Lola's pink iced cupcakes!:-)) What's a birthday without a cake ...right??