Smiles and laughs

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Smiles. Laughs. There were a lot of them yesterday on Baer's birthday. We tried to make it last most of the day. There were still a few tears as you get those when you have little kids... someone's always getting hurt it seems.

My wife and I have made a conscious decision to not buy lots of gifts for our kids especially as they are younger, but I think it will continue to carry over as they grow older. It's definitely not because we don't love them or because we don't have the money that we could spend. It's more because they don't need more stuff and we know that more stuff won't make them any happier. Yet still, it felt like Baer got a lot, and compared to many people in the world he did. We gave him a Paw Patrol swimsuit, a craft type of thing, Batman pajamas, and then his grandparents got him a bunch of sea animal toys, dinosaur puppets, and a bike. We don't have a budget perse of what to spend for birthdays or Christmas, but we just try to keep it small. Some things even come from garage sale shopping during the year. Are we cheap? Well, maybe. But I guess I ask why does everything have to be new? Do your kids really care or is it more about what you think your kids should have? Is that you don't think they should have something that used?

It was cute yesterday, my daughter Josie, who has only had used bikes so far noticed that Baer's bike had tags on it and said, "You didn't get that bike at a garage sale?" She was right we actually bought it during Black Friday. Her expectation though has been we don't necessarily need to buy a new bike.

Baer had an awesome birthday yesterday. We had donuts for breakfast, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, crepes for supper. We went as a family to see the Festival of Lights. We spaced out his gifts throughout the day. He got to see his grandparents and spend time with them. At the end of the night, it was cute to see him think back on his day. It wasn't anything super crazy, but we thought about him, what he likes and tried to make it special for him.

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