Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays!!!!

First, I have to tell you about a conversation I overheard just a few minutes before starting this post (last week) between my youngest two.
5 year old:  Did you know that if you flush the toilet you are a girl?
8 year old:  What are you talking about?
5 year old:  [my 13 year old] told me that if you flush a toilet you are a girl!
8 year old:  Really?  I guess I better not flush the toilet anymore!(like he ever did?)

Okay, now it makes sense since I am the only one that seems to flush toilets around here!

Yes, it is all about birthdays around here right now.  I am tired just thinking about it.  I have 4 children's birthdays within 2 weeks, two on the same day (3 years apart).  My 2nd oldest just turned 17 on Thanksgiving!  Augh, can you believe it?  I know, I can't.  A little over a week ago we celebrated my 8 year old and 11 year old birthdays.  And Monday my 5 year old had his birthday!  How exciting!  My youngest is already 5?  How did that happen?

What do you do for birthdays?  We have a few traditions in our family.  First, my boys get to pick out their favorite food for their birthday dinner and their favorite cake (or desert).  They are all so funny about this tradition.  It really shows me what their favorite things are.

If my 17 year old would have had his way (another words his birthday wasn't on Thanksgiving) he would have wanted seafood, especially Dragon Rolls!  But he was very content on having Thanksgiving Dinner at Grandmas House, he just said to make sure that we had candied yams.  So the following day I surprised him with sushi for dinner.  Yum!  I am getting hungry now!  I want a Lobster Roll from Akasaka!   And instead of cake he just wanted pumpkin pie and Oreo Cream Pie!  Easy peasy!

My 8 year old and 11 year old agreed on bean and cheese burritos for dinner.  Yay!  Another easy dinner.  I am on a roll!  And they just wanted Oreo Cream Pie (11 year old) and chocolate cake (8 year old). That was easy too.  How did I get so lucky?

It was so hard for my 5 year old to figure something out for his dinner though.  After a long 10 minutes of discussing it, he finally decided on Pizza.  But that 10 minutes was exhausting.  I didn't want to encourage him on what his favorite meal was.  I knew what it was but I was not going to tell him.  So he decided on cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza.  His favorite is cheese though.  He was so excited when he finally decided.  I had my Sign Language finals that night and I was studying all day in between all the other extras that "had" to be done that day.  So after I left class I was thinking I would go get the pizzas.  I didn't want to break the bank on getting RoundTable Pizza so I thought I would be thrifty and go to Sam's Club and get a few.  Low and behold, I get there and it would take 30 minutes for them to take the pizza's so I opted on getting pizza and cooking it at home.  Guess what?  No cheese pizza!  It was already late and I thought my 18 year old had to get to school so I did the rush thing and just got the take-n-bake.  I was worried all the way home that he was going to be so sad that there was no cheese pizza.  He was fine with pepperoni.  Thank goodness!  I also got his favorite chocolate cake from Sam's but nobody really ate it.  Three-quarters of it wasn't even eaten and is still sitting on the table needing to be thrown out.  What a waste of a perfectly good cake!

Having birthdays so close to Christmas is hard.  Especially for the pocketbook.  My husband, once again, was complaining about our (my) spending last night.  I am not quite sure if he realizes that we have SEVEN boys that require a lot. With 4 birthdays and Christmas it is really difficult! 

I feel like I have been going crazy shopping.  Amazon is my best friend for the holidays.  I have saved so much money both with shipping and with prices, not to mention the time saved.  I am so grateful.  Believe it or not, I am claustrophobic.  I even have anxiety attacks in stores when there are too many people around me.  I try not to go to the stores when there are a lot of people around.  I will mentally make a note of when the best time to go to certain stores are.  Last week I made a mistake and went to Kohl's in the middle of the day.  I was desperate to finish getting sweaters for our family photos (which is more than likely my next post).  I feel as if I am still having a nightmare from the experience.  The isles were more crowded than usual with merchandise.  The store was not packed but it was busy.  When I got into line I felt myself start to feel as if the walls were closing in on me due to the amount of people around me.  I survived.  I just do not want to do that again.  That means no more Wal-mart (if I can help it) until 2 weeks after Christmas at least!  My secret?  Did you know that K-mart has just as good of prices and there is normally no one there.  It is one of those forgotten wonders I think.  It might be another 5-10 minutes down the road but well worth it.  Also, Target (a bit more expensive for everyday supplies) is busier but the crowds are not too much to handle. 

So what are your special ways of celebrating birthdays?  Do you have anything that you do with your kids to make the day a special day?  What about your tricks for surviving the holiday rush at stores?  Any suggestions?  I would love to hear your take on the madness of holiday shopping.

I hope to be more active on the blog scene now that I am finally done with college classes, at least for a few weeks.  Have a great day and a blessed holiday season!