Y’all. I’ve been a mama FOR A DECADE. What in the WORLD?!?! I truly can’t even believe it. 10 YEARS. Whew. GOODNESS.
We have a few traditions in our family when it comes to birthday celebrations and none of them are fancy. Birthdays are the same date every year but the day always changes and I never wanted to start a tradition that would be difficult to follow through with consistently. So we keep it simple, meaningful and memorable!
Kye’s birthday is March 4th and this year it fell on a Monday. Which meant school!
Kye wakes up earlier than any of the kids but it was still important to us to get up and wake Kye up with a birthday song!!! We DID let Spear sleep but the rest of us got up early so Kye could start his day feeling special 🙂
We do a birthday balloon for the birthday child each year but with it being Kye’s 10th I wanted to make him feel extra special with some extra balloons! We also always do donuts for breakfast!
Our TEN YEAR OLD!
He was so thrilled about the balloons and breakfast feast!
(Sidenote: Donuts were for ALL the kids to SHARE!)
TWO HANDS OLD!!!
We had to get pics of the balloons before school because I was pretty positive those number balloons wouldn’t make it till the afternoon – but miraculously they did!
The girls and I thought it’d be super fun to wear Star Wars outfits in honor of Kye’s big day!
I feel like being a decade old calls for something extra special…like the FIRST MUSHY CARD I’ve ever purchased for one of my children. First of MANY!
Real talk? I hit up the dollar store and they didn’t have any kid cards for the age of 10 so I kinda had to make the leap into the adult section…but truly the first card I grabbed described Kye so perfectly that I felt like it was meant to be!
Our tradition is that the birthday child gets to choose where we eat for their birthday meal and Kye, randomly, chose Texas Roadhouse. I can’t remember the last time we ate at Texas Roadhouse in general let alone as a family unit but I wasn’t mad about those rolls!
Kye ended up having a playoff basketball game that evening and we LUCKED OUT with the timing of it. We had enough time to eat an early dinner and make it to his game in time AND enjoy the process 🙂
Saddle Up!
Proud Birthday Parents 🙂
I love how he looks at me like “am I allowed to be doing this?”
Birthday boy had to get RIBS!
We had NO CLUE if Texas Roadhouse celebrated birthdays or not but naturally, I mentioned it was Kye’s birthday. I was PUMPED when they pulled the SADDLE over to our table and made him get on for a birthday song.
He’s such a great sport and I love that he’s not “too cool” for fun moments like these!
Kye has really loved basketball and it’s been a learning opportunity for him as a player of a sport he’s never played before. We have been so proud the whole season watching him. The first half of the game on his birthday was TOUGH for us because Kye didn’t get a lot of playing time and I could see how upset he was and how hard he was trying to hold it all together.
My mama heart yall. Whew. It was aching for my baby and kicking myself for having him attend a game on his birthday. Why be there when it was just causing him to be upset on his special day?
(And yes, I know he needs to be there for the team etc etc but yall know that MOM feeling and those thoughts and protective instincts we get…even if we don’t voice ’em!).
His frustration with lack of being in the game LIT A FIRE in him though and when he got in? He had his BEST game of the season. It was AWESOME and the TEAM WON!
SUCH a great birthday for him to have such a great game and for his team to have such a huge WIN!
We had dinner, basketball game, then got home and put Spear to bed and let the other kids stay up late to open gifts and eat cake! Kye was on CLOUD NINE with the big win!
Aunt Katie is THE sweetest! She had a gift sent to Kye and it’s his FIRST Harry Potter themed item…LEGOS duh!
Kye decided recently that he wanted to save up his money for an IPad. Which is a pretty HUGE purchase. I felt bad that I couldn’t bust out with an IPad for his birthday gift but we kinda already had a super mega EPIC birthday surprise planned.
I did let Kye send out an email to family letting them know about how he was working hard to earn money towards the Ipad and would love contributions as his birthday gifts. BIG thanks to everyone who helped make his technology dreams come true 😉
I laughed when he opened my dad and step moms gift because my dad totally wrote ON the money…and so did I when I slipped a $20 in his card too! Like father like daughter 😉
We have started doing sibling gifts where the kids choose an item to give their siblings on their birthday. It’s something they already own that they know their sibling will enjoy and it’s a gift from the heart.
The girls BOTH cried REAL TEARS over trying to choose a gift for Kye. They both just wanted to really give him something that he’d LIKE and they felt like nothing they owned was something Kye would actually enjoy.
We brainstormed a bit and I suggested coupons. Why not give Kye a gift in a different way? Tess made him a coupon good for her helping him with his chores and for her to watch him play video games. Britt made him a coupon to play laser tag together.
Then Britt also surprised me BIG TIME by coming down from her room with $15 as his gift to contribute towards his IPad. Yall. It takes her FIVE WEEKS to earn $15! Such a giving heart and it was very appreciated too! Made my mama heart so proud 🙂
I love the sweet cards they make for each other too!
Usually we give 8-10 gifts for birthdays. Small things. All wrapped separately. Often times there is one larger gift that is unwrapped and we have the kids go down the hallway and then come out to a big surprise.
I was proud of Kye because there was ONE GIFT. One. One gift sitting there for him from us and he didn’t even flinch. Not a little glimmer of disappointment. He was totally cool about it all and it made the surprise even more special!
I’ve had a lot of surprises with the kids not really pan out but this one? This was my FAVORITE surprise reaction YET!!!
Here’s the video of him opening the gift:
BEST REACTION EVER!!!
We have only owned an original Nintendo Wii. Last year Kye saved up his money and purchased a Nintendo DS. Zach and I discussed it and did some research and decided to surprise Kye with a Nintendo Switch due to TONS of friends commenting about how family friendly it is and how easy it is to monitor and set limits on.
I’m hardcore NO about online gaming so I’m thankful the switch doesn’t REQUIRE you to have online aspects for the games.
He had NO CLUE it was coming. Like ZERO. So he was just over the moon excited and it made every penny worth it! I did buy it over Black Friday for a good deal and was able to stock up on some cheap game deals too 🙂
Here are all the gifts Kye received for his 10th birthday…if you’re looking to buy a present for an upcoming 10 year old boy – these are some great ideas:
- Cash – at this age money is a GREAT gift. I love that Kye was saving up for an Ipad. It meant no junkie toys!!!
- Nintendo Switch – pricey. MUCH more than we’d normally spend on a gift but is a long term investment type present and opens the door for lots of future gifts too!
- Case – Right now we just have this simple one for his games but need to get a larger one like this to hold the console too!
- Harry Potter Legos
- Star Wars Legos – Legos are still a HUGE hit at age 10!
- Mario Cart for Switch with Steering Wheel Controllers – his console included the game so we just got the controllers!
- Nintendo Switch Games: Donkey Kong Country, Lego City, Minecraft (THE Favorite game!), The Incredibles, and Cars 3
For his cake (and yes, we sang again!) I made him my speciality: a knockoff of the DQ Ice Cream Cake! It’s SO GOOD yall. And I doctor it up by doubling the amount of oreo filing and using TWO BIG tubs of ice cream to make it. SO. GOOD.
Kye had an EPIC birthday. We went skiing for his birthday trip PLUS we also did escape to Disney for a weekend where he got some solo Daddy parrk day time and solo Mommy park day time (posts to come on those). AND we did our family thing on his actual birthday AND we still also went out to eat with Zach’s family in honor of his birthday too.
10 is a BIG DEAL and it was FOR SURE celebrated!!!
Kye asked to go to The Mill for his family celebration. Kid loves pizza and games 😉
Cousin Time!
We got smart and arrived PRIOR to dinner time so the kids could play ALL THE GAMES!
I love doing donuts rather than another birthday cake. Easy to manage when out to eat and easy clean up!
The family was all so sweet to come in honor of Kye and helped in a HUGE way for him to meet his IPad goal! We were able to order his IPad AND a case to go with it that night!
With the ipad we decided NOT to go the refurbished route. It just makes me too nervous. Instead we got him this one from Target and we ordered this case from Amazon!
Kye had a birthday like he’ll NEVER forget. I feel like some birthdays are meant to be a little bigger and celebrated a little more than others. In my opinion those special ones are 5, 10, 13, 16, 18. I love the idea of maybe doing something different for the 13th birthday. An idea Zach and I have tossed around is a maybe taking each kid on a SOLO trip when they turn 13 with JUST Zach and I as that’s an age where they will still think that it’s “cool” to go on a trip with your parents haha!
Thankfully we have a few years to figure it out 😉 So thankful for this first decade of Kye’s life and so excited to see what the next 10 years brings. Proud to be his mama!
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