Yay for Daddy's Birthday!

Yesterday was James' birthday! Yay and hooray! We started the day off right: Birthday Breakfast!!

Birthday breakfast is my favorite birthday tradition in our family. We used to do it when my brother and I were kids. Everybody in the family has to get up and come to birthday breakfast, and it has to happen before anyone leaves for work or school. Which means it is usually really early. Like, so early that the sun is usually late to the party. It's part of the charm. 

Food for birthday breakfast usually is normal breakfast food, just with candles stuck in it. We've done pancakes, donuts... I even made chicken biscuits for my brother's birthday breakfast once and stuck candles in them. 

But this year, I wanted to do something different. I was like, let's really go for it. Let's be crazy. Let's eat cake for breakfast! 

I really wanted to do the whole light the candles, sing the song, blow out the candles ritual for James with Calvin there because now he knows all about birthdays and I knew he'd enjoy it. But, I also knew we wouldn't be able to do cake and candles that evening because James is never home early enough to have dinner with Calvin and Henry, and besides, James and I had plans to go out to dinner after the boys went to bed. Solution: Cake for breakfast! 

So I got up before the sun and before everyone else, even our little morning rooster Calvin, and I decorated. (I can't help myself. I love birthdays. I love decorations. I love birthday decorations.) Nothing fancy, but I feel like a few balloons and a birthday banner are nice.

I know you are jealous of how beautiful this banner is. It took hours. No, just kidding, it took like 5 minutes.

Here's the card we made for James. Had a little trouble getting Henry's hands to make a heart...

 Then I went to wake up the boys. Calvin was actually grumpy about having been woken up. #tasteofhisownmedicine We decided to let Henry off the hook for this birthday breakfast since he was still asleep #neverwakeasleepingbaby and he couldn't eat cake anyway ;)

Song, candles, cake! Yes, that's right. We let our two-year-old eat chocolate cake at 6:30am. Go ahead and get my name engraved on that Mother of the Year Award. 

Here's his reaction after finding out that we wouldn't be serving seconds.

That evening, after James got home from work, he and I left the babies with Hartley (our cousin who lives upstairs) and headed out for date night! I love date night!! We went to Monk's Kettle, which is known for their amazing beer selection, and which is tiny and very popular and does not take reservations, so we had an hour long wait for a table at 7:45 on a Wednesday night. We had drinks at Delirium across the street in the meantime, and eventually we did get a table at the beer-snob heaven that is Monk's Kettle :)

I ordered the Allagash Saison, because I have grown to love saisons and the bartender recommended this one. James ordered that beer with the very, very long name which is a dunkelweissen - a type of wheat beer. He picked a dunkelweissen because that is the style of his latest batch of homebrew. Turned out I liked both beers and he liked mine better so we traded. Later, James had  Saison Darkly by Stillwater and I had a dry stout by Societe. (P.S. I had never heard of any of those beers or breweries before, but James had - or at least he acted like he had ;)

The beers were great and the food was delish! Cheers! Happy Birthday to James!!



Birthday breakfast is my favorite bday tradition at our house! What's yours??