For all the time we spend making gifts for our kids, Jonny and I are always found scrambling on the actual birthday. Larkspur wanted to open presents after breakfast. Of course she did, who wants to wait all day? I had to run upstairs to wrap them first. This is what happens on every single birthday for every single child, me running upstairs to wrap gifts with odd bits of tissue paper yelling, “Do we have any tape?” Jonny headed outside to retrieve his gifts, and ended up wrapping them in blankets and paper bags, the blanket probably covered in white dog fur. We do our best. The gifts trickled into the kitchen and onto the table one by one where Larkspur waited. We sternly instructed her not to start opening them yet. “What’s taking so long?” she wanted to know. Evidently there’s this part of me that refuses to be totally prepared. I can spend a week sewing a birthday dress, but I can’t for the life of me wrap gifts before the big day arrives. It’s become tradition. The other kids help, and end up doing most of the wrapping, me just instructing them to make sure to layer the tissue thick enough so that you can’t see the gift through the wrapping.
Larkspur’s big brothers all bought gifts for her. The gifts from older brothers who complain a good bit about younger sisters, they mean the most I think. Keats helped her make a birthday list, and the boys all chose gifts from it, buying them with their own money. This part is a big deal. Two of them are miserly with their money, they want to buy something from the list, but don’t want to spend too much. The third sees a sewing kit in pink. That’s on the list! He doesn’t care the cost. He knows she’ll love it. I think about the challenge of teaching my children to be wise in their spending, but generous as well. My son who knows, I can’t take credit for that. He learned that lesson through poverty, having nothing for many years. My greatest fear is that he will lose this gift he was given, the deep knowledge that relationship comes first, in our culture focused so much on things.
Birthday are for celebrating, and we do it in our own way. Larkspur notes that we aren’t the kind of family that decorates for birthdays. It’s true. On your birthday you get to choose all three meals, and your cake. You get special treatment and gifts. But, I have yet to create a special birthday bunting, or something of that sort. That’s okay. Larkspur wasn’t complaining, she was just stating a fact. We’re the sort of family who will make a special trip out to buy bagels for the requested birthday breakfast, and then turn around and wrap a gift inside the paper bagel bag. (giggling.)
So about the gifts, really all that I meant to talk about. Outside of handmade gifts, I don’t usually talk much about gifts here, but thought I would share this time around. We don’t have a specific birthday budget. We rarely if ever buy gifts at other times throughout the year, so birthdays are a big deal. I’m not saying we spend a fortune, but we take birthdays seriously and put a lot of thought into gifts. I can talk about the big boys some other time, but they are at a stage where they typically want one big thing, and talk about it all year long in hopes of receiving it on their birthday. They have reached a point where that one thing is usually expensive, so we plan ahead for the purchase. The little girls though, they aren’t so specific yet, and don’t have such expensive taste (thank goodness!) Larkspur likes to make things, and she loves animals, so I focused on that when choosing her gifts. I did knit her a hat, because she was borrowing mine everyday. I knit while she was asleep each night, so she had no idea. That silly girl opened her hat and in her joy started kissing it! “I didn’t know you were knitting me a hat!” I didn’t expect her to love it that much, but she does!
Jonny made Larkspur a squirrel feeder and a bluebird house. He meant to make a bat house as well, but ran out of time. She loved them. I also bought her a giant bag of sunflower seeds to feed the birds. She hugged it in her excitement. Thinking outside the birthday gift box can be a really good thing. Evidently birdseed is an awesome gift. Bird feeders, houses, food, etc. are great gifts for kids who want pets, but whose parents know that pets wouldn’t be a good idea (all of my children want pets on their birthdays. We have enough pets and there just isn’t room in our house for any caged rodents, sorry.) You could theme an entire birthday around wild birds.
As far as crafty gifts for my girl always desperate for crafts, I gave Lark: Her own nice wooden embroidery hoop, and a couple of pre printed pieces of fabric to practice stitching on from Charlotte Lyons. I love this one, because she can stitch the dolls and then we can cut them out and add backs and stuff them when she is finished. I also bought a clothespin doll kit and instructions on how to make them. This is something we will do together. She was thrilled when she opened that gift! Finally, she received her own basic potholder loom because, every kid needs one, right?
Over the past few days, Larkspur has been able to pick up her embroidery hoop, and work on stitching her dolls, without asking for help from me thanks to the needle threader that came in her sewing kit. She has also been found working on pot holders on her own (which is nice because I needed some new ones!) She’s been keeping the birds fed, and feeling very grown up and seven all around.
Amy says
Hi Ginny – I love the things you sew for your children… I have made some of them for my own girls. I wondered if you sew much for yourself? If you do, do you have any favorite patterns?
Ginny says
Nope, never! Terrified to try! How about you?
Amy says
Not yet… I may try a few simple skirts for spring and summer, but haven’t identified a particular pattern. There’s a ‘simple circle skirt’ floating around on pinterest; I may try it. I need to be brave enough to choose material – somehow it seems so much easier to pick when sewing for the girls.
Taryn Kae Wilson @ Wooly Moss Roots says
Ginny,
Happy Birthday to Larkspur! These pictures were so fun to see. I especially like the one where Larkspur is looking adoringly at the hat you knit her, it’s so sweet.
I love the types of gifts that you give, meaningful.
Love,
Taryn
NinnyNoodleNoo says
A belated Happy Birthday to her!
Nancy Mosley says
Thanks for sharing all your ideas about how your family celebrates birthdays! I enjoy hearing these ideas and seeing the pictures. You have a beautiful family and your ideas our great!!! Our daughter turns 13 this Saturday and one of her requests was to build a birdhouse with her daddy. Also, my 14 year old son is an avid birdwatcher. He enters all he sees on “ebird” online and put all his birthday and Christmas $$ together to get a birding scope, binocular harness, window mount, Sibley’s bird guide all because of his love of birdwatching. So I had never thought about giving birdseed before as part of a gift. We buy a lot of birdseed and make suet and he is always wanting to try something new so I’ll have to remember these ideas. Thanks again for sharing. It was great!!!
steph says
what a fabulous birthday!!! and you know, there isn’t a gift in the pile of lovely things that I wouldn’t love to get on my birthday as well!!!! great taste, Larkspur!!! Love the picture in the hat!!! What a honey!
naturmama says
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! The pictures are just beautiful!
Kymberly says
That dress is beautiful. I really love the crown that goes with it. She’s going to get tons of fun watching all of her animals visit the feeders. Such a wonderful idea for a homemade birthday gift.
karen says
I enjoy reading about your birthday traditions. They are knee deep in tradition and meaning. Maybe one day you will wrap the day before? I think it’s funny that you need to wrap immediately before opening the presents. I bet the kids love that tradition best of all 🙂
Corrie B says
Look at those dimples! She is absolutely adorable and you are clearly a wonderfully loving family! This post is a joy to read!
Elisabeth Andree says
Beautiful words and pictures. I love the way Larkspur shows she is happy with her hat:)
gramma2many says
Love the dress!! Looks like a very happy little girl and great gifts. I love that you make their one day very special for them. I also had 6 children and always tried to make their birthday day the best day focusing on them.
lori says
happy birthday sweet larkspur, what a beautiful post in everyway ginny. happy birth day to you too mama.
xxx lori
Linda says
I love these pics! I love that she loved her gifts so much. This is such sweetness. She is so thankful and happy to have these thoughtful gifts. Gifts that aren’t huge and splashy and blingy. They are things that will last for years and bring much joy to her life. As usual your pics are so wonderful. There is joy and happiness in them. Thank you for sharing with us.
Rachel Marie says
What a beautiful and sweet day! I LOVE that she kissed her hat 🙂
And I read your post just in time to drag my tired pregnant self out of bed to go all the way down to the basement to find wrapping paper. I have a son turning 7 tomorrow and I know he’d like to open his presents before daddy goes to work in the morning. I LOVE the choosing of gifts, but somehow I just really don’t like wrapping.
Molly Makes Do says
So much love in this post, but I had to comment on loving the beatitudes written on your back wall. Fantastic!
Kristen says
Love your birthday description! It’s fun to hear about how other families celebrate. We are more of a quiet birthday family here – a few gifts, a special meal and cake. The birthday boy or girl gets to use the special red plate for the day and gets their door frame decorated with balloons and streamers on their birthday eve so they can wake up to it. Small and simple, but these traditions have become dear to us! (LOVE the birthday dress, by the way!
Melissa says
Ginny, this post made me teary with the sweetness of it. I love how thrilled your daughter was with her gifts and how truly thankful she was to receive them. 🙂
Kris says
Oh my goodness. Why haven’t we gifted bird houses and feeders before? That is such a great idea. Thanks!
Mama Bean says
I would have loved these gifts, too, when I was seven. Indeed, I’d love them now 🙂
My little adopted heart likes to hear you write about your little adoptee. I love the way you respect and listen to the lessons of his past, and celebrate what they have made in him (made him to be.)
The generosity in the heart of one who has known loss never leaves. Because the loss never leaves.
Heather says
I loved that she hugged her hat and the birdseed- too sweet! I always have this idea of gift giving holidays being somehow like those Laura Ingalls had and I think this captures that concept beautifully. A few very well chosen and thoughtfully crafted gifts so appreciated by a young one. Perfect! Thank you for sharing a peek. 🙂
Kath says
What a lovely birthday and lovely family. how blessed you all are!
Rach says
Happy Birthday Lark, oh how I love the pic of her kissing her new beanie! Precious – you are a precious family xx
Kimberlee says
Happy Birthday, Larkspur!
What a wonderful birthday celebration. The pictures are all beautiful but I especially admire the hat kiss – such love. I think birthday pictures like yours show so well the beauty of large family life – the joy on the siblings’ faces as great as that of the birthday child speaks volumes about this lifestyle. You capture it so well in your photos.
Hope Larkspur has a good first season with her nest box! We have been hosting bluebirds and tree swallows for many years in our boxes. I’m farther north than you, but our blues are checking out the boxes already on sunny days. If you’re new to bluebirding, http://www.sialis.org has a huge wealth of excellent information.
Brenda from Dwyer's Farmhouse says
Your children are so beautiful. What a special birthday celebration!
Tonya says
She is just beautiful Ginny – love her hat and all the simplicity of the celebration. I am excited that Sarah asked me to make her a birthday crown for her 9th birthday.
megan says
The pot holder loom looks like it would be great for my 3 year old, who is desperate to knit. (I need to look back for your knitting with kids post). Also I love hearing about your birthdays. Thanks for sharing these special days. Your candle and cake pictures are always amazing.
Kelly says
How is Lark seven already??? She’s growing so fast!! I love her gifts! T got a bird feeder and seed for christmas. She is a huge bird fanatic so it was a perfect gift. I’m intrigued by the squirrel feeder, can’t wait to see it in action.
Grace says
What a special birthday and beautiful birthday post! I love what you’ve written here.
I love, love the picture of Lark sitting on the table surrounded by all the other children (you can only just see the top of Gabe’s head), smiling at her big brothers. And the one of her in the hat, right before the cake pictures. She really is looking so grown up and seven. Lovely, lovely.
Steph says
I love seeing how you celebrate birthdays. I love seeing other families traditions and some times adding them to mine. Thanks again for sharing!
Erin says
Precious! I’ll have to remember the bird and squirrel feed. Great idea!
tara says
So sweet! I love your birthday traditions. Birthdays were a big deal in my family growing up, so I love that it is for other people too. Those pictures of Larkspur are so great! It’s so cool to see her excitement at her hat and birdseed and other gifts. She looks gorgeous in that picture with her hat on where she’s looking into the camera.
I loved my potholder loom! I agree, everyone needs one.
Oh! My dad wraps gifts in blankets and sheets too. Every year. 🙂
Ruthie says
My favorite pic has to be the one of Larkspur with those beautiful blue eyes shining forth beneath her new birthday hat!!
Nahuatl Vargas says
Looks like a wonderful birthday, congrats!
Sara says
that sounds like a perfect 7th birthday!
denise says
just perfect – all of it.
I especially love the smiles on your older boys faces.
Heather says
Those are fantastic gifts! I gave my niece, who turned 8 on Monday, the same embroidery pattern complete with floss and a hoop. Great minds, I think. And don’t feel alone I am often wrapping things at the last minute.
Dana says
I remember making pot holders, and my grandma and two aunts wanted them every Christmas. My daughters made them and gave them as gifts, too. It’s wonderful to pass things down. My youngest kept getting in my sewing and craft things, and she drools at the craft store, so her Christmas this year was her own stash. Big sewing box with all kinds of notions, knitting gear, crochet hooks, cool stork embroidery scissors (to die for apparently), etc. It’s wonderful to teach them something that is really productive and can be fun. You are really great parents for all you can share with your children!
Beth says
Just a note on the clothespin dolls–which are wonderful to make and play with, by the way…
You can add “hands” by slipping a small wooden bead on the pipe cleaner/wire stems, then twist the wire back on itself. You can usually still fit things in the bead hole for the hands to be able to “hold” things.
I have made lots with kids, and found that using felt is the easiest for clothing, but the frilly dresses in the kit picture look really cute.
I also have not painted the heads the way they are in the picture, but just put on two small dots for eyes (Waldorf style, I guess) so that the doll can have any expression possible in imagination.
hth. Have fun!
SwedeV says
I just love this post. Larkspur is such a sweet girl. The photo of her kissing her toque is the cutest.
Thank you so much for speaking about how you celebrate birthdays. I think it’s a great reminder to those who get caught up in the materiality of it–to slow down and do MEANINGFUL things and really celebrate the person and the event, not the THINGS or the cost of them.
Shelly Cunningham says
The picture of Larkspur in her new hat, with her eyes SO sparkling blue is amazing. Breath taking. She is beautiful!
Mor Natalia says
You just cant imagine how I enjoy following you blog. That dress you sew her is just lovevly!! I cant sew very well but I think I can learn. Do you have a pattern?? I’d love to make one to each of my girls!! Thank you very, very much for a lovevly and inspiring blog!!!
Betsy says
Oh my. I don’t know where to begin. Suffice it to say I loved every word, picture and the love in this post. You are teaching your children exactly what is important in life.
Blessings,
Betsy
Dawn says
I had a bat fly by my head yesterday morning while sipping coffee, IN MY KITCHEN. I was very brave and clever, if I do say so myself, with how I managed to get that bat out of my house. I was able to open the window that it kept darting towards and it got out….now I am trying to figure out how it got IN. We have narrowed it down to either it came in on the kids jackets who had been playing hide and seek in the evergreen trees on Sunday afternoon (this gives me the shivers) OR it came home with my oldest son, from camping with the boy scouts all weekend. Larkspur may have enjoyed that excitement.
We celebrate birthdays the same way in our home. I am a last minute wrapper too. I don’t know why I do that to myself.
Elizabeth says
What a blessing! Your pictures of beauty and life give me great joy! Happy birthday to your dear 7 year old! Ever since I was 7, when my Mom gave me a card in which she wrote and coloured in the number 7, it has been my favourite number. Many years to your daughter!! May God bless and keep her! May her Angel always watch over her!
Laura says
He will never lose the gift of generosity. That is something poverty and wealth do not change; that part is soul-bound.
Brynn Dahlquist says
“My son who knows, I can’t take credit for that. He learned that lesson through poverty, having nothing for many years. My greatest fear is that he will lose this gift he was given, the deep knowledge that relationship comes first, in our culture focused so much on things.”
This totally made me cry. You don’t lose that. I’m that kid, only now I’m 30. I have been weird my entire life in our culture because you don’t lose that. I’m sure he is thankful every day that he has parents and siblings who understand and foster this within him rather than make him feel “less than.” I never realized that is the reason I am so attracted to the blogs that I am and listening to the lives of strangers. The fostering of that part of me is why. I didn’t have that from parents and it has always been a hole I fill up each morning with reading, each day with my son, and each evening with my husband.
Thank you.
Jennifer @ Little Blog in the Big Woods says
My son, Brayden turns 7 today! My daughter and your Beatrix share a birthday! How cool. You all celebrate very much like us. We try to make lots of gifts and my purchase one big one. I try to make foods he likes (he likes everything so that isn’t hard!!) This morning I woke him and his sister up and they had cupcakes and ice cream for breakfast…..now that is special! I love the dress you made for Lark, the fabric is awesome!
Tracey says
What a beautiful seven year old young lady you are raising there Ginny.
We have always celebrated birthday’s the same way your family does and
my babies still look forward to them. We will be celebrating my 4th’s birthday
next week and I have been planning for weeks.
Jenny says
Oh my goodness, now I don’t feel so bad about never, ever having our birthday presents wrapped! For some reason that simple act always slips by me…until everyone is waiting for the presents to appear. I have used blankets on many occasions and bless the inventor of the gift bag.
Michelle says
What a great way to celebrate a birthday. And those gifts were wonderful. I love that your children love to give gifts to eachother. What a great thing to teach them. Good job parenting!