It’s birthday season in our house! Our guy Silas turned 3 on the 13th.

Figuring out a birthday celebration was tricky, I’ll admit.
I mean, how are we supposed to make a day extra-super-special in the middle of a pandemic?

The answer? Well, actually that was really simple.

The secret ingredient is, like always, love.

As parents, we put so much pressure on ourselves to create the ultimate birthday experience for our kids. But the kids don’t really care about all that. What they do care about is love.

At age 3, I’d like to think Silas will remember every moment and every cake and candle and balloon, but 1 or 2 photos will probably be what he turns to when he gets older. This time around, we just filled the day with so much love, and it made him feel like he was on top of the world. For the next 3 months he’s our only kid, so we wanted to make him the absolute center of our family’s attention.

Silas does go to daycare, and the kids are allowed to bring in a treat on their birthday. So, we made a really awesome treat! Here’s what we came up with:

Dino Theme!

Or pick whatever your kid is into right now, but if it’s also dinos, then go right ahead and steal these easy, and super-cute, ideas.

Treats:

I made vanilla confetti cupcakes (What’s more delicious?) and topped each one with a personal Sy photo topper and placed them into custom cupcake wrappers.

Kid Photo Toppers

• Print out a photograph of your kid, sized about 2x2 inches.
• Mount it onto cardstock paper that will give it some weight.
• Tape a popsicle stick to the back (or coffee stirrers work great too, and you can grab an extra during your next coffee stop—promise I won’t tell)
  
  

Dino Cupcake Wrappers

• Print the wrapper template to scale.
• Cut out the template.
• Trace the template onto the back side of the wrapping paper.
• Cut out the wrapping paper.
• Tape the ends together.
• Place cupcake into the wrapper. And you’re done!  

Perfect to serve with these sweet plates and napkins.

Or go with Flag and Sign Toppers

• Easy! Just use the template below and add their name: Page 5
  
  
  Download crafts with gift wrap scraps

Dino Goodie Bags:

First, one thing you should know: I’ve always given goodie bags at my adult parties too. There’s just something about honoring my friends and family that brings me the most joy of all.

And I think that’s the case for kids too! So, here’s a chance for the kiddos to thank their friends for being in their life...for making them roll on the ground laughing, for sharing their bike that one time, or just for being an awesome pal.

Here’s how it worked:

I made the bags from scratch using our new Dino Wrap. I followed the tutorial from A Piece of Rainbow here. Hint: If you don’t have our Dino Wrap, just use any color construction paper.

Bonus: Cut out Dino shapes from our Dino Wrap to use as name tags.

We filled each goodie bag with 3 gifts. (My rule is that 3 gifts per goodie bag is plenty.)

Download coloring page

The BIG Day:

On Sy’s actual birthday, we were all together at home, including my parents (or “Ma” and “Pa” as they’re called around here). When Sy woke up, he discovered a string that I had tied to his bed. He wasn’t really sure what was going on, but he followed the string and it led him to his very first gift: Jar filled with cookies, of course (So fun!).

As a theme for his birthday celebration, Sy requested both “Cookies” and “Daddy.” Ha! (Dads always win, right moms?) So, we absolutely needed this life-size cookie monster balloon. I ordered it online, and had the local grocery store fill it with helium. Sure, I could have ordered 25 balloons and covered the house, but this one felt like the right amount of magic.

We spent most of the day just playing around outside. That’s his favorite request of all time, so we played the day away! 

At night, I set out a bunch of store-bought (Yup!) sugar cookies, and a ton of toppings, and we had a sugary, messy, yummy, cookie decorating party.

For his cake, I made a cookie cake. Now, I’m not a great baker, but the Toll House recipe on the back of the semi-sweet chocolate chip bag is heaven on earth. Make the recipe exact but then spread the dough evenly into two circular greased sheet pans and cook for 20-25 minutes. I then stacked the two cookies on top of one another with a little leftover cupcake frosting in between. Yum.

Finally, to cap off the happy day, we sang to the birthday boy and played guitar and danced to some Bob Marley (his fave). Sy drifted off to sleep surrounded by love. What gift could be better than that?