Considerate Classroom: Early Childhood Special Education Edition: Family Birthday Traditions

We've officially entered the "Terrible Twos" again!! Our son, Payton Douglas, just celebrated his 2nd birthday over the weekend. I wanted to share the McDaniel family birthday traditions with you all.

Prior to the big day, I always create a digital scrapbook of the year’s events. The boys each received their first one at birth describing how mommy and daddy met and what our life was like before they were born. Then, they received a book describing their first month of life and one every year after that on their birthday.

I have had the books printed at Picaboo and through Walgreens Photo in years past. Both companies do an excellent job! Recently my books have gotten pretty lengthy (as many as 130 pages) so they are cheaper when printed through Walgreens, especially if I manage to print them during a sale!!

MOMMY TIP: Take pictures of certificates, report cards and artwork and put the pictures in the scrapbooks so you don’t have store all the papers you collect over the years.

Another great feature is Walgreens saves your projects on their website so if something ever happens to your books, you can always make a new copy!

Then on the big day, the boys wake to a birthday Donut complete with sprinkles and candles.

During their birthday party, or family celebration depending on the year, the birthday boy puts on these silly birthday sunglasses for a photo. I got the glasses for $4.00 at Party City several years back.

My hope is to have a collection of pictures with them wearing the glasses to post on special birthday milestones and graduations.

Later in the day or that week, they get to paint their Birthday canvas. A tradition we started on EJ’s first birthday and an idea I got from Family Fun magazine .

They make for the best bedroom decorations. You can really see how their artistic abilities mature over the years.

I write a narrative statement on the back describing what the boys said about the paintings as they painted it. To remind myself and show their language progress throughout the years.