Birthday Traditions

I am adamant about baking my children their birthday cakes. I love my mother, she is and was a wonderful mother, but bake a cake? Never. We share a birthday, my mom and I. My father and sister share one too, three days before. So birthdays were more like a national holiday in my house, than a personal celebration. So, I overcompensate.

Nathan's pre school doesn't allow home baked goods. Allergies and all. That is a whole debate, in fact I debate it with myself often, and see both sides very clearly.

Sophia's school still allows me to bake cupcakes. I am sure that it is only a matter of time before I am buying boxed munchkins or worse, bringing in carrot sticks. But for now.... I bake! I am happily spending my evening baking and frosting 36 cupcakes and adding a gum drop on top of each and every one.

Tomorrow, I will bake a chocolate cake and write Happy 7th Birthday Sophia in sloppy blue icing on top. She has requested Pizza from the pizza place for dinner, so I don't have to cook.

Her gifts will be outside her door in the morning. A stack of new chapter books and a "Chippettes" t-shirt (blue, of course). Our family will come for dinner and yummy homemade birthday cake. My mother will say, "Just give me a sliver." and then she will eat more, piece by piece, as she does the dishes. Sophia will eat until her belly hurts and she has frosting in her hair. And if there is one thing I know for sure, when she goes to bed, she will know how much I love and cherish her and how proud I am to be her mom and to be the one baking her cake and cupcakes.

Do you have birthday traditions? Do they involve cooking? Cake recipe tomorrow...