It's Another Half Birthday!

We celebrate half birthdays around here. My mom always celebrated ours when we were kids, and I've continued the tradition. My husband thinks I'm nuts and that I'm making up half birthdays, but that's ok -- we don't have to celebrate his! I remember taking cupcakes to school on my half birthday and other kids doing the same, so someone else must know about this.

For us, the rules of the half birthday are that there are no presents (and my parents broke that one this year, of course), but that the half birthday child gets to choose what we eat for dinner and what kind of cupcakes he or she wants. Yep, cupcakes. Cakes are for birthdays, and cupcakes are for half birthdays. It's our thing.

Today is Little Miss's half birthday. I can't believe she's three and a half already! And sometimes it feels like three and a half going on fifteen and a half.



For dinner, she insisted on her non-dairy cheese pizza. I found vegan cheese recently at the natural foods store, having discovered that soy cheese actually contains milk proteins (umm, hello people!). It's not exactly cheap, but I make homemade pizzas -- crust and sauce included -- for my family at least once a month. Poor Little Miss missed her pizza.

I tried to convince her that I should make something else -- pancakes, homemade chicken tenders, French toast, crock pot pork. Nope. I had made the pizza on Thursday night, and there was NO way I was going to talk her out of having her special pizza again. So pizza it was again.



I made three pizzas. There were six of us. I had one piece. Yep, one single solitary lonely piece. The wee ones each ate over three quarters of a pizza themselves. You'd think I hadn't fed them in a week. Nope, it must be that I'm such a good cook (ha!). Fortunately, I'm able to scrounge for myself fairly well.



I also found a recipe for dairy free banana cupcakes and managed to talk Little Miss into wanting banana cupcakes for her birthday (sucker!). I was a little worried about how they'd turn out, so I tossed in some cinnamon "just in case." They actually turned out pretty well. Mister Man ate three small ones, my dad and husband each ate two and a half of the big ones, and I enjoyed my cupcake, as well.



Little Miss licked the frosting off her cupcake, nibbled once at the top of her cupcake and announced that she didn't like it. Great. These were the cupcakes I had baked that I was planning to freeze so she could have some cake to take to birthday parties instead of having to skip out on the treats there. At least I got a test run in. I guess someone will just have to eat these cupcakes. And I'll have to do more baking. I hate it when that happens....

And yes, my parents totally ignored the no presents rule. Remember that dollhouse we finally opened up on Thursday? Well, it now has a "functioning" kitchen with all the appropriate appliances. That make noises. Wheeee! There would have been more, but the kitchen was the only piece from the set that Toys 'R Us had when my mom went there. Bummer!



Do you like the decorations we used for the cupcakes? They're from the Superheroes Matching Game that Mister Man got for Christmas. The wee ones absolutely love playing the game and even better is playing superheroes with the figures. Gotta love the games that have multiple uses, right? Little Miss was insistent that she wanted Spiderman on her cupcakes to decorate them, and I had the brilliant idea to use these guys. She was thrilled. Phew!

What other family traditions do you have? Do you celebrate half birthdays or anything like them?



PS I finally got the pics to upload. Yay!