275 - Milestone Birthdays
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We just got back from New York City celebrating Milly’s 10th birthday. Today’s episode is all about that trip and how we are celebrating big milestone birthdays in our family.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through below.
Guys, I cannot even tell you how amazing it was to take Milly to New York City. We have only been home for a few days now and it was just so special. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably have seen my Instagram stories about all the adventures we took. I do want to say, I saved it into a highlight. It'll be there for a little while for you to take a look at if you want. I've had a lot of people message me saying this itinerary, everything you did looked so fun. This is so inspiring. I can't wait to maybe plan this with my own kids someday. But I just want to share a little bit about the trip, what went smoothly, my favorite things that we brought, and then share how we kind of do milestone birthdays in our family.
Now I recorded a podcast episode on the same topic five years ago, when Milly turned five. On her fifth birthday, I released it. It was episode 63. Let me just say,a lot has changed since then. We have a bigger family. I've simplified our approach to birthdays a bit and I feel freer about it. I think that time as a mom and having multiple kids will help you just kind of live free. I remember Milly’s first birthday was just over the top. It was beautiful. I loved it. It was so fun to plan and execute it, but it's also stressful. Since then we have so simplified birthdays. I've learned what I like as a mom. I've learned what my kids like as kids and what really matters. Anyway, let me just share a little bit about our trip to New York City and then I'll share kind of our approach to birthdays.
So we arrived on Thursday. It was me, Will, Milly and of course Winnie came with us. She's five months old at the time of this trip and so she of course was with us and Milly loved her being there. She did wonderfully. She was such a sweet, sweet little girl. The most precious baby that you could ask for on a trip like this. She really added a lot to our trip and just a great age to travel with right now. So we left on Thursday. That Thursday night was our first big event. We arrived and we went to Broadway that night and saw the Lion King. If you have never seen the Lion King on Broadway, just go. That's all I'm going to say. You have to. You have to. It is like a life experience. Wear waterproof mascara. I cried. I really… I could talk way too long about Lion King right now, so I'm not going to, but I just… it is like a glimpse of Heaven. It is beautiful. It's so well… it's such a good show.
I'm trying to remember our whole itinerary. I should have written this down, but I'm just going to tell you kind of the highlights of some of the things that we hit, that we did, that were so fun. We woke up the next day. We went to the Statue of Liberty. We took a ferry, we like walked up it, stood in the pedestal, took pictures. It was so much fun. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed to the Color Factory, which was this amazing experience where you are taken from room to room and there's just all this information about color. Like it's so cool. Perfect for a 10-year-old. I also loved it. Great photo opportunity. It was a blast. So fun.
That night we went to Becco Italian, which is a great Italian restaurant that was recommended by some friends of ours. I mean, there are so many great places to eat. The next day, we introduced her to New York pizza. We rode the subway. Went to Times Square. We went to Top of the Rock, which is the top of the Rockefeller Center. We did that instead of the Empire State Building. Then my husband surprised us with tickets to Wicked, which was… I did not see that coming at all. I've seen it before on Broadway, but it had been, gosh, fifteen or twenty years ago. I got to see it when Idina Menzel was in it. Like I was in high school. I saw Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. Phenomenal that I got to see that and taking my daughter now was just so fun.
We rode a rickshaw, we ate bagels. Oh we went to the Met. That was the big thing I was forgetting earlier. We went to the Metropolitan Museum. It was just a blast, okay? So to see my ten year old experience all of this for the first time was such a gift. It was such a gift and it made me so thankful that we had said long ago that when our kids turned ten, we're taking them on a trip.
I mentioned that I actually recorded this episode when Milly was five. We had three kids and a lot has changed since then in my approach to birthdays. So I want to share a little bit about that as well because I think it's important to kind of have a plan. Now we made this plan when she was five. We've tweaked it and simplified it some now that she's ten and we have more kids and I've learned some things along the way. But here's why I want to encourage you to make a loose plan for birthdays. It is freeing. It's freeing to not put yourself under the pressure of having to do a really big party or really big trip or whatever you see other people doing. You decide what the best thing is for your family. You make a plan and you stick to it.
Also for us, it really helps as a big family, it helps us to know what we're prioritizing at what ages and we're not overwhelmed with doing five big birthday parties every single year. I also keep it with open hands. Like, you know, I don't say like this is it hard and fast. Like if there's a year where we're not planning to do a big birthday party but my daughter really wants to have some friends over and paint, I'll do that. I'm like great, I can make that happen. We can do that. So it allows for some flexibility in there.
But here's what I want to say. As we talk about kind of the plan or the milestone birthday party plan, there's something that we do every single birthday and it is so life-giving and special. I'll stay up you know, the night before. I'll hang streamers in the kitchen and, you know, I'll hang up our birthday banner so that when they wake up, they will have a special surprise. We always do a special birthday breakfast. They get to choose their breakfast that morning. But the most special thing we do every birthday, no matter what, is we go around the table and we say one thing that we love and appreciate about that person. I want to speak life to that child on their birthday and not make it just about presents or material things, but really speak to them and celebrate them.
Now, in the past, I did pretty much a big birthday every single year. We've done some amazing birthdays. It's been great. They're just not as big anymore, I think. Like, we've donuts and dinosaurs at the park when Lyndon turned two. We've done big birthday parties when each kid turns one. We did a Peppa Pig themed birthday party for Milly when she turned three. We did a big birthday party for Beaufort at a ninja gym when he turned five. Now I'm learning that my kids don't necessarily always love the big party and I'm learning that I don't necessarily love the big party because there's just a lot of logistics and stress in planning it.
I also have two kids with December birthdays and my birthday is in December. So logistically, that's a lot to ask people to come to in December, because it's around Christmas and really busy. So five years ago… I'm just going to go ahead and read to you what I had in the last episode. This is what we did and then I'm just going to share how we've modified it. So we planned always a big birthday party for when they turned one. “A night away with mom and dad in a hotel when they turned five. A big adventure trip with the opposite sex parent when they turn ten and then sixteen would be some sort of rite of passage weekend. Eighteen — choose anywhere in the US to go as a family. Twenty-one — choose anywhere in the world to go as a family.”
Alright, that is close. That's not exactly…I don't think we're gonna do that exactly anymore. What is true and what we've tried to stick with is a big birthday party for when they turn one, another big birthday party for when they turn five, and a big trip when they turn ten. All the other birthdays in between are basically celebrating that person at home as a family. For dinner, we'll choose a night of the week of their birthday to have grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles over for a dinner. We may or may not have a friend birthday party. If I'm feeling like I can accommodate it and want to do it, I will. Listen, my kids, like right now, Benji is three. He's not in preschool. His best friends are his brother and his sisters. So like, I don't really feel a need to throw him a big birthday party. Like we can do it with cousins and family, but I feel free to just say these are the years, the big milestone years (one, five, and ten) that we are really going to prioritize celebrating. For age five, I don't think we've ever taken our kid to spend the night at a hotel when they turn five. I love the idea. Love that plan, but the reality is we just never did. Instead, we have done big birthday parties and we've spent a little bit more in the budget. Like that was when we did the ninja gym for Beaufort for his fifth birthday.
Now looking ahead, I definitely want to do a rite of passage weekend with each kid that would be with a same sex parent. So I would take my girls, Will would take our boys on a weekend away and we would talk to them about what it means to become a woman or become a man and follow Jesus and some of the different body changes they'll experience. You know all of those things, we will talk openly about that and the importance of purity and what it looks like to love the Lord through the teen years. I think we might move that up earlier. I mean, we're the kind of family, we're having conversations about this now. I mean we are talking, we will be talking openly about all of these things. It's not going to be like a “Hey let me tell you everything this weekend.” That's going to just be like a weekend that is more of like discipleship focused.
But yeah, I don't know. Sixteen still sounds great. I love that as a milestone birthday, but I feel like they might need that kind of rite of passage weekend earlier, maybe around twelve or thirteen. We'll see about that. Then, yeah, eighteen, choose anywhere in the US to go. Twenty-one, choose anywhere in the world to go. I mean, that's a lot of money. That is a lot of saving that we are going to have to do. So I think at this point, we're just simplifying things after ten. We'll probably do a rite of passage weekend that's just simple, maybe to the beach. A weekend away with either mom or dad depending on if you're a girl or a boy. Then yeah maybe one more big trip when they're eighteen that the whole family goes on and that's it.
To be honest, I've not actually talked to Will. We've not like decided on this. We have not had this conversation in five years. So it's definitely time for us to revisit again. But I know as a mom who is the one that is kind of in charge of hosting, planning, and executing the birthday festivities, simple is the way to go. I love knowing that one and five are the big birthday years. Ten is the big trip and then we'll do a weekend away probably at twelve or thirteen and that's it for right now.
My friend, many of you know and follow Kate Strickler of Naptime Kitchen. She and I… our first four kids. I mean she has four kids, I have five, but my first four and her four age-wise are almost identical. It's crazy. They're just like weeks apart, some of them. She, I just saw, is taking her oldest on a tenth birthday trip this week and we just got back from ours. She posted about birthdays and I hope she doesn't mind me sharing this. She posted this on her Instagram that she also does something so similar. She does birthday parties at one, five, eight, and a trip at ten. The rest of the time, they just have dinner at home with the family and enjoy celebrating their child as a family and that's it. Like they'll get a special dinner. They'll get presents, but they don't do big birthday parties. So I love that she's posting and sharing the same thing at the same time as I am because I think it's just on our hearts and on our minds. Like how do we celebrate our kids well? But I just got a lot of freedom from her posting that as well saying, yes, that's exactly right. Somebody asked her, “Why age eight?” She was like, “I don't know. I just feel like that was a fun age to do a birthday party.”
So I share that just to give another example of a mom navigating birthdays saying you make it as simple as you want it. You make it as extravagant as you want it. You do what's best for you and your family. I was talking with my sister this morning too and this is for the mom who does not love the party planning, okay? My sister, mom of seven, she just celebrated her youngest's second birthday this week and she said it was the sweetest, best day. They loved on him. They wished him a happy birthday. They did all the little things that he loves to do around the house, but really he just palled around and then they made him a cake, which he loved and that was it. She said that was really it. She said, you know what? I could have hung streamers and decorated the house. She said we didn't do any of that. We just enjoyed celebrating him and I could choose to live in the guilt that I could have done more or I could choose to live in the freedom of the fact that we celebrated him and loved him and he's two and he had everything that he needed. She said, I'm choosing freedom because we love our buddy and he knows it. I just loved it. I was so encouraged by that too.
So I just bless you to do whatever is best for you. If you love celebrating big, if you want to take trips with your kids, don't let these years pass you by without doing it, if you want to. The last time I recorded this podcast episode, I remembered sharing the story that Will had read from a guy on Facebook. This random guy. He doesn't even know him. He posted this and he said, “My fifteen year old daughter had a dream of seeing the Northern Lights.” Okay, so this guy's posting about this trip that he took with his fifteen year old daughter, which for me is just five years away again, which is crazy to think about. I read this story in a whole new light now.
He said, “My fifteen year old daughter had a dream of seeing the Northern Lights in Iceland. So we went. We packed light, small packs, no agenda, no group, just her and her dad. And for three days we lived freaking epic. She not only saw those lights, but she saw the Milky Way and snow capped mountain ranges for the first time. She played in Viking ruins and hugged Icelandic horses. She ran on black sand and laughed in the midst from the biggest waves she'd ever seen. Me, I saw my little girl again, playing, discovering, and running free. Dads of teenage girls, wipe your eyes. You feel this. Watching my little girl again, rang in my soul. But I also began to see her for the first time as a young woman, independent and thoughtful, a woman I now respect as her own. My point to the dads: Do epic stuff with one child at a time. Do not ever utter, ‘I can't afford it’, because I'll call that. You can, no matter where you are in life. Go big, get up, get out, open their eyes. Excited for them to discover, adventure, and see things for the first time. Face fear together, the unknown. Don't let time pass when the world is at your feet and your little ones want to discover it with you. Or they'll do it on their own and wander off down a path in life that you'll know little or nothing about. Bedtime stories are good. Lifetime stories are epic.”
I love that story. I love this dad who's so passionate about taking his fifteen year old on a trip. I think his name was Adam Mitchell. And I just want to say thank you because when I read it like that, I think when we're in the thick of raising kids, these trips feel impossible. But all it takes is some planning, some budgeting, and some forethought and you can make it happen. So I hope that this episode has just encouraged you to do fun things with your kids. Make a milestone birthday plan, plan those trips, make it happen. It's so worth it to see the world through their eyes.
Thanks for listening to episode 275 of Work and Play with Nancy Ray. Everything I've mentioned today can be found in the show notes at nancyray.com/podcast/275 and you can find me at nancyray.com or follow me at @nancyray on Instagram almost daily.
Listen, I know I think in the beginning of the episode, I said I wanted to share some things that made our travel and our trip easier. Really I just wanted to share one thing and that is a pair of shoes that I got before we left. A mom that I follow on Instagram her name is Whitney Newby. She owns Brighter Day Press, a homeschool business and she's wonderful, but she posted about these shoes. They're Keen's and they are like sandals and she raved about how comfortable they were and I decided to try them out this summer and I love them. So I'm gonna be leaving a link to those in the show notes. I walked all around New York City in them. So comfortable and they're durable. I feel like I could walk in like a creek with them and get them wet and they'll dry out, but they also look really cute so thanks to Whitney for recommending that and I will be leaving a link for those in the show notes as well.
I'm going to close with an anonymous quote that says,
“A birthday is not just a day to celebrate your birth, but a chance to rejoice in your life.”
I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I look forward to catching you next time.
