Birthdays

I love birthdays. Love them. At the beginning of the year, I'd hoped to blog about every one's birthday; but time became scarce and forgetfulness rampant, so my plan didn't come to fruition.

However, in my family's normal fashion, I photographed every birthday festivity. I don't know how your family celebrates birthdays, but our festivities are steeped in tradition; simple and common maybe, but we do the same thing every time. And I love it.
We eat dinner, usually a meal of the birthday person's choice including their favorite cake, sing Happy Birthday, blow out candles, take pictures of the candles being blow out, and then open presents. I can't count the number of times I've heard my Mother say, "WAIT!, don't blow them out yet...I have to get my camera!" Happens every time, almost as if her forgetfulness is part of the tradition.
A few years back I organized years worth of our family photos into photo albums for my Mother. There were many pictures that weren't labeled or dated, but I could always depend on birthday photos to tell which year it was by counting the number of candles on the cake.
Following in my Mother's footsteps, here are the photos I captured from this summer's birthdays. A few of the pictures are from my Mom's camera.

Sadie.  May 10, 2011

Everybody gets Thank You hugs

Laura.  May 29, 2011

You can't tell, but Sadie is singing her little heart out.

Jesse.   June 20, 2011

Gary's creative "Dump cake" for Jesse. It's a camp-site favorite.

Our make-shift '22'

Supervising.

Singing.

Yum!

Robert.  June 28, 2011

We steered away from tradition a little for Robert's birthday. You see Robert was on a diet, a very strict no-carb-ish diet, and requested to not have a cake. His self-control is impressive. But it wouldn't be a birthday if we didn't sing and blow out candles, so we decided to make Robert hold his candles.
It worked perfectly.

Singing.

Sadie loved it.

My mom and I are like paparazzi.....to each other.

The Bouldin's celebrated Justin and Nana's birthday together. Justin's is July 3rd and Nana's is July 5th. I wasn't quick enough with my camera, and only caught a few shots. I should have channeled my mother and halted the birthday celebration until my camera was aimed and ready. Oh well.

Happy Birthday everyone!!