Caleb turns nine today, and Hannah is four! We've only missed one birthday party prior to this year. But that was in 2019 when we went to Disney World with them in January and the spent another week or so in Wisconsin with them afterward. Nonetheless, here we are in New York, and there they are in Wisconsin. The blessing is that we'll have a FaceTime or Zoom visit and get to watch them open their presents and blow out the candles on their cake.
I sent two gifts ahead of time, but one "big" gift is actually enclosed in their birthday cards. Because the cards needed extra postage and couldn't go through the machines, it took a long time for them to get there. Fortunately, they finally arrived on Monday.
Here are the birthday cards I sent. I wondered if the design was too "young" for Caleb until earlier this week when I saw that Laura Bassen had created one for her 17 year old daughter!
As you can see, both cards have the same ingredients: My Favorite Things, "Better Together" stamps and dies; My Favorite Things, "Carpool" die; Ellen Hutson "Landscape;" Simon Says "Sentiment Labels" and "Tiny Words;" and My Favorite Things "Bitty Birthday Wishes" and cloud stencil.
It took awhile to die cut all the pieces, stencil the skies, and color the cute critters with Copic markers, but it was an easy card to assemble once all the pieces were ready.
I love the pink car, and I chose a couple different critters for this car pool.
Inside each card is a slider tag. I just recently added this die to my collection of interactive dies, and it worked perfectly. It's quite a bit smaller than the dies for the slider cards I made for the three little girls for Christmas.
I covered the tag with two different patterned papers. Caleb's came from My Favorite Things "Birthday Brights" paper pad; Hannah's was a loose sheet stuck among the 6X6 paper pads so I'm not sure where it came from. I used 3-D stickers I found in my stash to decorate them.
Caleb's slides up to reveal a second year of "Grandma's Book Club." Last year Sarah and I tried to find an online book club that would meet his needs. The clubs were all quite expensive, none had enough choice, and the shipping costs were high. I finally decided to create my own, and it worked great. At the end of each month, I talk to Caleb and he tells me what book(s) he's interested in, and I have them sent to him. "For the Love of Books" was an Ali Edward digital product I had in my files.
Hannah's also reveals a monthly birthday gift--a subscription to a Kiwi kit. When I'm in Wisconsin we almost always work on the kit together. They're very imaginative, and Hannah really enjoys the activities. There are always three or four projects and a booklet to extend the theme. I downloaded the image from the Kiwi site.
I'm going to pop these into the Simon Says Monday Challenge which is, appropriately, "Celebrate!"
