Ready for more birthday sweetness? (If you missed Natural Birthday Traditions, Part One you can find it here.) A few additional favorites from our home are below. Before we dive in however, I wanted to stress that adding oodles of new traditions at once is not advisable. Add one (or two, or three) this year if you are inspired, but adding too many might cause overload. Don't say I didn't warn ya'.

Birthday Story

This is perhaps my favorite birthday tradition. Truth be told, I'm a baby book flunky. Looking back at Sage's, it ends at four months – when things got really hard for me on the sleep front, and it became difficult to write something sweet and positive month after month when all I could think about was getting some rest. (And Lupine's I never started.)

The birthday story allows you to document the year in one swoop, and jot down some highlights. When my children are grown I plan to put their stories in a book with some photos as our version of a baby book.

The story is a quick skim of the previous year, sweet spots only in my tradition. The process of sifting through a year of memories and choosing the peaks has been a joy, year after year. If you are interested in reading a sample, here is Sage's story:

Download SAGE’S RAINBOW BRIDGE

and also Lupine's:

Download LUPINE’S RAINBOW BRIDGE

They are different children so the introductions reflect those differences. Feel free to borrow and modify either one to fit your own child. I'm happy to share!

As we read this story, we light a candle in the birthday spiral for each year. At the end we light the last candle. Then we all make wishes for the birthday child and blow out the candles together.

Party Activities

Less is more. When gathering with a relatively small group of
children, they do well to entertain themselves. For each party I plan
one activity with one additional activity up my sleeve in case we need
it. We've never needed the second activity.

Examples of party activities we've enjoyed:

• Bubble wand making
• Slip-and-slide (easily homemade with a smooth tarp or recycled awning material and a garden hose)
• Fairy wand making
• Treasure hunt
• Face painting
• Pocket doll making

Birthday Crown

If its your birthday a crown is in order.
I'm starting to think I want one of my own, but for now the kids are
the only ones with crowns. They wear their crowns for dress up and also
for their birthday's.

Here
is my all-time favorite birthday crown tutorial. Easy and quick to sew,
and fits for a very long time. I made mine out of wool felt from here and some scraps from my fabric stash. Crowns make great gifts by the way.

I'll have one final Birthday Traditions post next week. Let me know if you have any questions, or sweet traditions of your own to share!