talk thirty to me {russ's bday celebrations}

shane & chelsey jonson, jessica & dan porter, us, and katie & tyler allan 

Russ's birthday is January 3. Incidentally, my dad's birthday is also January 3. I grew up hearing all the time that it's the worst time to have a birthday because you've already had to plan the whole holiday season, and then you're expected to have more energy for a birthday?! Haha I totally get this, and I've been guilty of it for many of Russ's birthdays thus far in our marriage.

However, I've also learned recently that truth is reallllllly relative, and you can kind of choose your truth. For instance, someone can like peaches, and someone can hate peaches. Who is right? Both? Neither? It's relative! So. While I could give in to believing that January 3 is a horrible time for a birthday and therefore never put in effort to do nice things to celebrate Russ, I decided I wasn't going to do that. I decided that January 3 is going to be a great time for a birthday, and I'm going to do what I can to create a great day/celebration for Russ.

So this year, I started asking Russ what he wanted to do a month ahead of time. When he didn't give me answers, I started planning things anyway. And then when he did give me answers, I adjusted things and added in his ideas and opinions.

On his actual birthday, which was on a Wednesday, I made a yummy breakfast and a yummy dinner, and we watched Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2. I also gave him his birthday gift.

On the weekend following his birthday, we had one party with friends, and one party with his siblings.

The party with friends was the most fun for me to plan. After going all out on Ada's birthday party, I wanted to really keep things simple but fun for Russ's party. I didn't even make formal invitations, which I love to do! The main features of Russ's party were a fun photo backdrop, Just Dance, and an ice cream cake that I purchased. At the last minute, I told people they could dress up '80s style since we were going to "party like it's 1988," and our friends totally came through!

The party came together perfectly, and it really was simple and mostly cheap ($2 for gold backdrop, $20 for balloons, $9 for sunglasses, $25 for cake).

 

The party with siblings was also simple -- we just got together for dinner at our house, like we do monthly anyways. However, we all went around and shared a memory that included Russ.

For Russ's birthday dinner with my parents, we went to Ruth's Chris! We went for the first time back in October, using a gift card. It was SO GOOD, but DANG that place is expensive. When my parents said that they weren't going to take everyone out for birthday dinners anymore, but rather just the family of the birthday person, I asked if we could choose this splurge option and they said yes! (but they did say only one of us could choose that place haha) So we dropped Ada off at Lacey's one night and the four of us had a delicious dinner and fun talking. I love living close to so much family, but I also miss the more intimate interactions that come from fewer people, so it was nice to just have the four of us :) and PS, Ruth's Chris dessert is AMAZING. The banana cream pie and the creme brulee were to die for.

And finally, we had another mini celebration at our monthly Petersen family dinner. This mostly just involved me bringing a favorite dessert of Russ's -- Oreo trifle (one box of double stuff oreos, crushed; one pan of brownies, cut into 1 inch squares; and one 16 oz. tub of cool whip). No pics from that, but the dessert was definitely yummy! :)

I'm so grateful for this amazing man in my life! I'm so very happy he was born, and happy for the opportunity I had to celebrate him this month :)