Birthday Bash

The 3rd Annual Kraft Family Birthday bash in tomorrow...the excitement is mounting!  We have 3 grandparents here to help us pull this off.  The grass is cut.  The yard is groomed. The food is bought.  The carnival games and prizes are ready.  The bluegrass band is booked.  So...what is it?

A few years ago, I heard Chris and Wendy Jeub speak at a home school conference.  Their talk concerned how to have a large family on an average budget.  Now, their family of 13 children is much larger than ours of only 6 children, but I took away many tidbits of information.  One of the best ideas was about how they celebrate birthdays.  Instead of having individual parties for each of their children, they have one, huge, blow-out party to celebrate all the birthdays at once.  Hmmmm....could we do that as well?

Todd and I started brainstorming ideas about how we could make this work to fit our family.  We decided to have a carnival theme.  Our church has a carnival each fall and we were able to borrow some of their games and we made some of our own.  We feed everyone a simple meal of hot dogs, slush burgers, chips, watermelon and cake.  Then, after our guests have all eaten their fill, we have a bluegrass/gospel band play a concert in the back yard.  This year, we're expecting about 150 guests.

That's the very brief overview of what we do.  But I've left out the best part.  We decided that instead of having our guests bring gifts for the children or our family, they could bring a donation for the local food shelf.  We have been so blessed and have more than enough that we use this opportunity to give to those who are in need.  The day after the bash, we load up all the food into the van and bring it to the food shelf.  The children's faces glow!  They are so happy that their party helps to provide food for those who don't have enough.

I'll get a few pictures together to share with you all in my next post.  I'd love to hear any ideas about celebrating birthdays in non-traditional ways.

God Bless!

Heather :-)