Even though this time of year can be a bit hectic, I do my best to be intentional about the ways we celebrate and that includes birthdays. A dear friend offered to watch our kids so Noel and I could go do something. When I was pondering what to do, I looked at the calendar and noticed that the Saturday before Noel’s birthday was going to be a full moon and I began planning a moonlight snowshoeing trip. While I generally do not consider the sun setting before 5pm to be a positive, on this occasion it certainly was. We snowshoed, got burgers, and were still home before 10pm. (Can you tell we aren’t big night owls?) We’re always amazed at how much ground we can cover when we aren’t carrying or herding kids.

On Noel’s actual birthday, we had homemade Indian food (the best Indian food we’ve found around here so far ;), walked around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights, ate chocolate peanut butter cheesecake, and put the kids to bed while we enjoyed a night in with a new movie – an introvert’s dream birthday. Hopefully he felt loved in the midst of all the hullabaloo of the season.