Growing up I always celebrated my birthday with my Dad. His birthday is on January 13th and mine is on the 15th. Occasionally I would have a birthday party in addition to cake and ice cream with the family, but most years it was me and Dad blowing out the candles together. I always thought this was fun and special. The year 1979, I was my Dad's two day late birthday gift. At some point my parents started the tradition of taking each kid out to dinner all by themselves for their birthday. Growing up with seven kids in the family it was nice to have some "special" time. Sometimes Melissa and I would combine since her birthday is just a month later. Not sure about her, but my favorite place to go was Red Lobster. In fact whenever I see a commercial it brings back those fond memories I have of dining with my parents and enjoying the extra attention.
This year Joey and I decided to start that same tradition with our kids. Since Jayci is a January Baby she got to go first. We both received Red Robin burger coupons and so that's the place we picked. She loves Red Robin and frequently asks to go there. Our good friends Bo and Melanie offered to watch the kids for us so we could take Jayci alone. We dropped off the oldest three and Jayci was not to happy that she was going with the "old folks". She wanted to stay at the party and play with the dog. Once we arrived at Red Robin she cheered up and was happy to pick her very own meal. She chose the burger and carrots with ranch, although she ended up eating the very famous and delicious fries instead.


So good!
Red Robin is great too because they sing a birthday song and bring an ice cream sundae and balloons to the table. Jayci really liked this and it was fun to see her so smiley and loving the attention.


I love this new tradition and can't wait for May(Ethan's birthday)!