Our family has five birthdays, plus Mother’s Day in a 23-day period, so we often celebrate our birthday “season” with group events. This time, we celebrated three birthdays at Kari’s house.

The custom is to open gifts in the calendar order of the birthdays, so Dean was first. One of his gifts was a bag of his favorite candy.

Theo received a sketch pad so that he can continue to amaze us with his artistic pencil drawings.

Kari has been wanting to make her own vanilla, so my gift to her was a jar, vanilla beans, and rum. She’s so happy, it looks like she’s already enjoying the rum instead of saving it to make vanilla!

Theo made the birthday dessert: a chocolate cake with mousse and ganache. “Delicious” doesn’t begin to describe it. It was a chocolate lovers’ dream–and Theo and his Grandpa Ted have always been choc-o-holics.

Don’t you love birthday parties?!