Final Sheppard Quarterly Birthday Party

We had our final quarterly Sheppard birthday party on Father's Day.  It was a lot of fun. The party was for the late spring/summer birthdays in household: Naomi's 3rd, Roseminique's 11th, and Talitha's 13th.   David (turning 19) and I (41 this week...wow) also have birthdays in June, but we didn't officially add those to the list since we're supposed to be grown ups at this point in life.

Quite a few years ago, we transitioned into quarterly parties (fall, winter, spring, summer) simply because there are so many birthdays throughout the year with 14 kids. Although we LOVE having parties, the logistics of having a party for each individual child was too much to manage. We have three birthdays in October for example. Yikes!

We talked about it and the majority vote was to have a bigger event less often instead of a smaller event on each birthday. For their actual birthday, I have a tradition of taking them to the movie. Going to the movie with mom once a year seems to be a very big deal. They talk about it months in advance and start making plans. I'm sure this will become a good memory once we are in Haiti since there are no movie theaters! We also will usually bake a cake or make cupcakes together on their actual birthday and spend time together as a family. Naomi in the picture below had helped me make cupcakes on her 3rd Birthday.

The quarterly parties have been a TON of fun. Often we will rent a snow cone machine, cotton candy machine, BBQ hot dogs and hamburgers, play basketball, and jump on the trampoline. Since we are a relatively large family, we tend to know families that are also somewhat large. We may have 5-15 families, but sometimes over 50 kids.

This last party was smaller then normal due to my lack of planning (I tend to throw things together last minute) and due to it being father's day, but it was nice to be able to spend more time talking to each other with a smaller group. We are very blessed to have amazing friends, prayer partners, and such a strong support network.

We already have some close friends in Haiti and are looking forward to making new friends. We will miss our friends in Oregon as well as many of the traditions we have established, but we look forward to making new traditions and meeting many new people in Haiti.

We plan to have a going away party before we move. It is tentatively set for the first weekend in August. I'll try to keep everyone posted. The kids are already talking about the next event and looking forward to it!