Made with Love - Posters

So I like to make homemade posters. It's like a little tradition. In the past I have made them for baby showers and delivery rooms and graduations and birthdays. 

Now that my kids are old enough to help, we are a poster-making machine. We make them for Father's Day and birthdays and family visitors from out-of-state. Peyton tells me what to write and then he decorates the paper with polka dots and squiggly lines and lots of color. Ella draws her sweet little circles and happy faces. When we are done, the kids have a blast taping them up all around the house. Here is a collection we made for my sister-in-law, Ali, and my cute little nephew, Noah, when they came to visit:  

And here's some we made for my mom when she came to visit:

The signs are nothing fancy, just your basic paper and markers and a piece of tape, but they are made with love. 

The last few years, I have made Happy Birthday posters for my kids. I hang them around the house at night so they get a special birthday surprise when they wake up. The signs stay up for a few weeks, then we gather up the non-mutilated ones and rehang them in a cluster in the basement for another few months. Here's a sampling from last year's birthdays:

So a couple nights ago, Peyton's Birthday Eve, he gets out of his bed to come and ask me if I'm going to make him some signs, "You know, like you did when I was one years old?" 

The next morning we go around the house and I read each one to him. He memorizes the signs as soon as I read them. They say things like:

Happy Birthday, Peyton!

Yay! You're Five!

We love you so much!

You are our Best Boy!

Peyton is a Super Star!

His favorite, as always, is the one that says: 

Go Peyton!

It's your Birthday!

Go Peyton!

Shake your Boom-Boom!

Go Peyton!

Go Peyton! 

Go Peyton!

because whenever we sing it we have to do a silly little dance. I don't know about your house - but we are really good at the Shake your Boom-Boom dance around here. Seriously, our Boom-Boom dancing is competition-worthy.

Anyway, Peyton loves the posters so much and he rearranges them daily. I know it's just a matter of time before he'll only care about the posters if they say things like "Your brand new car is parked right outside!" or "$100 is hiding somewhere in the house for you!" But for now, I know he appreciates and looks forward to his special birthday posters. Even if he did count them this year and say, "You only made me 12, that's not really a lot."