At risk of sounding my mid 40s age, there are many things that have changed about birthday parties since I was a kid. I have many fond memories of both my birthday parties and being a guest at friends’ parties – the anticipation, hanging out with friends, games, activities and more.

The party activities were fun but the present part was always very exciting. Whether you were the birthday girl or boy or a party guest, many of us have memories of being surrounded by a mountain of wrapping paper and ribbons, cards strewn about the floor and the circle of friends becoming increasingly smaller and smaller around the birthday boy or girl as the presents were opened.

I took the day off work with a plan to take the kids skiing. I had been working a lot of overtime and my kids needed to spend some time with me without any distractions.

I woke up early, made the kids a hearty breakfast and started to pack up our ski gear.

Do you remember the last time you actually wrote a handwritten letter? In this age of technology, e-mail, e-cards, and evites seem to be the standard over traditional pen and paper. Call me old fashioned, but I still love pretty stationary and getting birthday cards in the mail.

Although multiple births are steadily on the rise, raising two or more children at the same time is still a unique experience. From the moment people discover you are having twins they react differently toward you, make incredible assumptions, ask some very interesting questions and often provide some strange and usually unsolicited insights.

In 2017, Lisa Kiamos earned $500 with her Labels for Luca campaign.

It’s not that I’m not tempted.

Paging Dr. McDreamy.

If seeing the Dr. was as easy as looking into the beautiful blue eyes of Patrick Dempsey, we’d all be taking a sick day to visit the Doc.