Gifting

(I think this one turned out pretty cute if I do say so)

I feel like such a dud when it comes to coming up with birthday gifts for my husband. Now that we aren't students anymore (and still by no means wealthy mind you) we mostly can afford to buy what we need, so we mostly have what we need. And my husband works a lot so he doesn't have much time for hobbies, and I hate buying stuff just for the sake of buying it...you know what I mean?

Every year I plan on trying to do something creative and meaningful, but I never quite pull it off in time. I'd love to surprise him with a fun trip, but he can barely make it home for dinner most nights so stealing him away (even for a weekend) seems out of reach. Now that we have kids I usually try and give him a current photo of the kids, but even that is getting a little predictable.

I feel like since the point of birthdays is to celebrate the person, gifts should kind of reflect that... and I don't think that means you have to buy something--in fact made gifts or gifts of service often are much more meaningful. But I am out of ideas! And I don't want to be like, "Glad you were born...here's some new socks."

Here's what we ended up doing:
I took that photo above (thank you pinterest for the idea) and framed it along with shots of each kid (which were blurrry-ish and not great because I did them in a big hurry the morning of his birthday).
I made this lasagna (a tradition carried over from Trav's mom) It really is good.
We got balloons (at Avery insistence)
We got a cheesecake from Costco (I usually bake a cake but Avery really wanted that one)
And I got him a pizza stone, which seems thoughtful because we have been trying to recreate our favorite pizza (minus the 2000 lb stone pizza oven) at home. But really we already had a Terracotta tile we had been using that cost a few bucks at Home Depot, so we really didn't need a pizza stone.

(Avery "decorated" this one)

Also...I had planned on cleaning the whole house so it was sparkly, because frankly that is the thing that would make him the happiest, but I just couldn't get it done. Dud.

So there you go. I think he was perfectly happy with the festivities. He gets way more joy out of watching the kids be excited about the whole thing. Avery painted him a picture and waited all day for the "party".

But with Christmas on the horizon I am determined to give a gift I am proud of!
(And for the reccord...because we were spending so much money on the house last year we agreed to just skip gifts for each other on our birthdays and Christmas and it was just sad so I want to make up for it this year.)

Help?

How do you celebrate your spouse on their birthday? What are you getting them for Christmas?

Please and Thanks!