Am I the only one who sees all the posts from friends on Facebook where they've decorated their kids door on their birthday with balloons and streamers and prepared special breakfasts and birthday thrones, and then feels a bit guilty about my own lack of birthday magic?

My inability to to coordinate one more thing into my seems to trump my desire to do something special for my kids on their birthday.

I remember to get them a present, and I remember to ask them where they'd like to go for dinner to celebrate. Sometimes I remember to plan a birthday party, though I'm not going to lie - I don't remember every year and sometimes it doesn't happen at all...and sometimes it happens a month late. (I'm here to make parents feel better about themselves ;)

So I put my thinking cap on and came up with 3 ways to make birthdays more magical even if you completely forgot to plan anything, and it's 11pm and you're about to go to bed. You're welcome!!

Birthday door magic with items you can find in your home!

I see these online all the time - the magical doorways decorated with balloons and banners and streamers after the kids have gone to sleep. I don't have any of that stuff in the house, though - so what can you do if you forgot to prep? You can work with what I know EVERY family has - TOILET PAPER AND STUFFIES!!

My kids think this is just as special (and more hilarious) than balloons - at least the first time :)

Tiny hanging stuffies work especially well, and fortunately for me, our house is full of every size and variety of stuffie you can think of.

Birthday magic in 5 minutes at no cost!

Birthday messages from their favourite characters

Netflix has put together a series of birthday messages from kids' favourite characters. Turn on the TV and have the gang from My Little Pony, King Julien, Beat Bugs, Pokemon, Skylanders Academy, Project Mc2, Dreamworks Trollhunters and Dinotrux, Barbie, LEGO Ninjago and Friends and more say Happy Birthday!

It's a fun and simple way to kickoff a birthday morning - plus they get a little Netflix, and they always love a little Netflix :)

Get their name on the radio or tv

So this one may take a bit more pre-planning but it's simple and totally exciting for kids.

Have their birthday announced on air on their favourite radio or tv station. Most sites have easy to fill out forms on their web sites and I've gathered a few for you. You'll need up to four weeks notice in some cases, but you can also put a calendar reminder in your phone right now with the link to do it, and it'll take you under two minutes to submit it when the time is right! (Psst: Do it now, I'll wait.)

You may know how simple this was to achieve, but your kids will be incredibly impressed THEIR name and birthday was on air!

Birthdays are magical no matter what. But if you're hoping to up your game a little bit - but know your bandwidth is low for extra effort - that these ideas helped.

Have any SIMPLE ideas to add to my list? Put them in the comments!

disclosure: I am a member of the Netflix Stream Team and receive perks as part of my partnership. All opinions are my own.