Brad Pitt's plans for twins Knox and Vivienne's birthday celebrations revealed

Brad and Angelina's twins Vivienne Jolie-Pitt and Knox Jolie-Pitt turned nine on Wednesday, 12 July, and to mark the occasion the Hollywood actress took them on a fun trip to Disneyland. Although the entire Jolie-Pitt brood was together in California, their famous dad was missing from the scene.

However, rumour has it that 53-year-old Pitt has got his own plans to mark the ninth birthday of his youngest children with ex-wife Jolie. And unlike their mother's treat, the War Machine actor wants the celebrations to be private.

"There's plenty of time in the future to take them to Disneyland," a source told Hollywood Life shedding light on the recent family trip. "[Pitt] has his own celebration planned and he's more than happy to have it out of the spotlight, he much prefers interacting with his kids in private, anyway."

But that doesn't rule out the fact that the father-of-six was devastated to miss out on his children's special moments amid the divorce.

The gossip website source added, "And it's got to be extra painful to miss the twins' birthday party because this time last year they were still a family."

Pitt and Jolie shocked the world with their divorce news in September last year and since then the couple has been embroiled in legal proceedings over the custody of their six children - Shiloh, Zahara, Pax, Maddox and the twins. However, things seem to be changing of late with the children spending time with both their mother and father.

Most recently, the Maleficent actress and her 11-year-old daughter Shiloh flew down to Namibia, where she was born, to open a wildlife sanctuary named after her.

While pictures showed the mother-daughter duo having an absolutely gala time People magazine dished details from the trip. A source revealed, "[Shiloh's] face lit up when she saw the sanctuary for the first time. The name was a surprise to her and she was beaming. She and her brothers and sisters moved around very quietly as the newly rescued elephants were still settling in."

Although Shiloh's actor father wasn't there with her, he couldn't be happier. "Of course he would have loved to be there to see her face on the first visit," an insider said, "but the most important thing to him is that his daughter is happy."