Celebrating Sam

On Saturday Sam turned FOUR YEARS OLD! Oh my goodness -- I can barely believe it. (And I will probably say that about both of my kids every year on their birthday! Ha ha ha!) And the "Picture 4" above was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest. Sam helped choose the photos for it the night before his birthday and Dave pinned them to the bulletin board. Voila! A quick, easy and personal birthday decoration.

We had a birthday party for Sam and some of his close friends and their families and our parents in the morning. But first the birthday boy came down to the decorated house. Each year, before the birthday child wakes up, Dave (and sometimes I) decorate the house with streamers. We usually try to do it the night before but Friday night was a little crazy so Dave did this on Saturday morning.

Then Sam opened his present from us -- a forklift. So far, he has played with it soooo much. My dad commented today, "That thing probably has 2-3 kilometres on it already!"

 

Then it was time for the party. Sam requested "Veggie Straws and Party Mix" for his birthday and I think that was pretty much all he ate! Rachel chowed down on pizza and I think everyone had a good time visiting. Like last year, we did a toonie party for Sam and stay tuned to see what he will pick out for his present. Once again, his charity of choice was making school kits for Mennonite Central Committee. Sam wanted a TowMater cake, after having seen Cars, so I made one for him (with Dave's help.). A tutorial is coming soon, even though I wasn't super happy with how it turned out. Unfortunately, by the time we got around to singing "Happy Birthday" and eating the cake, Sam had had enough of his party and was just wanting to play in his room with his friend. He did NOT like the attention and hid in my arms the whole time. Poor guy.

 

I even had to blow out his candle for him.

Since Saturday was a gorgeous day, we spent some time in the afternoon outside. I was super-happy to be in flipflops and cleaning out one of my garden beds. (And we will just ignore the fact that it rained on Easter Sunday and snowed yesterday and the forecast is for more snow today. Just check out how green the bed looked on Saturday.)

 

Sam and Rachel also had a blast being outside (Sam really was quite happy although you can't tell from the picture!) and we enjoyed a nice half hour, until the next event of the day happened -- hosting Easter dinner for the people in my mom's side of the family who live nearby!

And that was how we celebrated Sam turning four.