Happy Birthday Samantha!

It was quite the weekend for Samantha. Her actual birthday was on Thursday. Luckily Mike was on call the day/night before- so he was home at 9 am - this made it so that Samantha didn't have to wait all day to open her presents. We just spent the day together as a family,went to Target to spend the gift card my grandparents sent her and then went out to eat that night to celebrate.

She had wanted an American Girl doll- so needless to say- as the proof is in the picture- she was thrilled and totally surprised to unwrap and find her Julie doll

I wish it wasn't so fuzzy because this is just so Samantha- she has such an enthusiasm for EVERYTHING in life- and is so grateful for everything. - I also love how excited Collin is too :)

She was a lucky little girl with so many presents from Grandparents and aunts and uncles!- all things to go with her new doll.

The next day was our ward Christmas party- the kids were excited because this was their chance to see Santa. I don't have the pictures yet- I completely forgot the camera- luckily my friend had hers- so I just need to get them from her.

Saturday was the BIG birthday party. Samantha decided that she wanted to have a Fancy Nancy tea party. So we invited a few of her friends over.

To start off the party- of course if we are going to have a fancy tea party we had work to do! We needed to get more fancy ( the girls either came in their favorite dress up dress or favorite nice dress) we started off by decorating crowns......

We then moved onto other important accessory- bracelets and necklaces.....


After we were all "fancied" up, we were ready for the tea party! We had crown shaped peanut butter sandwiches, pineapple and apples (which had toothpicks- because toothpicks- especially frilly toothpicks- makes things fancier- according to Nancy-although we did skip the frilly part of the toothpicks-) carrots (no way to dress those up, atleast I couldn't come up with an idea) and then bright pink punch! Of course they girls drank and ate with the pinkies up- and "dabbed" their mouths with napkins- ladies don't "wipe" they dab.

And then the cake!

Overall the party was a success! Samantha has been so lucky to make friends with such cute little girls who get along so well.

I'd say the only downer to the day-- was little Collin. He had such a hard time "sharing his Samba" he loves and adores his big sister and he didn't like having her attention on others. It was sweet but heartbreaking thing to watch. He did participated in decorating the crowns- but he had a visor instead- much more manly. The rest of the time Mike tried to distract him in the toy room watching Tom and Jerry. He did however really enjoy the cake- or maybe the frosting ....

Yuck.

It was a fun filled weekend- Mike and I learned/thought about a couple things after this birthday bash......

Me-

1-I was reminded of what an amazing mother I have- one who not only threw awesome parties but she also made AMAZING cakes.- me I order mine- what can I say, I'm a wuss.

2-I am going to follow my mothers example and do friend parties ever other year. This one wore me out!
Mike-

1- He is grateful that we are having another little boy.