Holy Moly she's EIGHT!

We can hardly believe that our Samantha is now 8 years old. She is such a sweetheart. She continues to constantly think of others. She is- as always our resident drama queen-- possibly the cause of a few of her dad's gray hairs? She enjoys reading, drawing and creating little projects. Her imagination continues to produce endless activities for her and the boys. She is definitely a daddy's girl - she adores him and looks forward to the times that he is home to help her with her homework.

We love Samantha so much and we are so grateful for the sweet, kind spirit that she brings into our home.

For her actual birthday, we had her favorite dinner - ribs, mash potatoes and broccoli. And instead of a cake- she chose cheesecake(love the easy request)!

With this being her 8th birthday, she got to have a friend party! The theme was "Baking Bash!" She chose to invite her friends from the ward- (it would have gotten too complicated and crazy to include friends from school.) We had moved the party to a week after her birthday so that Mike could be there-- but wouldn't ya know it- he ended up having to work a 24 hr call shift that day :(  Such is the residency life! Thankfully, my pal Syleisa came over and helped out---and Tana invited the boys over to play- it all worked out great!

Here's what we did----

They decorated chef hats.....

  .....made their own mini pizza's......

 ....they decorated their own little cakes.....

The finished products! Can you say SUGAR RUSH?!?

Samantha chose to have cake pops instead of having a cake---yet another easy request!

The crew! I had a momentary lapse in judgement and decided to make each of the girls their own aprons. Lucky for me-- I only had to make 6! (Amber was not able to make it)

Presents!