Celebrating Our Samuel, Part III: Pony And Donkey Rides!

Find Part I here
and Part II here

A few minutes after the petting zoo started, we also started our pony rides!  We had both of them going at the same time so that the kids would be occupied while they were waiting for their turns on the pony and donkey.  When they brought the "horses" out (for the sake of brevity I'm going to refer to them collectively as "horses"), they were dressed so cute!!!  We all had a great laugh over their "outfits"... they were dressed like cowboys!  They even had little hats on their heads!  It was adorable!

To start of the rides, of course the birthday boy got to ride first!  I put him on the pony and Dave put Jack on the donkey, and they were off!!!  Jack was loving it- he was so excited and proud of himself!  He kept slipping to the side of the donkey, which made me really nervous, but he was tied on there and didn't fall off... so yay for that!  Sam, on the other hand, was a little wary of the pony.  I wasn't very surprised about that, though... as much as he loves animals, he really has a hard time being out of my arms and wasn't quite sure when I put him on the horse.  But he didn't cry, and didn't whine or freak out, so I quickly switched places with my mom and let her walk next to him while I took pictures of my boys!

After they had made a few laps, I turned to talk to someone, and the next thing I knew Sam was crying and was off the horse and in my mom's arms!  I ran over there and grabbed him to comfort him... I had no idea what happened... and saw that my mom was trying not to laugh.  She said that he was doing fine until the pony decided that he needed to shake his mane!  It was only a split second, but it was enough to freak out my sensitive boy!  I laughed and cuddled my baby, and then told Amy to put Luke on the pony to finish out Sam's ride for him.  Luke loved the pony and was having a great time!

And now, a hodge podge of more kids riding the "horses"!  I know, I don't have to include them all... but how can I pick which kids to feature on my blog and which ones to leave out when I love all of the kids?!  Besides, if you think this is a lot, you should have seen how many I had before I narrowed it down!!!

(By the way, I know I already said this but it bears repeating... thanks so much to Ang, Joel and my mom and brother for helping me out with taking pictures so that I didn't have to miss a minute of Sam's party and could be 4 places at once!!!)

After our time in the petting zoo and riding the "horses", it was cake time, so expect Part IV to start off with cake!