Celebrating Our Samuel, Part V: Wrapping it up!

This will probably (hopefully) be the last post on Sam's first birthday.
For Part I (setup) go here
For Part II, the petting zoo, go here
For Part III and pony/donkey rides, go here
and for Part IV and the birthday boy's first cake experience, go here.

I'm just going to post photos and few words in this post... the kids had a great time with the pinata and listened very well to the rules (my pinata rule is DON'T MOVE because I'm always so terrified that someone is going to get knocked out!)

We let Emmaleigh go last so that she could finish it off!


Jack didn't quite understand that he was supposed to pick the candy up off the ground... when he looked up and saw the candy falling out of the pinata, he put his bag up to try to catch the candy on the way down!


And a few random picture that never made it into the other posts...

And of course, thanks again so much to my parents and my sister for their help with the party and watching the boys while Dave and I were occupied with party things, and to Joel, Ang, my mom and brother for helping to document the party by taking pictures and manning my cameras!!! 

Celebrating Our Samuel, Part IV: Cake Time!

Find Part I hereand Part II here
and don't forget about Part III here!

When it was time for the animals to leave, we all headed inside the Fellowship Hall where we warmed up our babies and gathered around to sing Happy Birthday to the birthday boy!

Sam checked out his cake...

While everyone else gathered around.

And once Sam was in his chair ever one started singing!  Sam did great... I thought for sure he'd start bawling when everyone started singing, but he was brave and stuck it out and clapped when the song was done!  Of course, he was too distracted to gather himself enough to blow out his candle (something he had been practicing for and was really quite good at!), so I called Jack Jack over to blow it out for him.

And of course, he loved the cake!

Here is a video of him enjoying his first bites of cake!

Of course, as soon as he was done, he came out of his cake stupor and realized that there was a crowd of people around him and mommy was not in his 3 foot radius!

But it was nothing that I couldn't fix by returning to his side.  I gave him some water to even out all that sugar, and he was just fine.  (I love his profile when he's drinking from his cup, so I HAD to include this one!)

After Sam got his first bites of cake, Dave and my dad started cutting and serving the cake... Jack was very excited for that part, as you can imagine ;) 

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!