Sam's birthday party

Saturday was Sam's 4th birthday. Last Thursday we had his birthday party. 6 little boys, including Sam, ran, played, made crafts, and ate cake for 2 1/2 hours. As all the kiddos arrived I had them decorate plain brown lunch sacks for their goody bags. Next, they made silly glasses.
After their crafts, it was on to the water games. We tried to do water balloon toss,
but when that failed because they are too little to actually catch the balloons, they just threw them at each other until they were all gone.The boys had a blast shooting each other with water guns and playing in the sprinkler...I think Nathanael liked that best.
They worked up an appetite and all enjoyed Mickey Mouse nuggets, grapes and cheese.Lunch was followed by car cake decorating (and best of all, eating).
Sam had such a great day. He proclaimed to me, "Mom, this is my best birthday party ever." I'm so glad.

Thanks friends!

Having creative friends is so much fun! I'm grateful they are willing to share their talents (not to mention their time and materials) with me. This week I had two separate crafting lessons. Thursday night Karen assisted me in making this crayon roll: I think it will be perfect for taking just a few crayons to church for Sam.
Friday Kim and I made growth charts. I think it looks great in Sam's room. I had a lot of fun with these ladies and, though my creations are not perfect, I'm proud of what I made. Each project has a few things I'll do differently next time, but overall I'm pleased. Here's a quote I think is so true:
"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.
Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.
Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty—and I am not talking about the process of cleaning the rooms of your teenage children.
You might say, “I’m not the creative type. When I sing, I’m always half a tone above or below the note. I cannot draw a line without a ruler. And the only practical use for my homemade bread is as a paperweight or as a doorstop.”
If that is how you feel, think again, and remember that you are spirit daughters of the most creative Being in the universe. Isn’t it remarkable to think that your very spirits are fashioned by an endlessly creative and eternally compassionate God? Think about it—your spirit body is a masterpiece, created with a beauty, function, and capacity beyond imagination.
But to what end were we created? We were created with the express purpose and potential of experiencing a fulness of joy. Our birthright—and the purpose of our great voyage on this earth—is to seek and experience eternal happiness. One of the ways we find this is by creating things." Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Bath time is so much fun!

I think Nathanael would disagree....atleast when he has to share it with Sam. I know I should have probably rescued the poor child, but I thought the bubbles on his face made for a cute photo-op, so I grabbed my camera instead. There were originally WAY more on Nathanael's face, but by the time I got back with the camera, some had been washed off. Sam tortures his baby brother.

Poopy pants saved the day

Today I took Sam to the Greenville Children's Museum with our friends, the Blattmans. This was my first trip but Sam had been before, with Paul. I knew to expect a long day, and since Nathanael had not had a nap this morning, I decided he wouldn't be able to make it the whole day. So he spent the day with Mimi. We got to the museum around 11 and ate lunch outside as soon as we arrived. There is a really neat climbing thing when you first go in. We then moved on to race car building/driving and airplane stuff. Next was one of Sam's favorite areas- the grocery store. Moments before we went into the grocery store area, I asked Sam if he needed to go potty. He adamantly insisted that he did not. Well, he loaded up his grocery cart and headed to the check-out. As he was waiting his turn to scan his goods, I recognized a look on his face that I haven't seen in a while.....the "uh oh, it's too late" look. I looked down and he was standing in a growing puddle!!! What do you do when your kid wets himself in the middle of a museum? And you have no spare clothing with you? And you just arrived? Well, thank heavens for random clothing kept by the museum folks. They gave me a bag to dig around in and I found some 5T shorts that I put him in. They were WAY too big, so I went back to ask for more, took him to the van to get new shoes (which I thankfully had) and changed him into the second pair of pants. Then I decided to check out the inside of the 5T shorts just to see if they were really even clean and I swear they had the tiniest bit of dried poo in them!!! I'm sure Sam's probably got some horrible communicable disease now.
Oh well....atleast he made the cutest construction worker that I've ever seen. I typically think of Sam as having become such a big boy. But today, he seemed so little to me. I love my little boy and he's growing up so fast!