"Mickey Party!"

Sam's birthday was on Tuesday and it went really well. He was so excited when I was putting up the decorations and couldn't wait. He kept saying "Friends, Mickey party!" Well, it was a lot more chaotic than I thought it would be (I've never had that many tiny people in my house at once...) and he had fun, though there were times he was a bit overwhelmed. A lot of the times he had a look on his face like, "What is going on here?!?" It was a little crazy, but I'm glad I had it for him. And now I know what to expect toddler parties to be like. :) Maybe it was just the fact that I was huge and tired and felt immoble. :) And next year he will be more aware of what's going on, but I just don't know what next year is going to bring. There are a bunch of little ones' birthdays in February in our ward so we talked about next year, if we're all still here, maybe doing one big party for them all. Anyway, I think, including Sam and little Brooklyn, we had about 13 kids over, so it was good! We didn't do any games or anything. We just let all the kids play while us moms chatted for a while, then we did cake and presents and it was done. And not that I didn't enjoy myself or having everyone over, but I have to admit I was a little relieved when it was over. :) Anyway, thanks everyone for coming and for Sam's presents! He loved them all and everytime he plays with any of them, he will say something like, "Puzzles, birthday party!" And thanks to all you moms who helped me out too!

He loved his Mickey ears...though they were destroyed within about 20 minutes.

Gotta love the store-bought cake. I even got one with some space where I could write on it, and I didn't even have time to do that... Oh well. He doesn't know the difference.

Sam's bewildered look while everyone sang to him. It was funny because, even though you can't tell in this picture, all the little ones were hovered around and throughout the song, and especially afterwards, they all tried blowing out the candles.

Lydia trying to teach Sam how to blow out the candles (Thanks for helping him so I could take pictures!). I thought he would catch on, because he blows on everything else, but he just wouldn't blow. He was too interested in watching everyone else showing him how.

Finally we just let all the kids help him out. This was right after Andrew blew out the "2" candle.

All the kids went outside to eat their cake but I thought that since Sam wasn't that experiemced with eating cake with a fork by himself, that he'd want to eat it with me and have me help him. But of course not! He saw everyone else out there and was mad when I tried. So I went and sat him out there on the ground with everyone else. (You can see his cute blonde head at the bottom there.)

He had a difficult time, but he figured it out. Eventually I saw him just stab the whole piece and take bites off of it.

Brooklyn practicing for her 1st birthday!

Sam opening his first present. It was a slinky. I had to get him one after realizing how much he loved the one at the Stewarts a few weekends ago. Notice the scolding hand in the background? This was another time the kids had a hard time not hovering. It's just so exciting and they all wanted to be a part of the present opening! I had to try really hard to keep Sam focused. It was cute...Will even stole one and started opening it and got so upset when Christa took it away from him! He just didn't understand why he couldn't...after all, his birthday party was just last week! Also, Colter would say funny things like, "Let's see if Sam knows how to open these," because he wanted to help so bad. And a couple times after Sam would open a toy, he would say, "Sam, you're going to share that with me, right?"

More presents! Sam would get so upset after each time he'd open something and I'd take it away to bring in the next one. He wanted to play with each thing right away after he opened them.