Birthday Time for Sam

Sam turned three (holy cow!) and we made sure to party hardy to celebrate this adorable, smiley, active, kind, athletic, happy, little (big!) guy!  We started the fun on Sunday, September 9th, when we had some family come for dinner (cafe rio pork and fixin's), cake (chocolate soccer ball) and ice cream (vanilla), and presents.  Ky Ky and Michael gave him a handful of matchbox cars and trucks (all red!).  Grandpa and Grandma Blanchard gave him a set of mini collapsible soccer goals, more cars, and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.  Grandpa and Grandma Elwood gave him a Water Wow coloring book, a race car shirt and pants, and a wooden building set.  What a spoiled boy!

Saturday evening cake decorating - and beater
tasting.

I think you can tell it's a soccer ball?

Slightly flat, but recognizable.

Snoozin' on the way home from church.  Legs
crossed, every time.

Pile of presents for the pre-birthday boy!

So fun to have Ky Ky and Michael to play with!

So glad to have Grandma and Grandpa Blanchard
celebrating in person this year!

And we love to have Grandpa and Grandma
Elwood visit any time, but especially on birthdays!

He wasn't so sure about blowing out the candle.
Luckily big sister was there to help him out. :)

So much cake!!

After presents and cake we moved the party outside for a little
bike demo in the street.

And some soccer goal skillz.

Even Aggie got to come to the party - Sam
loves Aggie!

And we love Sam!

A couple days later we got to party again on his actual birthday, September 11th.  We started the day with presents followed by breakfast. (He requested the "black cheerios cereal" (aka Oreo Os) - yeah, we're healthy!)  After Gregg finished work, we loaded up the bikes to test out the pump track near the mouth of Ogden Canyon.  Cal absolutely loved it last year, and Sam is rockin' the strider bike lately, so we thought it would be a blast.  Well, turns out those hills were a bit bigger than Cal remembered, and with pedals added into the mix, it just was a little too much to be fun for her.  But Sam was brave, and he enjoyed his laps on the hills and bumps.  We then went to Dylan's for dinner (cheeseburgers and tots), with a quick stop at Huntsville Park on the way home.  We finished the day off with ice cream cones in the back yard.  And that was that: Sam's big day of turning three!  He loved having a birthday and everything that came with it: family, presents, cake, ice cream, restaurants, parks, more ice cream and more presents.

A new water bottle like Callie's.

bonus video!

"it's the train one!"

It's a bike bell (also like Callie's).

bonus videos!

"look at this one!"

and

"first hit"

Breakfast of champions.

Oh how I love this boy!

Wearing his favorite colors: red, white and blue.
(I wondered this year if there's some September 11th
connection for him and those patriotic duds.)

Flash back! Gregg on his third birthday (in a similar
color scheme, and also with a ball and stick! - ha!)

One more from around the same age - I just
had to include because I think they look like they're
related or something. ;)

Cal made a special birthday card to hang on
our pantry door with all the others.  She got the memo
on the colors, too.

More decorations made by Cal.

Pumpin'.

bonus videos!

"getting the hang of it"

And just look at that clump of sunflowers!  :D

bonus video!

"Cal's turn"

(she had a rough start, and had a moment of tears and pouting on the table,

but then gave it another try and did great!)

Birthday boy and his burger.

Whee!

Dessert!

And now for the part where I write all the things I can think of to describe what Sam is like at age 3.  Queue brain dump in 3, 2, 1:

• He had his 3 year well check on September 27th and weighed 30 lbs (32%) and is 38.25 inches tall (71%) (they said that was up 4 inches from last year!).
• He's fully day-time potty trained, but still wears (and needs) diapers at night - I'm not too worried about that, and we'll work on it more in the coming months.
• He wears 3T shirts (and up to 5T depending on the brand and if they were hand-me-downs or I bought them), 3-4T pants, size 7-8 shoes.  He always wants to know "what T is it?" when he puts on a shirt or pants - Callie did the same thing!
• He's a pretty good eater, for the most part, but sometimes he's really sloooooww . . . and only wants to eat if someone is there to watch him (even though he takes so long that the whole family has left the table to move on with their lives).
• Loves to talk about how things are made (for example, every night he asks me how strings are made or how crayons are made - he loves to watch that Mr. Rogers episode, which is where the fascination came from, I think).  Since we've gone over the rudimentary steps, he can now tell me when I ask him!
• Still loves to sing and can remember all the words to the music makers songs we've been learning this month (he especially loved 5 Little Ducks Went Out to Play).  He also loves to listen to Raffi in the car (when we have a cd from the library) - his faves are Baby Beluga, Day-O, Apples and Bananas, and Down by the Bay.  The "fissel" song is another favorite (aka the Aggie Scotsman song "Show me the Scotsman who doesn't love the thistle...") and he knows every word to the Aggie Fight Song (Go Aggies, go Aggies, hey hey hey!).
• Still loves reading - every morning and after every nap, he wants to snuggle and read stories.  Still loves books about cars, or trucks or things that go (especially Cars and Trucks and Things that Go!, but also Train by Elisha Cooper (the one he got for his birthday), Mike Mulligan (also a b-day gift), Night Light, the Stanley books from the library, Thomas the Train books).  He also really loves The Very Hungry Caterpillar, "Dear Duncan" (The Day the Crayons Quit), Joone, 1, 2, 3 Peas and Little Green Peas.  Will also request and listen to audio books in the car (Ramona, Henry Huggins, Little House, etc).
• He has really become quite attached to his Teddy (aka "Me-Me") and will bring him everywhere (in the car, to the park, always to bed) and play with him, talk to him, talk as him (always in a high pitched teddy-bear voice), kiss him, make faces with him, introduce him to everyone (very much like his sister is with Minnie - we've even had Teddy birthday parties thanks to her lead!).
• Loves to say prayers (often says the same thing: "please bless help us to be safe" but sometimes says really sweet things like "thank you that we could talk to those people" after having a family hangout with the Elwoods, and then always has to tell us what he said after he says amen: "I said . . . ").
• Does nice things for Callie when we go to pick her up (picked out a piece of candy for her, remembers to bring a water bottle, suggests a snack he thinks she'll like).
• Has figured out how to say the L sound at the beginning of words, and can even get them in the middle of words on occasion now.
• Loves to play with cars, trains, balls, bike, magnatiles, golf clubs.  Has the most adorable running stance you've ever seen, with his arms tucked up into his armpits (he's really surprisingly fast, though!).
• He's figuring out the concept of rhyming words, can identify all the capital letters (and a few lower case), knows all his colors and numbers (has done that for a few months now).  He's also picked up on the little rhymes and mnemonic devices that Callie has learned and repeats at home ("make an S and close the gate, that's the way to make an 8!").  Can also recite my phone number (and part of Gregg's) thanks to all the practice we've done with Callie pre-kindergarten.
• Always says "ugh!" when something isn't to his liking.  (ha!)
• Says he has a "snozzy nose" when his nose is stuffy or runny.
• Whenever anyone says hi to him, he responds by saying, "I'm free!" and holding up three fingers (even when he's already greeted them this way before, even in the same day!).

Watch Samuel grow: 2 years | 19 months | 12 months | 11 months | 10 months | 
9 months | 8 months | 7 months | 6 months | 5 months | 4 months | 3 months | 
2 months | birth