Happy birthday to our five year old boy! He had a fun day opening presents (Callie made and gathered and wrapped over fifty I think?! This tradition is getting a bit out of hand - it took him all morning to open them!), chowing down on Swedish pancakes, riding his scooter at the scooter park and his bike at the bike park, eating lunch from Dylan's at the botanical garden, napping in Dad's lap (he was up so early and all tuckered out when we got home from Ogden), FaceTiming with Grandma Elwood and Gracie, getting the power turned back on after four days with it off, noshing on tacos for dinner, and biking to Valley Market for donuts for dessert. Wowee! What a day Sam had!
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| Starting off with a small sampling of Cal's presents while Dad makes the pancakes. |
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| Here are the rest . . . on and on they go! |
bonus video!
(this one from Mom and Dad snuck into the Callie stack)
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| Birthday breakfasting. |
bonus videos!
(this was one of her more creative and thoughtful gifts)
and
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| New pants and a hoodie - clothes! - are just what every five year old wants, right? |
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| A new game (that we can take to VT!). |
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| Called "The Floor is Lava". Ha! |
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| Books! (Of course!) |
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| He loves golden delicious apples and he loves this (nonfiction) story about how they came to be. |
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| The skate park at Lorin Farr Park in Ogden technically doesn't allow scooters, but we were the only ones there so we let them go crazy for a while. |
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| And now onto the pump track bike trail. It took a minute to figure things out, but soon both he and Cal were lapping the loop. |
bonus videos!
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| Cheese burger and tots at the botanical gardens for lunch! |
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| Home and zonked right out - it had been a big morning! |
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| Peek-a-boo Gracie! (The kids discovered you can take pics during a FaceTime call so we have tons like this.) |
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| Isn't she the cutest? |
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| Almost forgot a pic with the poster! (Which I made by light of headlamp the evening before!) |
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| His donut even had red, white and blue sprinkles! |
On Saturday morning, I remembered another gift that I had stashed away and forgot about the day before. He opened it before breakfast, since I thought he'd want to eat some right then. Nope. Haha. I guess he just likes saying "Cocoa Munchees" all the time for the sound of it, not because he wanted them. Birthday gift fail. Womp. Womp.
On Sunday we decorated the birthday cake to Sam's specifications. He wanted two blue-frosted layers of chocolate cake, with a road around the edge that had yellow lines and more yellow lines making a road on the top layer (but on the blue background, not a road-colored one like the first layer). He chose the cars he wanted to include on the cake and we washed them up good. Then he placed them and voila! A masterpiece!
Grandpa and Grandma Elwood came over that afternoon on their way home from Jackson for LOTOJA and Kylie, Michael and Zoey arrived a little after they did. We had an outdoor dinner (and I'm so grateful the weather cooperated - it had been a wild week, remember? - it was the perfect temp to eat outside in the shade) of baked chicken legs, funeral potatoes, roasted beets and carrots, garlic bread and fresh garden cantaloupe, tomatoes and cukes from my mom. Yum! We finished things off with presents and the cake and rocky road ice cream. A fun finale to our Sam celebrations!
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| The finished product! |
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| Dinner is served! (He picked the chicken then approved everything else I suggested for sides ;) |
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| Present time! |
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| This is a fun city puzzle that the cars can then drive on like a floor road mat. Plus a little activity book - perfect for our trip! |
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| Binoculars! |
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| And I think this is the black light flashlight. |
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| A breeze came up right as I was trying to light the candle, so that was a little tricky. |
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| Already completed the puzzle! |
And here's the part where I write up everything that is Sam at five years old:
- still loves dinos, cars and trucks (and things that go), and sports, but has added an increased obsession with trains - he draws them, talks about them, knows every Thomas character, pines for a battery-operated set (but is lucky enough to play with Grandpa and Grandma Blanchard's on occasion), loves watching them on video and can spot them from miles away in real life.
- no longer takes naps regularly, but will still fall alseep in a lap on a weekend or in the car if he's extra tired
- has read all the BOB books that the library has (except the last one in the last set because we didn't get to it before we had to take everything back before VT) and can read more than he lets on. He doesn't love to show off his skills, but if you're lucky you might catch him reading a page or two of something.
- is always up for a bike ride or scootering around the garage (he really wants a skateboard and don't tell him, but we almost got him one for his birthday but opted against it because we just really don't have anywhere for him to use one)
- is a great little sous chef
- has a perfectly high pitched whiney voice that he can't help but use automatically the moment something doesn't go his way
- has a strong sense of fairness (or rather unfairness), but is also often the first to share or compromise in many situations; and if he's getting something like a treat from the closet or a free coloring book from the library he always has to make sure he grabs one for Callie
- still loves his Teddy
- loves watching shows like Thomas and Paw Patrol, but also gets really into Gregg's youtube shows like disc golf tournaments (he knows all the major players names and even how they throw their discs and then mimics those shots in the backyard) and cabin building, and if he gets to pick a youtube video it will always be something with hot wheels
- is picking up a lot from Callie's home school lessons (much to her chagrin) like scientific instruments and multiplication (she's not learning it in school yet, but she likes to multiply recreationally); just today he was making predictions about the temperature like her and his guesses were closer than hers every time! He also helps on spelling tests by reading the words for Callie to write.
- almost always prefers a nonfiction book full of facts - usually about cars or dinosaurs or trains, but he's honestly happy with anything we read that is "real'
- his favorite church songs (the ones he always chooses when it's his turn to pick a song for home church or FHE) are I'll Walk with You (he still knows every word from last year's primary program) and Come Follow Me (which he only ever signs instead of sings)
- will tell you his favorite words are "of course!" (and it's true); another one we hear from him all the time (when he's talking to Gregg and me) is "hey guys!" followed by whatever it is that he wants to tell us.
- has a mechanical mind - uses ratchet straps or pieces of rope he found at a campsite to rig up a pulley system to lift his sand bucket to the top of the swing set
- loves using his newfound skill of standing up to pee (inside and outside - it doesn't matter!) (and he can also wipe his own bum after pooping - milestone!)
- is a deep thinker (some questions he's asked this year include: "how was the first person born?", "can we see the wind?", "do octopuses have eyes?", "is apatasaurus's tail a weapon?" "what means indeed?" (I love the "what means" questions!)
- is learning to write lower case letters by tracing them with a dry erase marker, but he still writes his S for Sam backwards nearly every time
- likes to take a turn filling out our FHE conducting card by writing everyone's name on a line for a job
- favorite foods are golden delicious apples and teriyaki burgers (and he still hates tomatoes)
We're so lucky to have this awesome, big-hearted, smart, athletic, adorable, curious, sweet five-year-old guy! We love you, Sam!
Watch Samuel grow: 4 years | 3 years | 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
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