Rise of the red Lizard

Sammy turned four last saturday! I can't believe how fast these 4 years have gone. To celebrate we have a huge pirate party planned but because of vacations and holidays we aren't having that party for two more weeks. I am so excited for it, her is a sneak peak at the awesome invitations:

This turned out okay since all Sam wanted was a train party- ha! His birthday happened to coincide with the schools May Fair. The fourth graders at QSI adopted a local orphanage and wanted to raise money to fix their roof and buy some food. You paid a small entrance fee and then there were tons of booths, games and food to buy. The boys favorite part was the face painting. Sammy became a green dragon

(This is my version, the original was washed off at the beach but then he begged to have it repainted... thank you google for teaching my how to make homemade face paint!)
and Liam wanted to be a red Lizard. Angela who was doing the face painting was so worried that Liam didn't like his because he was so stoic, checkin it out in the mirror and not smiling

but he loved it and was apparently just getting into character (red lizards don't smile they growl and hiss)

We had fun at dollar beach with Kerstin then it was home for cake, ice cream and presents. Sam had been asking for his present since he woke up. I don't know who came up with the rule that you are not supposed to open presents until after dinner and cake but I have decided that is lame and from now on we will be opening presents with breakfast. After being asked 1 million times to open presents I thought I was going to loose it haa! And really how nice is that to the birthday child to make them wait ALL day on their birthday? ANYWAY after the wait was over Sam was thrilled to open his presents and be overloaded with Thomas items.

He and Liam weren't that interested in the cake then and just played with all the new trains and precious "sodor steam works" that he had be begging for.
My friend Kerstin while here said "ugh thank you so much for not putting the stats of your kids on your blog all the time" um Kerstin you should probably stop reading now.... HA!

I have no idea how tall or how much Sammy weighs, I guess I could go to the clinic and check but he is tall and heavy. He can write his own name and lots of numbers. He LOVES to count, especially how many boys and girls there are places. He still loves Thomas but I can feel the end of that coming. He loves Space and astronauts and will out all the lights in our house and pretend we are all in space. While there is a brawl every now and then he is usually fabulous with his little brother who is ALWAYS shadowing him. He also really dislikes being with out LIam and it has taken some stern talking to's to get him not to go in and wake Liam up from a nap so they can play. He is a great swimmer

I had to include this picture of Liam taken at the same time. He just looks so hilariously adorable in goggles:

and has such a tender little heart. The other day when his friend Noah came over they saw a HUGE grasshopper. Noah (who is an adorable and awesome little guy) wanted to step on it. Sammy thought that would be so sad and thought we should let it go back to his family.

He still wants to snuggle every morning and like his mom hates being cold. (Yesterday at the pool he was laying on the hot cement and asked me for hot chocolate, our friends busted up laughing because it had to have been 95 or so). He adores his Daddy and I know he is going to grow up to be an amazing man just like him...

even if the shoes he has to fill are HUGE. He plays HARD everyday and rarely if ever takes a nap so at night although he is always so shocked to have to go to bed ("Every night everyone is SO surprised that you have to wear pajamas!"- if you haven't seen Date NIght you should) he usually ZONKS after five minutes. Even if it means in the middle of a good book

(Chris came out and told me I HAD to see him so of course I ran in with my camera and he stayed zonked even while I climbed all over his bed trying to get a good picture-- now THAT is tuckered). Sammy sure is my favorite four year old!!