A Whole Hand Old

Sam is officially five. He has made sure everyone knows it. It's all he talks about.

"I'm a WHOLE HAND."

"I'm FIVE now."

"I'm allowed to watch STAR WARS now!"

Five is a big deal. We haven't had a big birthday party for Sam since his 1st, which took place at a park during a heat wave with about bajillion people in attendance. We celebrated his 5th in much the same way.

It's hotter than Hell outside - it must be Sam's birthday.

In a cute little twist of irony, Sam specifically requested Dinosaurs in the Snow as his party theme. I capitalize that as if it is an established party theme, a children's movie or something....nope. I was on my own with this one. Even Pinterest just shrugged at me with its stupid "no pins found" page and left me in the dust.

We worked it out. Pretzels for dinosaur bones, powdered sugar donuts for snowballs and plenty of ice blue and white lollipops and vanilla tootsie rolls. We found a dinosaur cake at the store (store bought! hallelujah!) and I added some marshmallows to it for "snow."

The kids had 4 activities - arctic swimming pools, ice boat races, snow n' slide and blue water balloons. All activities were destroyed in about five minutes - the snow n' slide (tarps with shaving cream on them) bunched up in the grass and the cream ran out quickly. The arctic pools (baby pools) became murky from the shaving cream covered bodies jumping in - but it actually ended up making a cool arctic effect in the water, so yay! The ice boat races were bars of soap with little homemade sails out of scrapbook paper and those worked well - as did the blue water balloons that seemed to completely drench about four children while the rest managed to stay dry.

I made 17 tiny scarves and/or winter hats for all of Sam's toy dinosaurs, and we taped down winter and dinosaur themed jokes onto the tables. All our scarves, gloves and hats made an appearance.

And I forgot to take pictures of everything. Ah well! I did get pics of the adorable kiddos at the party - this was Sam's first "friend" party and he has some pretty great ones.

                                         Elisa came over early with Cara, where we proceeded to
                                        get the most awkward photo ever of our three kids. Hey,
                                        at least he's wearing pants....

                                          They picked up where they last left off and got along famously :)

                                          I love that our daughters are only 6 months apart! So many incredible years ahead.

                                                    I can't believe that little tiny baby is 5!

                                                    Sam got a birthday cupcake from Autymn. He was awestruck.

                                                     Sam was so excited he was allowed to drink Kool-Aid, he went a little nuts. He pounded it like cheap beer at a frat party and ended up puking in the grass at the end of the day.

                      After the cake, Annie was crazy excited she was allowed to go wild with the remaining marshmallows.

                                       I told Charlie no to candy...but Pastor Michael said yes.

                                         Gabriel made Sam the cutest card. I just love these two :)

                                          Best friends holding future BFFs :) Love these ladies.

                                          I probably should've taken the cake out of the box and at least
                                         pretended I made the cake....

                                                   This child is not uncomfortable with attention ;)

                                         All of Sam's friends. So blessed to know all these incredible kids, most of which go to our amazing church. Such wonderful families - excited for more parties!

                                                   Don't mess with Charlie when she's eating Nonna's homemade ziti.

                                          Best friends.

 Tracy was Sam's overnight NICU primary. 5 years later, we still keep in touch with her. Still surprising, she showed us she has had Sam's first footprint and handprint on the back of her badge for five entire years. Cannot believe how far he's come.

                                                  Izzy loved the "snow"

                                         Charlotte's friend Vanessa - inseparable.

                                          Hailey and Aiden in the "arctic pools."

                                         More "snow."

                                          It didn't last very long.....
                                          

 

                                         Covered in "snow."

                                                    Some of the dinos' winter ensembles

                                                  Charlie got a new present too. She takes her play kitchen very seriously, and now she has an outfit to match.