Samuel turns 4!!!

Samuel's birthday was last Monday. Tuesday, he got to celebrate at school and today we had a big birthday bash for him, so it's been a birthday week for us! (Samuel thought that because he turned 4 on Monday, that today, with his "other birthday" (his party) he'd be turning 5. I had to explain an entire year has to go by before he gets to turn 5. For some reason 5 is a magical age :)) Monday morning we woke Samuel up with presents and birthday cake in bed (although, we didn't eat the cake until after dinner of course). He was really excited about it, especially since we've made a count-down-chain to his birthday/christmas/sofia's birthday. 

After presents in bed, we had a late breakfast of swedish pancakes (samuel's choice of course). Then mommy, Samuel and Sofia headed off the shark museum and then McDonalds for lunch (daddy had to work). McDonalds was pretty exciting...we never go out to eat, so that was a huge treat! When we got home, Sofia took her nap and Samuel and mommy had two hours of play time where we got to play with all his new toys. I think it was pretty exciting to think that he'd get mommy all to himself and that he didn't have to have quiet-time :).

Wonderful Grandma Alder sent a package of a couple books, a shirt and some DRAGONS!!! Those dragons have been a HUGE hit (especially since each dragon has a baby dragon to go with it...Samuel's been in heaven!) and we had fun playing with them, along with his small-legos he got from mommy and daddy. 

That night, we got to have tacos and then chocolate cake with sprinkles and then some more play time with the whole family. It was a fun day for Samuel. He is such a sweet boy and has thanked us over and over again for his presents and that it can be his birthday. 

Today we had his birthday party with all his friends. We invited 10 friends (half of which were cousins), but most of them had little siblings that got to tag along, so we ended up with 18 kids running around here. I have to admit, I was a bit worried about how we'd manage...our apt. is not huge. But surprisingly, it went really well. Four of the moms stayed and were a big help and daddy even took a couple hours off work to be here. Samuel loved all his presents and thought it was so fun to have so many people here for him! I'm still amazed at how little fighting there were with 18 kids here. Everyone just played so well together. I feel grateful to have such good friends for Samuel.

Anyway, here's a slideshow of some of the pictures of the event! We love Samuel so much and are so glad he's in our family! Crazy that he's been with us for 4 years already!!!