Happy 10th Birthday Sam the Man!

He has made it to double digits!

Sam is finally 10 years old, he has been counting down the days minutes and hours since Lucy's Birthday one month ago.  He has always had such a hard time with the fact that Lucy is younger than him, but she gets to have her birthday first!  Now it was finally his turn to be in the spotlight, and for the middle child, that's a BIG deal.  If this party looks like deja vu, its because it was exactly the same as Lucy's party but with less "girly" stuff.  He had 4 close friends come over for dinner, games and a sleepover!

This picture makes me a little teary.  He is looking so grown up to me lately. 10 sounds so old!

Once again, my Mom was a life saver and brought over  most of the food as well as her homemade cupcakes (from scratch).  Mom and Dad came over the night before the party and brought the food and they brought Sam this cool nerf gun.  Actually it is a nerf "automatic rifle" that shoots out about 2 or 3 bullets per second! 

SAM LOVED IT!!!

We all thought it was so funny that cute, sweet little Grammy, got her grandson an automatic rifle . . . so we made Grammy fire off a few rounds.  It was pretty funny to see her shooting that big gun!

The next day, the friends started arriving.

Lucas, Colin, Sam, Ellie and Jack.

I had gift bags all ready for the kids with the new Kung Zhu pets in each bag.

Sam holding 2 Kung Zhu's (just in case you arent up on the latest toys).  They are these little gerbil things that make noise and move around.  The kids had a blast with them, they built a whole village complete with battling arena for them out of cardboard boxes. They spent at least an hour battling their Zhu Zhu's.

I am not sure if you can even see Grammy's cupcakes under the Hot Wheels cars, but Sam wanted a Hot Wheels theme, so Grammy stuck a car on each cupcake!

Singing Happy Birthday!

Poor Sam, had to wait until after the VERY intense Oregon Duck football game was over before we could tear ourselves away from the TV to do cake and presents.  Are my priorities messed up?  I don't think so!  That was a big game! ha ha

Colin, Sam and Lucas

Sam and Pancho

The McCarthys stayed to watch the game with us and Liz brought her kids down from Salem, so she just spent the night too!  I wish I would have taken more pictures of the adults, but really we were all just glued to the TV.  It was a lot of fun to get to hang out with Liz, and get caught up.  Our lives are so busy now!

Ellie and Jack gave Sam this Steelers Jersey.

He just loves the Steelers, so he was so excited about this jersey.  In fact, as I am typing this, Sam is going on day 4 of wearing this jersey (sleeping in it too).  I am hoping to get it off of him tomorrow so I can wash it!

Another big hit was the Hot Wheels Criss Cross Action Track.

They all sat there racing their little cars over and over and cheering when they crashed.

One last group shot of the party group.

These guys had so much fun together, cars, wii football, zhu zhu battles, and nerf gun wars, what more could you ask for?

It is still hard for me to believe that my "Sam Sam" is growing  so fast.  Even though Sam can challenge me sometimes, I love this guy with all my heart!  He is so into football right now.  He plays it outside, plays it on the wii, watches it on TV, reads books about it, writes stories about it, and talks our ears off about it constantly.  He has so many friends both at Springcreek and O'Hara, he seems to be getting invited on playdates every weekend.  I almost need a personal secretary  to keep track of his social schedule. School is definitely NOT Sam's favorite thing, but somehow he gets glowing reports from all of his teachers, and he always has a story to tell about something that happened at recess (his favorite time of the day).  I can't wait to see what the future holds for Sam, he is such a good boy with a big heart .  . . and I LOVE him so much!