Valentine's Day and President's Day

We celebrated Valentine's Day with PALS.  No good shots of both girls together, but here is one of Sam.

We did a craft with glitter.  Sam was gathering it, so I thought she could throw it up for a picture.  It is still in her hair!

Zoey did a silly head tilt.

We got to join Sally, Scott, Izzy and Charlie at the beach for president's day weekend.  It was a tad chilly, but the big kids loved the water.

The kids played so well.

We also hit the fair on our way home.

 We love the Olympics.  Sam drew this right after Nick watched a parody of Putin discussing that there were only 4 olympic rings and anyone who said differently was an enemy of the state.

Sam's birthday

I am behind again, so I will start the catch up process.

Here is Sam's birthday, after her party.

She got ready quickly and played a bit before school with the magna tiles from my cousin Linda.

A quick picture of the girls.

And just Sam.

I took cupcakes to her school.  They had peace rings on them, which the kids liked, but the hot pink icing from Sam's taste awful.  It was a disappointment.  Even Sam asked me to scrape off the icing.

She was thrilled with the attention.

 She opened presents.  A favorite was the American Girl Doll of the year, Isabelle, from Grammy and Poppi.  We also gave her ear piercing and some earrings.

 Birthday dinner was at Red Elephant.

Sam is also playing flag football and she had a combine to rank kids to be sure teams are pretty equal.  Her friend is also on her team and Nick is the assistant coach.

Zoey's best friend Nick is a big brother and the girls got to hold baby Rowan.

Zoey and I finally made Parksdale, but she had already gotten a cupcake, so we stuck with a milkshake not their famous shortcake.

My Cowgirls!

Sam originally wanted her party at the local pottery place, but they did not do parties, you had to pay a reduced studio fee and then at least $20 for a piece per person.  Since she wanted to invite the whole class, I said she would have to pick somewhere else.  So she picked R&R Ranch in Lithia, where we had been for a party before and gone back for a trail ride.  She was also willing to choose a charity to support in lieu of gifts. This year she chose kidpack (http://www.kidspack.org/), which I also organized as our chairty for the mom's club, which has allowed us to donate food, money and hands on time sorting food.

But on to the party itself.  The place had bunnies and chicks the kids loved.

And there was horse back riding!

Zoey was pretty much the only one willing to ride the miniature horse, so she got to loop about 10 times.

 It was windy.  Nick finally managed to light candles, but Sam blew them out before it was even set down.

We had snacks, including "oats".  Given that a classmate's 2 year old sibling sampled some and returned them, I did not want to put them back in the bag.  So the farm let us feed the goats and pigs.  That was a blast!

We had a great time celebrating an amazing girl!