Happy Birthday Dear Sammie!

The one stipulation with Nate and Brittany coming into town, was that we needed to celebrate Samantha's birthday early. No problem! We had fajitas for dinner and a red velvet cake (Sam's only request).

Although we could have easily gotten away with only doing a red cake with candles to blow out...we still went overboard with presents. Sam got her very own kitchen and table & chairs. She also got play food that cuts, pots & pans and a tea set.
Everyone was invited to her very first tea party!

New "running shoes" from Nate & Brittany. Hooray!

Snow globes from Alaska and a HUGE light-up ball from Ray & Deesh!

Grandma & Pappa gave her a ton of new clothes, a ballerina tutu, flower headband and dress up shoes.

Butterfly Museum

Nate and Brittany are in town this weekend. It was a beautiful day outside in Houston. We started the day introducing Brittany to the Kolache Factory. We headed down to the museum district and visited the Cockrell Butterfly Museum. Blake then walked us around town trying to find where his favorite burrito place is, Bodega's Taco Bar.We chased butterflies around trying to catch them. Finally, right before we left, we coaxed one onto a leaf for the family photo op.

Painting Ceramics

Samantha's playgroup started up again. This week we went to a ceramics store to paint. Sam has such a great attention span this days.She picked out a princess crown that is a piggy bank. She would paint it one color, then start all over with another one. Between 6 colors and about an hour, this is the finished product. And in case you are wondering...yes, she sleeps with.

"Every Southern Girl Needs a Fan"

This is the idea that Papa put into Sammie's head last week. Every night she would tell us that she couldn't sleep because she needed a fan. A quick trip to Home Depot has solved the problem. If only she would stop waking up in the middle of the night...

Happy Birthday Dear Shell!

Samantha has officially changed Michelle's name...from Deesh to Shell. It all started when she started practicing singing, "Happy Birthday" to Michelle (started after Ray's birthday in July). She now thinks that everyone has 2 names (Mom=Jamie, Dad=Blake, Papa=Mike, Grandma=Gayla)

We celebrated Shell's 33rd birthday with Ray's awesome cooking, a homemade cake from Melissa and the Beatles Rock Band.While we were lighting the candles of Michelle's cake, Sam peeked out of the corner of her eyes at Michelle (so as not to take her sight off the cake) and said (with all the excitement of a little girl),
"This is gonna be so fun!"Special thanks to everyone for attending the jam session/tryouts.

We are officially setting up the band on Wednesday night...band members are as follows:

Lead Guitarist = Jamie (NOT Michelle)Bass = RayDrums = Blake (NOT Sam)Vocals = Michelle (NOT Papa)

Who's Missing?

Last year for Samantha's Birthday, she had a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party. She got Minnie and Mickey Mouse as gifts. She seriously has not played with them until just the other day! She rediscovered them and hasn't put them down since! She kept asking, "where is the rest of the gang? I need Goofy, Pluto, Donald and Daisy!" We went to 3 different stores trying to find Mickey's pals.

We found everyone....except for....
Can you guess?
I'll give you one hint.
It's a she.
Grandma ordered her off Ebay and she's coming in the mail. Sam reminds me every day!

Astros vs Phillies

We got free tickets to the Astros vs Phillies on Saturday night. This was Samantha's 1st game! She loved it! Mom, Dad, Blake, me and Sam and Melissa with her 2 friends Kellie and Stacey. It was a long walk from the car to our not-so-sweet seats. Sam found something to distract her at every turn.We found our seats and starting right into the baseball festivities:
NachosIce Cream in Astros HatsBinocularsJack in the Box sponsored our section and we all got t-shirts, gift cards and balloon animals....AND we put on the big screen cheering like a bunch of idiots.

The game was fantastic! We were winning all the way through the 8th inning. The Phillies decided to come back and have a lead by 1 run. At the bottom of the 9th, the Astros rallied. Sam was trying to cheer like everyone else. She got the shape of her mouth just right, but no sound was coming out.With bases loaded...hit a grounder and got 2 runs in...ASTROS WIN!