Sam's 5th Birthday

Sam and Dad went camping on Tuesday night at Lake Afton. They slept in a tent in their sleeping bags, watched videos in the tent, and did some fishing.


Wednesday morning, we all met back up at Sugar Shack for a special birthday doughnut. Sam and Mom eat doughnuts here every Wednesday morning before Bible Study Fellowship. (not sure if the black smudges of dirt are visible on Sam's forehead and cheeks.)

After breakfast, we came home and opened presents. Sam played with his cool toys for most of the rest of the morning and afternoon. Ben took a nap, and the rest of us relaxed.
Here is Sam talking to his Uncle Kevin on the speaker phone. About 4:30 we left to eat dinner at one of Sam's favorite places, Texas Roadhouse. Sam loves the peanuts that you can throw the shells on the floor.

They even wished Sam a happy birthday with a Texas Roadhouse yeehaa.

Then it was off to the big party at Pump it Up. 14 of Sam's friends jumped on all the inflatables for about 45 minutes, then we moved to the party room where Sam got to sit on the inflatable throne. After cake and presents it was time to go home. Thank goodness birthdays only come once a year!!!!

Here is one final video of Sam's swim lessons. The last day they got to jump off the board, and after all of his experience over July 4th, he was ready to do it all by himself.

Daddy's little helper

Ben has become interested in the vacuum cleaners, and helping out dad in chores and fun.

Variations on the Slippery Slide

Last fall I picked up a Spiderman Slippery Slide at Target on 75% clearance. We brought it out last week. Since the kids don't quite have the concept of running and landing on their bellies for the maximum slide, we came up with some variations of our own.








And now for the professional.

Sedgwick County Fair

Always excited about a good parade, we traveled to Cheney, KS (about 30 minutes to the west) for the Sedgwick County Fair. Ben loves waving, and Sam loved the candy. Since it is an election year, almost half of the entrants were people running for office (free pens!!!) We sat on the east side of the street, and I was hoping that the sun would go down before the parade ended, but no such luck. Next year we will arrive earlier and sit on the more popular west side of the street.


After the parade, Sam convinced us that he wanted to ride some of the fairway rides. We settled on 2 slides. I can't believe how brave he was.

Gymnastics

At the encouragement of Sam's Occupational Therapist, Sam has been taking gymnastics at the Wichita Gymnastics Club once a week this summer. Last week they had "parents day" where the parents could come and watch the things they had been learning. While some of the activities still seem a little difficult for Sam, I'm so proud of many of the things he has accomplished, especially the "apple turnover" where he is using his upper arms to pull his body weight up to the bar to flip himself over.

Brothers

At the park

Saturday we visited a park in Pittsburg before returning to the Hudson's for more swimming.

Swimming

Sam has been making big strides in his swimming. While at the Hudson's house in Pittsburg, Sam was a fish. After a little encouragement, Sam couldn't jump off the diving board enough. Once in he swam to the ladder, and went back to the diving board for more.

At Grandma and Grandpa Keefer's pool, Sam practiced swimming from one side of the pool to the other. He even went the long length of the pool, once.

Fireworks

We celebrated the 4th on the 3rd at our house with some sparklers, and on the 4th in Pittsburg, Kansas where we met our friends Scott, Jennifer and Joey Hudson and enjoyed some time at Scott's parents house. The boys had fun with the sparklers again. The rest of the weekend was spent swimming!

Chef Sam

Sam and I have been trying to do a little baking each week. Sam loves to crack eggs, and I then dig out all of the shells. Here we are making strawberry shortcake. A couple of weeks ago, Doug took Sam to the Downtown Library to a puppet show. In the puppet show the characters made a pretend strawberry shortcake, but when one character asked for flour, the other character brought a flower. Instead of measuring cups to measure, he brought a ruler. At the end of the show they handed out recipes for real strawberry shortcake. Every time from then on when we went to the store, Sam wanted us to get strawberries. I knew for a fact that Sam would never eat the strawberries, but since Grandma and Grandpa Shaffer were coming over for dinner, we decided to make it. I had to look for the pastry cutter so we could cut the butter into the dry ingredients, Sam had "borrowed" it for a "chop shop" tool. The shortcake turned out to be more like a biscuit, but it was still very tasty.

Ben models the other tasty treat Sam and Mom made last week, Rocket Pops. They were made with Cherry jello and Blue Berry Jello with a middle layer of Cool Whip, all frozen. Ben really enjoyed his.