Happy 4th Birthday Sam

Happy Birthday Sam (almost a week late...last Thursday)!

I cannot believe that you are 4 already!  Time has raced by and it seems like a few moments ago you were our tiny special baby and now you are a big girl!  You love going to preschool (with your mom), are a puzzle maniac and your imagination is amazing...you and your sister can play for hours and hours.  My little pony is a current favourite but you love all things pretend.  You have a wonderful funny spark of energy inside you and love to run and jump.  You speak an surprising amount of Spanish (thanks to Dora) and you are learning French from Katie already too.  When you smile your big smile it warms out hearts...I wish I could really take a picture that captures that face and record that laugh and essentially bottle up your joy for whenever I need it...you are so precious and loved.   You are also strong...this year threw you a big curve ball and you've handled it with amazing grace and acceptance.  I can tell that you will not let your Diabetes define your life.  We are so proud!

Katie and Sam in their house that Dad built but they decorated.  

Sam colouring.

We had a super busy week last week...I'll admit to some silence due to the diabetes anniversary (last Tuesday)...couldn't decide how I felt about it...in the end, I've decided that while there's a hint of sadness remembering what we went through at the time of diagnosis last year, there's a huge sense of accomplishment at how much we have learned and achieved.  The sense of ease and comfort with how we manage our life right now feels relatively peaceful and I'm happy with where we are.

The other busy thing was celebrating birthdays!  Sam's fell on a school day so I brought cookies to school and she got a paper crown (which she wore off and on all weekend!) and got to blow out birthday candles while the class sang to her.  We cleaned and prepped for our little kid party on Saturday (which had me washing floors on MY birthday, Friday...that's motherhood for you!).  When we were all ready Saturday morning, the girls waited and waited.

It was a great crowd...9 kids including 2 growing toddlers (including the one who's showing off her belly button!) and accompanying adults bringing the total to 17 (this was only by inviting 3 families, I guess 4 including our own).  Nice and small eh?

The weather was pretty spectacular for January (-4 or something?) so we bundled up the kids and took them sledding.

Well, some moms and young kids and big kids chose to stay behind.  Reports are that the sledders had So Much Fun.  (they went just down the block in the green space near us...the perfect size hill for little ones.)

Steph and N.

Meg and A.

Katie and D...the biggest school kids (D is in grade one this year, and already turned 6 in January) stayed and played downstairs for a bit as well as enjoyed some colouring.

There were cupcakes with little plastic Doras and Spidermans on top.  I used my friend Megan's chocolate cake recipe that we have at all their parties and I love...I did a run through with a low carb coconut flour, but though the flour was low carb, there was so much sugar that it was about 25 carbs per cupcake.  The regular flour recipe was about 31...may as well go for the good stuff!  I did use plain Nutella for icing...a simple way to avoid the excess of icing sugar.

Presents were generous and thoughtful...This was a tiny My Little Pony that the girls both knew by name.  (Twilight Sparkle, yes really)

It was a very wonderful birthday.

The girls helped us shop for and pack up the treat bags for our guests...always just cheap little things from a dollar store but lots of fun.  The glasses were a big hit!

C and Katie LOVED them and requested this photo of the two of them.  Katie has been taking off her glasses and wearing them lots...I have had to ask her to stop and put on her regular glasses.  (hmm...what were we thinking?...we forgot that she already has glasses) (and yes, our own girls get treat bags too...maybe not in line with the original intention of treat bags but it's hard not to keep some fun for ourselves too)

One of the other goodies was these squishy octopus toys that crawl down walls (you throw, they stick and fall slowly and it looks like crawling).  Before C and G left, the girls had much laughter playing with these in their room.  Pure fun and friendship!

We had a family party on Sunday evening and I'll share some pics later (the pics are not as pretty because of lack of daylight).