Friday, April 24, 2009

not great pictures but...

they were taken with my Blackberry after all. Why do I do these things knowing I was without my camera? I decided it was time to see how Sammy would like wearing a saddle. I think after the surcingle, the nice fuzzy soft girth was ok. (and I can't believe Lily's girth actually fit him!) He really wasn't so impressed by it so off we went to the round pen to see how he liked wearing it while he was actually moving. As you can see, he was very bothered by it.

He was a very good boy and took my voice commands pretty well considering there were not any lines actually attached. The saddle at the canter bothered him the most as you can tell by this HUGE buck (come on Natalie, let us call this a buck, pretty please?)

But he walked, trotted and cantered both directions and then we were done. He stood by the mounting block like a good little boy while Linda climbed up and leaned all over the saddle bouncing up and down while she was there. He took it in stride so we're one more step closer.

But there's a part of me that's very sad that baby Sammy is no more. He is looking oh so very grown up now.

Monday, April 6, 2009

The Birthday Party

We planned and we planned for the big birthday bash. Carrot cake I said. Sammy and Vantage would like that. I had the bakery make their smallest cake and only put a very small crumb coat type of icing on the cake. Just enough to hold it together. They'll love it. Of course I had a much larger, fully decorated cake for the humans. The food was wonderful and plentiful. I think several attendees are now being fed leftovers for the next week! Sarah tried her hand at Pioneer Woman's Cake Balls.......some with rum and some with amaretto. The blender was cranking out the Margueritas.

Sammy loved having all the visitors - along with any and all treats. Peppermints, baby carrots, apples. He had to inspect everybody's feet. He has a thing about feet. As a baby, Sarah exposed him to her toes all nicely painted and he's been searching for toes ever since! No foot went uninspected (or shoelaces untied) but nobody had pretty toes like Sarah's. Although Peyton did insist on wearing a pretty party dress and pretty pink shoes to match.....he was looking for toes.

We had such a great groups of friends and family, some who had not seen Sammy or Vantage since they were wee little ones. The kids that attended were well behaved, no screaming and no one went swimming in the pond....wading maybe but Wyatt swears he had to get the baseball.

All the other horses got their fare share of the loot. Carrots and apples for everyone.

There was no missing the gate to the farm.


Noah was working it trying to get the carrot from Peyton.

Peyton was fascinated watching him eat an apple off the ground. Isn't it fun to expose little girls to horses???? Maybe the next generation coming along.


Sarah's cake pops were a big hit.

And the boys get to eat cake....except.........




they didn't like it. We all figured that Vantage might not eat it, he has a more discriminating palate than Sammy.


Sammy thought it looked interesting............



but really........did he have to make such a face? He thought we had done something awful to his carrots..........like mix them with brussel sprouts or something.

But, he tried to be polite and say no thank you.



Thank goodness for Annie.......she's my hero. Of all the horses, she's the only one that would eat it......so let her eat cake....for a week!

Happy birthday boys. This should be a really fun year for us all.