lately: friends, food, five and water loss

It has been an unintentionally busy couple weeks for us.

James turned five last Wednesday and we had his birthday party at my dad's community pool last Saturday (as in, a week from today). Naturally, I brought my camera to the party and, naturally, I forgot the battery at home (good thing I had it charging all morning!).

Here is the birthday boy eating his strawberry birthday muffin on the morning of his actual birthday:
 (Sorry, that was a lot of "birthday" for one sentence.)

...and here he is playing chess, one of his birthday gifts from Lane:

This guy has been eating up a storm now that he has eight teeth and his poor little gums are not in excruciating pain. He loves scrambled eggs, cottage cheese, and all fruit:

The following pictures are solely for the purpose of documentation. You see, the beautiful reservoir behind our house has sprung a leak, and it is in a sad, low state. It is also stinky if you get too close on a hot day.

I took these pictures a couple weeks ago, and it is even lower now than it was then. According to our neighbors, this has happened before and it sort of corrected itself. We hope it will do that again since our house value is leaking right out with the water. 

Look at all that sad, sad dry ground. That should all be covered with water.

The Multnomah county fish and wildlife people have come and taken out a bunch of fish to relocate elsewhere.

I don't see that as a good sign.

Anyway, the "unintentional" part of our busy-ness came this week when we decided, extremely last minute, to have James participate in VBS at our church.

Our church goes all out with VBS. It reminds me of Young Life camp the way every square inch of the church is decorated, there is always fun music and people in costumes and general craziness. The church seems to be transformed into a different world for the week, and the kids love it. James had so much fun, and I am so glad we decided to have him attend.

One day after VBS, my friend dropped her three boys off at my house for a couple of hours so she could go to a dentist appointment. So there were six children. Age five and under. And me.
They spent the time hopping in and out of our blow-up pool, dressing up and having sword fights, and playing legos. I found myself running up and down stairs, picking up lots of wet things off the floor, and talking very fast.

But I love that kind of thing.
Here is her youngest with Elle... in a box, of course:

I told myself next week will be our chill week.

I'll let you know how that goes.