He is articulate and well-read, much more so than I was at his age. Sometimes Luke enters an adult conversation about theology and adds to the discussion. What in the world? More importantly, he is compassionate, striving to love others and serve selflessly (sometimes). He delights to volunteer in the 2-year old class at our church. Who does that? Plus, he is so quick to forgive me. I've given him plenty of opportunity to practice over the past eleven years. Okay. He's not perfect, but he is soft-hearted toward His Savior, Jesus Christ. Simply put, even if I weren't his mom, I think I would be impressed by Luke. (I'm so biased...there is no way to be sure.)
I could go on. But instead, I'll post pictures of all the fun ways we have celebrated Luke over the past few days. :-)
After the picture, we went to the basement the film began. We eventually had eight kids and three dads. It was great.
Then yesterday we met Grandma and Grandpa at The Old Spaghetti Factory for birthday lunch. Luke ordered and ate all of an adult serving of spaghetti with marinara, including the cup of minestrone soup. I didn't know he ate that kind of soup! (I think we are quickly entering the phase of life when Luke eats food regardless of whether it is familiar or not...good for physical growth...bad for my grocery budget!)
As we ate lunch, Luke opened his gifts from this portion of his fan club.
New bike clothes!
Super fun spy gear set, including a pen shaped voice recorder and night goggles.
Luke also got a set of marshmallow shooters, but all the pictures were blurry because he was bouncing in excitement.
Birthday rainbow sherbet!
It was a sweet, little celebration. The wait staff was so sweet and Luke had a great time.
This morning, the actual day Luke arrived eleven years ago, he happily built his birthday train and posed for pictures. Are these days numbered? Probably, but I'm going to enjoy them while they last.
But I also like this one. Because it is so very Luke and Paul. :-)
After breakfast, Luke opened his gifts from Mom and Dad. At his party on Saturday, we gave him a length of 100 feet of rope. And some of you are thinking that we are weird. Well, people, it's what he wanted. He was delighted and has already made use of it in multiple ways including a belt to hold his sword and a separated length devoted to practicing knots. He's so cool.
So this morning's first gift stuck to the theme of useful, but awesome. We gave Luke his first tools.
A set of crescent wrenches, a multi-tool, and a bag for all the goods.
And now, lest you think we such practical parents, we also gave him this:
It's a ginormous nerf gun. This thing is so big, it uses batteries to shoot. And Luke loves it.
Once our presents were done, we jumped in the car and drove to Canby where we had a lovely second breakfast of pancakes and bacon with my mom. I utterly failed to take pictures though. Weak. But my mom gave him the next four Redwall books. This is a series that Luke read in its entirety last summer. That's twenty-two books, folks. Now he wants to own them all so he can re-read them whenever he wants. He was thrilled to add these four to his collection.
After food and presents, we headed to the Clackamas County Fair to spend the day with some of our dearest friends. One of our favorite six-year olds showed his bunny for the first time with 4-H. He did awesome! Then we spent the next four and a half hours doing the fair together...just the free stuff...because that's how we roll.
After seeing the exhibit halls, including the Legos and the flight simulator, both wildly popular, we jumped aboard the free train ride. It's a great way to see the fair and sit for twenty minutes. :-)
I like this picture. Luke is chilling. Paul is doing bunny ears. Paul's buddy is enjoying the bunny ears. And our favorite eleven year old girl is doing her best to pretend like she doesn't know any of them. Right? ;-)
The kids with the moms. I am blessed to have this family in my life.
After the train ride, we all met Timber Joey. It's terrible that I had to explain to the boys who he is, but they were totally game to pose with him after I explained the whole chain saw thing. :-)
We grabbed some lunch and Holly took another fabulous selfie. She is really good at that!
We spent time doing other fun fair things, like visiting the pioneer village and watching our female buddy roll her pigeon in a 4-H demonstration. No, that's not a typo. Roller pigeons are real things. Google it and get ready to giggle. They are fun and funny to see.
The boys also spent a LOT of time climbing on the farming machinery that is always on display and available for kids to enjoy. It makes me so happy that my guys still love this type of thing. At one point, Luke was spending his time helping smaller kids climb up into the seat of one particular machine. I think the other parents believed that he was a fair volunteer or a farm machinery employee. He's a natural when it comes to serving small people, even in places where he isn't expected to do so. What a great kid!
