happy birthday, jake!

this afternoon, i made it over to jake's 2nd birthday party. his parents, brent and emelie, go with us to church and volunteer with the youth group--and brent often plays in the praise band. i had fun just taking some relaxed pictures after my busy morning. (by the way, i'm trying to fix the grain on those. i realized too late that my camera was set at a high ISO, and some of them are incredibly "noisy.")
by the time i got there, i missed most of the slip and slide and pool time. we talked outside for a little while as the kids were getting cleaned up and then made our way inside for presents and cake.
above, you can see emelie showing jake his pirate themed card.

and below, you can see jake doing his pirate "arrrrgh!" (we had already lost the game at this point, but he had good intentions.)
i like this picture of brent showing him another card. great expression :)
of course, this little guy was hanging out. loved the light here.
jake got a cool ramp toy from one of his aunts, and it held the attention of all the young boys for the rest of the party.
jake's friend there is teddy (short for tewodros), who was just recently adopted from ethiopia by a family from our church. we've talked about doing family photos sometime soon with them--so be on the look out!

then it was time for cake and singing... (though he's out of focus, i LOVE this face.)
and attempting to blow out the candle...

in the end, mom had to help out.
it had been a long afternoon for josh.
so we hung out a little bit longer while jake played (can we just talk about the lighting here? seriously. talk about a profile.)
and enjoyed a 2 year old's birthday party :)