preparing

lena turns six in exactly one week from today.  her first birthday with us.  her first birthday celebration.  and it's a big deal.  

2 weeks after her birthday will be her first christmas with us and 3 weeks after that will be her 1 year anniversary of being home....so yeah, there will be a whole lot to celebrate.

but we will begin with her birthday.  

what i want to do is blow it out.  invite everyone over who helped build our addition and told us about lena and gave to her adoption and every friend she has and pretty much wanna shout it from the rooftops that she is worth celebrating...that the day God gave her breath was an amazing and miraculous day.

however...she would hate that.  

so we'll go let her bounce at a gym that has trampolines and a soft floor because she loves that.  

i'm sure well blow up some balloons.

and...

i'm gonna try my hand at making borshch.  it doesn't look easy & there are beans soaking on my counter right now & my fridge looks like we just harvested all the crops from a ukrainian garden.  

but i think she'll like it, so i'll kill myself trying.

also, i loaded all 3 rascals into one of those massive target carts and we went up and down every aisle so hazel and anders could pick out gifts for lena.  we usually just do a few gifts or one big gift for birthdays, but we figure we're making up for lost time here & well....hazel, anders & i....we went a little crazy.  lena was with us, so they would put toys or shoes or pajamas in front of her to see if she smiled or grabbed for them & this is how we decided upon gifts.  it was wonderful.

and her birthday, it will be wonderful.

borshch ingredients

so difficult to decide.