Happy Birthday Nastya!!

You are 10 today sweet girl. How I wish that I could have celebrated every birthday and milestone with you. How I wish that I had sung you happy birthday every October 10th and been a part of every one of your first 10 years. What was I even doing 10 years ago? Well I had a new baby but had no idea that another of my children was being born half a world away. I would not know you for almost 10 years. But we can both have peace despite the loss because God knew you. He created you perfectly and knew every day of yours before there was one. He was preparing me for you long before I knew you and preparing you for me. His plan was and is always filled with hope and a future. Never forget that. Your Father always has been and will be your father in heaven. He has never left you even when the darkness has overwhelmed you, He was there carrying you through it. And today Daddy and I celebrated your life and your future with you. I pray that your day was blessed and that you know how very much you are loved and cherished. We love you, Momma and Daddy

Today it took from about 11 in the morning until about 2 to accomplish buying two small chocolate cakes, some fruit, candy, bottled water, and finding taxis to the market and then to the orphanage. We traveled less than 8 miles in all! Everything takes 10 times longes here with long lines (one for fruit, one for candy, one for checkout) and humorous attempts to find and communicate with taxi drivers who speak another language. It goes like this - we flag a taxi, show him the written address (in Ukrainian) where we wish to go, offer him about 20 grivna and he says no 30 grivna. Well that is way too much - 20 is actually too much. So we start again. It is best to find a metered taxi but to do this we must call and that is interesting with my limited ukrainian. It sounds like "Preevit, Ya hochu taxi e dee tu dee hotel Ukraine, spa see ba." Translation, "Hi, I would like a taxi to come to Hotel Ukraine, please." Half the time it works and half the time they hang up. But we eventually get to where we need to go - usually just later than sooner. Today, we were tired and a little stressed by the time we arrived at the orphanage for the party scheduled in the girls classroom with their whole class. We were loaded down with goods that we had to smuggle in without other children seeing what we had. No easy task. But we were smooth! We made it just in time to set up and put candles on the cake before the kids came running in. It was fun and we had fruit, cake, ballons, pens and lipgloss for everyone. Big hits! Nastya shared her birthday celebration with a friend who also had a birthday today. I think it was better for all the attention to not be on her, as they are not used to being singled out. It all went well and then we went outside to play water balloon tosses. All in all a very fun day. But you know what?!? - Throwing a birthday party in Ukraine is just as exhausting for mom as doing one in America!!!