I made an attempt to make pancakes for Andrew's birthday this morning. We ate them. I think they are the worst I've ever made. We could not buy syrup here. So I made strawberry syrup. That will make any pancake better.
We worked on teacher's goody bags today.
We boiled and decorated eggs, tons of them. We have about 100 decorated and ready for the egg hunt in the morning. We are all excited about it.
Masha and I ran errands. Sasha wanted us to have a celebration cake. We sent the kids out of the house and went to pick it up. It was beautiful.
We went to the orphanage and confirmed times for tomorrow. We will wait and take the goody bags next week when they celebrate Easter. We wanted to do the egg hunt while Ricky is still here.
For Andrew's birthday we went to let them drive the race cars. I was thrilled when Amy said she did not want to drive. They are big cars and go pretty fast. Troy, Dennis and Andrew went first. Dennis was a little short to drive. I was glad they allowed him to drive. Haley and Rachel drove next. Little Anna wanted to drive, she was too little. Heather and Oksanna chose not to drive.
All of us went back to the apartment. Masha and I had made ham salad for our lunch so we fed it to the other kids for their lunch. They had it on bread with cheese. They also ate nut brittle, bannanas and apples.
The cake: They were all ready to eat the cake the minute they saw it. Everyone was very excited. It was huge. Between the 14 of us we ate half of it. Everyone enjoyed it. It was a nice treat from Sasha.
The 4 had dyed eggs earlier in the day. Now it was time for Dennis, Oksanna, Haley, Troy and Anna to dye eggs. Vitalik came later. Vicki bought Vitalik a new phone and he needed to show it off to his friends. They all had a great time with the eggs. Vicki was included in the fun. She called it therapy. She loves painting and drawing. We used crayons when the eggs were hot and they just melt on the eggs. Our typical design is a cross and flowers. Later after they cooled they dyed them. We also had some wrappers to put on the eggs and put in hot water and the mold to them, beautiful.
The kids went back to the orphanage and we cleaned up part of the mess and headed off to dinner. We had finally located a restaurant we had eaten at last year. We were glad to find it. We thought Andrew's birthday was the perfect reason to go there. Sasha drove 8 of us in his car. Do the math. Ricky holds Amy, Hollie holds Andrew and Masha holds Heather. Rachel was between Masha and I. I think they stepped on her feet a few times. Family togetherness, nothing like it. I was glad to hold my 14 year old boy. Boys that age don't usually sit on their mother's lap. We had a great dinner. The bread was as good as Masha and I remembered. We thanked Sasha and he is on his way home to Kiev tonight.
Another packed day. Another good day. Egg hunt in the morning. Pizza in the afternoon.
