Lena's Birthday

Ever since she saw her birthday marked on the calendar, Lena has been talking about it and singing her own versions of Happy Birthday To You.  We also learned that she had never had a birthday party.  That made me a bit apprehensive, as I didn't know what she might be expecting.

Our family tradition is to do dinner out ON the actual birthday and a celebration with family and friends as close to the actual day as possible. Since Lena has no friends yet, we decided to make it family only and take a trip to see Uncle John and Uncle Dan and their families.

So the Sunday before her birthday we met at Pease Park and had pizza and cake. The park has a splash pad and playground for entertainment. You can see from the pictures that she had a great time.  Lena insisted on dressing for her party, and she chose her prettiest dress.


Because we opted for a casual family get together, and we were traveling, the cake was not my normal creation.  I baked it the night before we left.  Big thanks to Aunt Darby for making the frosting.  It was yummy!  We just put it together at the park.  I had to draw the Happy Birthday in with the knife, but as you can see, it worked!


We had a really lovely time at the park.  The weather was good, it wasn't as crowded as I expected, and we got to spend some quality time with family.  The kids were excited to see Uncle John again, as they have only seen him one other time since we got home from Ukraine.

On her actual birthday, I made doughnut holes as a special treat.  I had planned to take her to Clay's Restaurant for her birthday dinner. They have a little farm where you can feed and pet goats, horses, chickens, etc. They also have a huge area to run and play and a large sandbox. Seemed perfect until the temperature climbed to near 100 degrees.  So our second choice was Taco Cabana after she said she wanted quesadillas for her birthday.  You can see from the pictures that we had some fun.

All the kids tried pico de gallo (which they didn't like) and jalapeños (which surprisingly Lena and Oleg DID like).  And we had plenty of time for fun family silliness. At one point Oleg said "I am bathroom," meaning, "I need to go to the bathroom."

I replied, "I thought I smelled something stinky."

Without missing a beat he said, "That is Hanna." I think we all just about lost it laughing.

When we got home from dinner we did cake and presents. The big girls wanted to do the sundae cupcakes for Lena. I think they turned out great. Lena asked for a baby doll, so we made sure she had one. Grandma gave her clothes. The big girls gave her a beach towel with Rapunzel from Tangled. Oleg gave her a water toy for playing in the sprinkler.

All in all a very good first birthday celebration. And in normal kid fashion, she said the next day, "I (wish) mine birthday and presents every day."