Monday, April 20

I finally decided to get Sasha a bracelet for her birthday as her special gift. She was wearing one in several of her pictures we received before we got her and was wearing one when we went to the orphanage. We had been told that her caregiver made it for her. She wore it for a couple of days, then we took it off because it was pretty delicate and we were afraid it would break and we would lose it. I really wanted to keep it for her, so I tucked it away. I also wrote her a letter, which was a great idea that was suggested to me. It was a long day, which had nothing to do with her really. We raced around from one thing to the next for the entire day. I had planned on having a nice dinner at home with a birthday cake, but my son's track meet ran really late. Instead of a dinner at home we had dinner at a nearby restaurant. None of the three kids wanted anything to do with sitting still for dinner, so I ordered the cake early and they had their pieces after eating a small dinner. It worked out fine. We are planning to have a big party for her at the end of May. I didn't have time plan anything since we have been putting all of our time and energy into finding the right college for my oldest daughter. It takes a lot of time to research all of the colleges and figuring out financial aid is tough too. Anyway, we will celebrate at the end of May with friends and family, which will be great.
Sasha and I went to a store while Brookelyn was in speech class and she chose a toy. I thought it would wind up that I chose the toy, but she clearly liked the noisy Dora cell phone toy the best of all the ones we looked at. It was fun looking at toys with her. Another great part of the day was during the track meet. Colton took Brayden with him for a long time at the end of it when they were cleaning up so I had time to just sit with Sasha. I think we spent over an hour just walking around or sitting on the grass. It was really nice! She is so cute! It was nice just to be quiet and relax with her outside. I tried to take pictures, but I can never get her to look at me when I have a camera. She is always so busy with whatever she is looking at that I usually get ones from the side or mostly her walking away from me to look at something. It doesn't matter if someone stands behind me and claps or calls her, she hardly ever looks up. The pictures are still cute though.