Happy Birthday To Me! (Lyana)

I am not quite there yet:) I am not so old yet that I try to skip my birthdays:)) In fact, I don't really feel like I am any older now than I was five years ago. Only my kids really age me and remind me that I am in my thirties already!

This year my birthday fell on Saturday, so the whole family was home to celebrate it with me. We started our day with driving to Milton Keynes for OpenMic UK audition for Katya where she sang in front of a panel of judges to see if she could participate in the live competition. She did great and secured a place in the October 17th show in Milton Keynes. 

In the afternoon we had a bit of a scavenger hunt--Robert's style, of course--to find my gifts. Robert took pictures of small things around the house or parts of bigger objects and we had to find the spots where the pictures were taken.

All three kids had to help me as I was rubbish at finding them. 

Mark knew exactly where the "singing frog" was.

With each clue I found an envelope with a card and a sweet message from one of the kids or Robert-awe:))

And each one had a gift attached to it. Some where silly like a jar of gummy warms with a sign taped to it "I am hooked on you". Others were more useful like this...um....very practical shower cap-hahahaha.

Our house looks really full of pictures in these pictures:)

And that's me exploring the top of our kitchen cupboard. Well, we call it a dresser, but apparently it's a Japanese kitchen cupboard and we only know that because the Japanese packers labeled it that way when they were packing it up in Misawa. 

I got a few more things, like a "gorilla" tripod, more treats and a nice bracelet. 

For dinner, we went to Cinta--I still love Asian food so much. They gave me a dorky hat to wear while they sing "Happy Birthday" to me, but the pictures were too scary to post-hahaha.

The big finale was my birthday dinner with friends at home...but on the following day. Robert kept asking me what I wanted him to cook. So I gave him a recipe from this Ukrainian food blog--chicken and mushrooms (with EXTRA mushrooms) with sauce. I kept asking him if I could help him make sides or whatever but he kept saying he had everything under control. We had two other families coming (the Williamsons and the Grovers) so I wanted to make sure we had enough food but I told him not to ask them to bring any food!:)) Well...apparently they had secretly offered to help him and he couldn't refuse the offer, of course. I also thought my friend, M was bringing some of her delicious cup cakes but instead she showed up with this brilliant creation!!! I mean...seriously!!! This is my birthday cake! With two different flavors, layered with the most delicious frosting!

Look at that!! It turns out Robert was helping her all along the way and this chatting about "cupcakes" was just a diversion:)). 

We have great friends! 

And I am lucky to have this guy by my side for the past fourteen birthdays:))

Thank you for making it such a special occasion!

Lyana.