Day 198 of 365 Days of Being Thankful

         Today I am thankful that it is Olivia's 21st birthday and 12th birthday celebrated with us! She was born in my heart and always meant to be my daughter.  I believe God is the reason  she is in our family.  Who could have ever predicted that this little, skinny, scrawny, smiley,
9 year old girl born on the other side of the world would be my fourth child??? The photo above is the summer she first arrived in the U.S. at age 9.  She was getting her short hair braided at a place on the boardwalk in Ocean City.  Olivia is from Simferopol, Ukraine.  Simferopol is in the Crimea region which is now part of Russia.  Crimea is bordered by the Black Sea.  Olivia swam in the Black Sea which is the most beautiful blue color.  When we first took her to the Jersey shore, she thought the sea water was really dirty! She kept saying, "I can't see my feet because the water is so dirty."
 I am so thankful for her! She is amazing, smart, talented and beautiful.  I tell her all the time that she should adopt a child from Ukraine one day! She says she doesn't want to adopt because kids from orphanages have issues!  I told her that biological kids also have issues!  There is never a guarantee with adopted or biological children.  Olivia has certainly made our life eventful, interesting, and exciting!!
         I have so many wonderful friends who supported our adoptions, especially Linda, Jackie, and Nancy!  I am thankful that I met my other friends Joni, Madelyn, and Deb G, and others because I adopted. I even started a Facebook group for older adoptive moms which has close to 500 members! Happy Birthday to my sweet daughter and thank you Lord for one of your most precious gifts.
Tonight we are going to a fabulous Italian restaurant that Olivia chose for dinner.  We are taking wine for Olivia's first legal drink!  Today I got the Carvel ice cream cake.  Olivia wanted the numbers 2 and 1 instead of a bunch of candles so we stopped at a dollar deals store.  I handed her a twenty and she came out and asked if she could get balloons too.  I said yes so she came out with  gigantic number 2 and  gigantic number 1  Mylar helium balloons. I thought the balloons would be maybe two dollars each! They were six dollars each! Olivia has a flair for spending my money!  I think I got four dollars change from the twenty! 
 NO more bats so far!!!!!!!!

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