8 TIMES THE FUN
The day that Rita had been waiting for , for almost a year finally came and went way too quickly. We had 8 cakes, brought in by friends and family, celebrating not only her 8th birthday....but the other 7 birthdays that she missed!!!!
We debated the night before on how we would handle the 8 cakes and singing. Both Rita and I wanted everybody to sing happy birthday 8 times. Thankfully we took the advice of everyone else and just lit all of the cakes at once and sang one time......that was crazy enough!!
Rita was all in her glory while everyone was singing. She couldn't have possibly smiled any bigger. We didn't get an official head count but our best guess was that 105-110 people were at her party. Including kids from both her kindergarten and first grade class.
There were kids lined up for a mile waiting their turn to pull the string on the pinata. When the candy finally fell it was a mad house!!!!!
The cotton candy machine was the big hit of the party. Ted would never make a good bartender. You know how bartenders are supposed to cut off their extremely drunk customers. Well all of the kids looked the same to Ted so he didn't realize that some of the kids went through the cotton candy line 7...yes....7 times!!!!!! When the party was over and I had the classmates lined up waiting for their parents some of the little boys' eyes were glazed over.....totally drunk on sugar!!!
We had requested no gifts but of course that didn't include grandmas and grandpas. After most of the party cleared out Rita got to open her presents. We had asked our guest to bring lose change to donate to a special cause instead of bringing any gifts. The kids were all so cute bringing their baggies of change and putting in a bucket with pictures of Rita's friends from the orphanage. By the end of the day the bucket was FULL.....there were even 10's and 20's in it...now that's what I call lose change!!!!! We originally wanted to do something special for Rita's orphanage but I just didn't know how well that would work out. Instead we have decided to donate the money to a family who is adopting a little girl from Rita's family unit. This little girl had been listed on Receese's Rainbow which is the website that we found Rita on almost 2 years ago. We know all too well how expensive adoption is and how hard fundraising for an adoption is, so we wanted to be a blessing to another adoptive family. Oh...I almost forgot...we raised $240!! Thank you so much to those that brought their lose change in for Rita's party. http://www.reecesrainbow.com/familysponsorshipinprogress.htm Here is the link for the page that list the families who are waiting to bring home their special kiddos. If you scroll down about half the way down you will see "the Sobie family" and little miss Jenna. Rita doesn't specifically remember Jenna but by her pictures we can most definitely tell she is Rita's old room, so if I had to guess I would imagine that she 'moved' into that family unit shortly after Rita came home.Well, like the title said it was the party of a lifetime or I should say a once in a lifetime party. Rita knows that next year she'll have a regular birthday with just the grandparents. Natalie declared that she wanted a party like Rita's too. My very simple answer was..."after you spend 7 years in an orphanage we will gladly throw a party like this for you." Rita enjoyed every second of the party, but was brought back to reality the next morning. She threw a terrible fit about her balloon from school being popped....so sadly, the queen was dethroned and life is back to normal at the Homan house.
The sweet referral picture.......strange resemblance to Chairman Mao???
