Answer: Crackers and Candy and Drink

Question: How are birthdays celebrated at Julie's orphanage?

Yesterday was Miss Julie's birthday; she turned 11 years old, joining my other two girls. She was basking in delight from break of dawn through nightfall, just glowing and grinning and full of herself all the livelong day.

Truth be told, it wasn't much of a birthday, but she didn't seem to notice.
She got soaking dripping wet at Rosie's soccer game (along with Rosie's friend Alyssa), but then got to warm up at Mickey D's with a chicken nugget happy meal that had a Kidz Bop CD as the prize.
She had to sit in the car for nearly 2 hours in order to take Alyssa to our pre-arranged drop-off spot and then back to our house, but she enjoyed giggling with the girls in the backseat and watching a movie on the DVD player.
She got to eat the dinner of her choice, which was spaghetti. Even though Mom hadn't pulled it together to make it a complete meal with salad and Italian bread, she didn't seem to mind.
She got to open presents from her family, and she loved every last blessed thing that her brothers and sisters had bought her:
A jumbo pencil
Happy Birthday sunglasses
Goo
A rubber ball
A pretty blue baseball cap
A self-inflating whoopie cushion (will advances in technology never cease?)
A jewelry kit
Some hair barrettes.

Her Dad and I got her a Nintendo DS and a couple games to go with it and she was just tickled pink. She kept running back and forth to both of us to give us one bear hug after another. She played with it most of the night until we finally cracked the whip about lights out.

After presents we had cake and ice cream, and she looked so full of herself sitting in front of her white frosted cake with little pink hearts and her name spelled out in candles. A bit over-excited, she didn't understand to wait till the birthday song was over before blowing out the candles, and I don't know if she made a wish. I'm kinda guessing her wishes have come true. I know mine have.

While everyone was eating their chocolate cake, I asked Julie to tell us what she usually did for her birthdays in Kazakhstan. She said they have crackers and candy and drink. And if I understood her correctly, they have one of those Barbie heads where you fix the hair and do the make-up, and that is brought out for the girls to play with on special events like birthdays.
The sense I got was, even though today was far from perfect, this was the best birthday of this sweet young girl's life.

Happy Birthday to you, Julie. And many more ......