How We Celebrated The Big One

We had fun celebrating Nadia's first birthday.  So much fun in fact that we celebrated three times!

Party Number One:  Baton Rouge

Grandma (Thomas' mom) fixed a kid-friendly supper:  Mac n Cheese, tater tot casserole, and other yummy things.  Isaiah ate very well at his sister's party!

Thankfully I was able to find the time to make a cake...

And this is the little cake that I made for Nadia, but I could never get a very good picture of it.

With the leftover pieces of cake from cutting the "one", I made the smaller cakes decorated with N.  Our little niece must have thought that they looked pretty good as she attempted a bit of each...

Some pre-party loving!

Nadia is very easily distracted these days.

But she loves her Grandma and Grandaddy.

She grabbed that little one off her cake faster than I ever could have imagined!

And then she went to town!

Party Number Two:  Graham

We enjoyed a birthday breakfast for Nadia.  Most of that party was recorded on our Flip, so I don't have very good pictures.  Just trust that she greatly enjoyed her birthday waffle.

She's also getting better and better at opening presents.

Party Number Three:  St. Petersburg, Russia, the city of her birth

We started the day with her favorite breakfast, waffles!  When she sees the waffle iron come off the shelf, she gets really excited.

We had a lovely picnic in a park off the main street of town with two wonderful friends, Vova and Tonya (who will be getting married the end of July!)

After lunch we walked along Nevsky Prospekt, enjoying lots of sights along the river.

It was almost too much fun for Nadia.  She had to catch a quick snooze along our walk.

We visited the clinic where she was born, and we even got to see one of the doctors that took such good care of her after her birth.  The doctor was quite pleased with Nadia's growth!  Even the ladies who work in the different departments remembered us and commented on how wonderful Nadia looks.

She greatly enjoyed her birthday supper, during which she decided that she wanted only "real" food that hadn't been mashed or altered in any way, and that she would feed herself completely!  Such a big girl!

She was very pleased with herself on her first birthday! 

Our sweet concierzhka gave Nadia a little doll for her birthday, which Nadia loved on right away!

Thomas made a video of our First Birthday Celebration!

So there you have it.  Her first birthday was truly celebrated in style, multiple times.  Sorry for the long post with so many pictures, but such an auspicious occasion certainly deserves even more.  Thank you to all our family and friends who love our little girl.  We couldn't love her more!