You only turn 7 once…

E's long awaited birthday happened on a day of work and detskii sad, so there wasn't much time on the actual day to do much.  But you can't not celebrate a child's birthday.

So she wore a special dress to detskii sad.

At preschool they sang the requisite song and then they gorged themselves on too many treats brought by a mother who didn't want to be thought stingy in the new group and thought there were 20 kids, when really only 8 or 10 were there that day.


At home in the evening, she really liked the cake her Mom made (or she liked the candles):

And blowing them out (this is right before she saw them light up again--we found those "trick" candles in a shop and they really did relight over and over again!)

Here is her sister waiting for a piece of cake, while the candles keep relighting…

Then E opened a few presents.  This was not her favorite toy, in fact the reverse, because it was the only one she could sit still for a photo op with.  all the other attempted photos she was too excited to sit still for the camera…

And the only "attendees" at this particular party were all the stuffed animals and dolls (not in the photo, they were waiting on the couch in the other room).   It's dark, but not that late, welcome to winter in Russia.

On a later date, we remembered to take her photo under the banner we put up for the party: