Happy Birthday, Maria!

Maria is 1 year old. Born on Thanksgiving Day, last year, she is now crawling, walking, laughing, playing and being generally a very happy and active little girl. Her favourite thing is to be outdoors, in her MacPac, carried by her daddy and searching for "treasures". She likes books and toys and her favourite "toys" to play with seem to be the mobile phone, the keys and the remote control.

She recently discovered (in her grandma Lili's room) the jeweleries and she enjoys to play with them, especially the bracelets and the pearl necklaces. Well, I am not sure where she got this from, as I was never very keen on jewelery.

For her first birthday, we prepared two celebrations: on her actual birthday, we had her friends from our mums and babies group over to our house and the day after, our family and friends that are not part of the group came to celebrate Maria. We had a great time and thank you everyone for being with us (some of them virtually, on Internet) and for the lovely presents.

Here are some pictures from her birthday parties.

For one of the parties, a joined effort was put by Will, myself and grandma Lili to prepare a "Diplomat" cake, which is a popular birthday cake in Romania. It was my first time when I made this cake and without Will's supervision, I would have probably spent the whole night trying to figure out how much gelatine to add. Eventually, we managed to finish it and it was quite tasty.

For the other party, grannie Mary prepared an excellent traditional sponge cake and decorated very nicely. I think she won the "unofficial" competition of the cakes. Well done, grannie Mary!

Maria checking out the cake. Actually she put her fingers in it as soon as she saw it.

 

Clapping hands after her friends sang "Happy Birthday"! Thank you, everyone!

Maria's friends and their mums

"I like my dress, mummy!"

"I've got a nice bracelet on my hand and I can put it on by myself"

And here comes the fun of being 1 in the Romanian culture. Traditionally, when you are 1, you are given a tray full of different objects that can symbolize possible future career. The baby chooses up to three objects and then the prediction starts. We asked everyone to put something on the tray for her from their pockets and we added a few more things. Maria went straight for the pound coin and then she picked up a sparkle cake decoration little jar and then the mobile phone. In translation, this might mean that she can be a banker (or rich), she will love cooking or will be a cook and she will communicate with her friends by phoning them on her mobile. We'll see in 20 years or so which of these predictions will become true, if any.

Time to open some presents. My friends and mummy came to help.

"Hmm, it looks like there should be another wheel somewhere"

"This is the funniest thing I have ever seen. You open the card and the phone rings. You pick up the phone and it starts singing Happy Birthday! Great!"

"Ok, I guess I had enough of this noise"

Time to sing Happy Birthday and to blow the candle

And finally, time to play with my new toys and have a breadstick

Tennis at the O2 Arena

Last weekend we went to London for the first day of the Masters Tennis Championship. When Will bought the tickets, we didn't know who we were going to see, as the groups were decided later. Luckily for me, it was Federer playing against Verdasco. I liked Federer a lot, but after watching him playing live, I became an even bigger fan. He is a great player! Here are a few pictures from the match. Thanks, my lovely husband for another surprise and for a wonderful evening.

 Start of the match

Federer serving for the match

Federer winning