New dollhouse: Thank you, Lola and Gramps!

Veronica enjoying the new dollhouse that Lola and Gramps sent for Christmas. Pretty swank, isn't it?

Tecnickles? Why, yes, they're my favorite part.

Veronica Says: Buy Local

Adrian and I were discussing what books we want to buy Veronica for Christmas and she joined the conversation.
Me: We should go to the local bookstore rather than Amazon.
Adrian: Yeah, that's a good idea.
Veronica: We should go to the local bookstore.
Me: That's right, honey. We should go to the local bookstore.
Veronica: I want to go to the local bookstore.
Me: Good, we should buy locally when we can, right?
Veronica: I don't know what that means.

Daycare Photo: Veronica and Lucas

A photo from daycare showing Veronica holding hands with one of her friends, Lucas. So sweet!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Toddler 2 <>
Veronica and Lucas held hands and walked around the playground together. They had fun together.

Checking out the tree at Faneuil Hall

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree is up! Complete with Filipino parol (the star to the right of the tree). It was great to have Elyse with us when we went shopping for the tree, and especially for the decorating part afterwards (we miss you, Ninang!). Veronica put a lot of non-breakable ornaments on the bottom branches, including the 3 special ornaments we've bought for each of the Christmases she's had. Veronica has been very good with the tree and is very very careful when she gets near it. Such a good girl!

This year we got quite a large tree - the largest we've ever had at 8 feet! You can see the star is basically touching the ceiling. It's so tall that Adrian had to get the ladder out of the shed to reach the top, and he could just barely get that star up there. I must say, New England is pretty great for getting an awesome tree for not a lot of money.

It was SO NICE to be able to bring the tree into the living room through the new back door, rather than dropping needles from the front door through the entire depth of the house. Thanks again, Dad, for helping Adrian put the new back door in! The back door has been so useful, I can't even begin to count the number of times it's been used.

More Christmas-y photos to come. I just wanted to put this photo on the blog right away.

A sign at my doctor's office. Cool!

We're Pregnant!

Veronica is going to be an Ate(big sister)! Our expected due date is May 1, 2012. We're elated and super excited. We've been talking up being a big sister to Veronica and she's looking forward to it. My mom and brother are hoping the baby shares their birthday of May 5.

Recent Veronica Conversations

Veronica speaks in complete sentences now and is pretty much 100% understandable. I realized I haven't been posting about what she's been saying so I thought I'd put a few things she has said recently in this post. Here are a few sentences and conversations Veronica has had in the last few weeks.

Veronica was eating some eggs my mother had made her. My mother was also beating some eggs in a bowl for a cake she was making. Veronica asked her, "Are you making eggs for yourself?" It amazes me that she
knows the correct word to use is "yourself" rather than just "you".

I asked Veronica to put her magnets back onto the fridge, she said "I know. I know what you're talking about!" (This sounded JUST like how a teenager would say it. Scary.)

In the car on the way home:
Veronica: Mommy, I want a hug.
Me: Mommy's driving the car now, honey. But I promise I'll give you a big hug right when we get home, ok?"
Veronica: No, Mommy, small hug.
Me: Oh, ok, a small hug then.
Then, when we were home, I took her out of the car seat and told her, "Ok, time for the small hug." And we hugged. Then she said, "Now for big hug!" And we had a bigger hug!

After pick-up from daycare:
Me: How was your day? Did you have fun today?
Veronica: I push Samuel today. (not sure if she conjugated the verb, it was hard to hear)
Me: You pushed Samuel? Why?
Veronica: He was being mean to me.
Me: How was he being mean to you?
Veronica: He was cryin'. (she drops most of her g's for words that end in 'ing')
Me: That doesn't sound like he was being mean to you. Are you sure you weren't being mean to him? Remember, we don't push others, ok? (As a parent of a toddler, I've learned that toddler relationships are
mostly them trying to take toys from ea ch other. Veronica will preemptively push/strong-arm another toddler if she feels threatened they're coming for what she's playing with. Though occasionally the toddlers hug each other, too, which is so sweet to see. When she's in a good mood during pick-up she will say goodbye to all her friends and teachers individually and some of them even get a hug.)

Out of the blue, Veronica has a habit of just saying "Hi" to me (I love this, like she's checking in with me). A lot of these conversations go this way:
Veronica: Hi, Mommy.
Me: Hello, sweetheart. How are you?
Veronica: No, Mommy. I'm Veronica. You call me Veronica or VeeVee.
Me: Oh, you don't like when I call you sweetheart?
Veronica: No.
Me: What about honey?
Veronica: No, Mommy! I'm Veronica!

More Fall Photos

Here are a few photos that have been hanging out on my phone from the last few weeks:

I took Veronica to a tumbling class at a gym in our town on Veterans Day. This is a photo of the class before ours. Sorry, I was busy making sure Veronica was ok so no photos of her in her class, but let me tell you, she absolutely owned that rope swing!

I posted a photo of Veronica looking at 3 turkeys that had wandered into our backyard a few weeks ago. Here are the turkeys enjoying the grass seed Adrian had just laid down.

Mrs. Potato Head called, she wants her earrings back.

 A tree down the street from our house. Amazing colors.

 Adrian trying to convince Veronica that running through fall leaves is fun. She was not convinced.

 A house with lovely fall colors in our neighborhood.

And here are a few photos from a lovely Fells walk we took today.

Thanksgiving 2011

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here are a gaggle of photos from our celebration of Turkey Day. Here is Veronica, getting ready for a Thanksgiving Day hike in the Fells.

 

And now onto some of the food. This was our starter. My mother made a beet and carrot soup. It was delicious. Doesn't the color look amazing?

 And the star of the show, the turkey. Our turkey was made using a combination of our oven and our Big Green Egg grill, thus freeing up the oven for other things.

 Roasted Garlic and Parsley Mashed Potatoes

Wild Rice, Brown Rice, Sausage and Dried Fruit Dressing

 Green Bean Casserole from Scratch!

 Brussels Sprouts with Pomegranate Sauce and Pomegranate Seeds

Fig and Pinot Noir Cranberry Sauce, and Turkey Giblet Gravy (with a pork bone thrown into the giblet broth for extra tastiness)

 Best Photo of the Evening

 Pumpkin Ricotta Pie

Thanks to my mom for doing almost all of the cooking. Everything was scrumptious!
The following day we want for a walk in downtown Winchester to enjoy the beautiful sunny weather.

 Then we headed to a local playground to work off some of the turkey.

Here are Veronica and my mother going down the slide together. I dare you not to laugh!

That evening, my mother hadn't quite finished making amazing desserts so after dinner we had 2 more! Here is a chocolate pecan pie. Way better than plain old regular pecan pie, in my opinion.

And this is a Berry Pavlova by special request from me. It was AMAZING.

Bahay Kubo

Yesterday Veronica sang Bahay Kubo all by herself. I managed to catch it on video. Considering that I just learned this song in its entirety a few weeks ago (I had only known the first 2 or 3 lines since childhood but I decided to learn it all so I could sing Veronica a few Filipino nursery rhymes), I was very impressed with how quickly she picked it up, especially since there are no repeats or refrains. Here is the video:

Daycare Photo: Friends and Autumn Leaves

This photo of the kids in Veronica's daycare class is so adorable. They're having so much fun!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jen
Date: Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 1:02 PM
Subject: Leaves

The friends had fun today playing in the leaves. Each friend would grab leaves and cover the table, then swoosh them off with their hands.

Turkeys in our yard! Silly turkeys, don't they know Thanksgiving is in a few days?

Veronica Says: I'm Veronica

Me: Good morning, sunshine!
Veronica (shaking her head): No, Mama. I'm Veronica. You call me Veronica.

Beautiful autumn day in Winchester

Taken just before her first tumbling class!

Veronica Says: Ponytail

Veronica: Put your hair in ponytail, Mama.
Me: Why, sweetheart? You don't like Mama's hair down?
Veronica: No, I don't like it. (She doesn't pull any punches, this one.)
Me: Oh, really? Then should I cut it all off?
Veronica: Yes, you should cut it.
Me: Hmm, well how much do you think I should cut off?
Veronica: No, Mama, go cut it now! (She's also on the bossy side.)

Halloween 2011

And now the Halloween photos you all have been asking about. (I had to get those Topsfield photos up first because they were from early October!) This year Veronica went as Wonder Woman! It was unseasonably cold this year (we got 3 inches of snow that evening!) so she's got her Red Sox fleece hat on under her gold headband. I have to pat myself on the back in terms of this costume. I bought it after Halloween last year so it was very inexpensive. Plus, it came with the dress, cape, headband, boot tops, gold belt, and silver bracelets. It also came with her invisible jet, but I couldn't find it. She didn't want to wear the belt or bracelets, but I figured the costume was already pretty awesome. Here is a photo:

Ready to go trick-or-treating!

Our town does this awesome Halloween event on the Saturday before Halloween. It starts out with a Halloween parade so all the kiddies can march and show off their costumes. The parade starts at Town Hall and travels several blocks to the town center. At the town center all the stores give out candy. Some of the store owners really get into the spirit of things and dress up, too. Here's a photo:

Taking candy from a stranger!

Wonder Woman with her Daddy

This is such a cool costume, I had to take a photo of this dad. Homemade costumes are the best.

Enjoying her loot. Note the lollipop in her mouth, one in her hand, and a chocolate treat in the other.

After trick-or-treating in the town center, it was back to the Town Hall for a Halloween party! They had these cool cats in front of Town Hall. Their heads moved back and forth and their eyes were lit up.

Halloween Cats, Wonder Woman, and Hello Kitty (sort of)

Stroller parking always cracks me up. Plus, it gives me a chance to check out the latest advances in stroller technology.

We invited the Buddes to join us. Here are Dawn, Clark (as a horse), Penny (as a cowgirl) and Jerry.

Pumpkin decorating at the Halloween Party

Popcorn snack at home

Wonder Woman had a wonderful time. She went through at least 3 lollipops, dropping each one after sucking it maybe halfway down. I figure this is probably the last year I get to pick what her costume is so I'm glad I got both Hello Kitty (last year) and Wonder Woman in there. I wonder what she'll want to dress up as next year? I'm hoping Optimus Prime.

Topsfield Fair Oct 10, 2011

Back in early October, when it was still warm, we went to the Topsfield Fair. It is one of the oldest running fairs in the U.S. and was started in 1818. Here's an excerpt from wikipedia about the fair: "The fair, one of the oldest in America, was started in 1818 by the recently formed Essex Agricultural Society. The Topsfield Fair ran every year following that first show, with the exception of three years during the Civil War and three years during World War II. The fair today features carnival rides, games and concert events in addition to the more traditional attractions, such as exhibitions of livestock, rabbits and cavies, crafts, horses and produce. The fair also hosts the All New England Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off. The current record-holding pumpkin was entered in 2007 and weighed 1,689 pounds."
Veronica got to see and touch all kinds of animals, big and small. Here are a few photos.

Veronica with a billy goat

A camel!

Saying hi to some ponies

It took some convincing, but she finally got up enough courage to pet the the sheep. Here's a video:

She was less interested in the actual flowers than in this photo op.

This also took some convincing for her to hold the chick. So cute!

Pretty turkey. All I could think of was Thanksgiving. Maybe that's what Veronica is thinking of , too.

This year's Giant Pumpkin Contest winner. It's huge but 20lb under the record of 1689lb!

First corndog!

Not her first ice cream, but her first with sprinkles!

Really enjoying her ice cream

Oink oink!

Petting a cow

They had all kinds of drums set-up for the kids to bang on in the picnic area. She loved it, of course. Here's a video:

Bees!

A day at the fair is not complete without fresh lemonade and some fries.  Veronica loves sweet potato fries.