Playground Photo

A photo of Veronica on the playground at daycare.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:tsctoddlerone
Date: Fri, May 27, 2011 at 4:23 PM
Subject: playground pics
To:

Hello Parents,

Here are some pictures of the children playing outside yesterday. Have
a Great long weekend!!!

Jessica and Adrienne

Busy Saturday: Splash Park! (Part 3)

Last set of splash park photos

Busy Saturday: Splash Park! (Part 2)

More splash park photos!

Busy Saturday: Splash Park! (Part 1)

After the eye doctor, we drive out to Ikea while Veronica napped in the car. We bought some outdoor furniture and made it home in time to make it to the grand opening of the new splash park at Borggaard Beach in Winchester. The beach is on a large pond in the middle of town and they just finished the construction of a wonderful splash park next to the beach. Veronica had an amazing time, as you can see from the photos. Our new town is so fantastic and completely geared towards kids. We really do feel like we've moved to Beaver Cleaver Land. Winchester Town Day is just a couple of weeks away, as well as the beginning of the weekly farmers market. We're very much looking forward to both.

Busy Saturday: Eye Doctor

After Adrian got his hair cut, Adrian and I had our annual eye exams. Veronica was very well behaved while we were examined by the doctor. Mommy and Daddy were trying on frames so she wanted to put on her sunglasses, too. Here she is in front of a poster in the doctor's office.
Our eye doctor's office is in our old neighborhood, so we had lunch in one of the many Vietnamese restaurants. We really miss the Vietnamese, Indian, and Cape Verdean food we could get near our condo. But we have really awesome Sichuanese and pretty good Japanese in Winchester so we can't complain.

Busy Saturday: Starbucks

We had a very busy day today. Adrian needed a haircut so Veronica and I hung out and had breakfast at Starbucks a few doors down from the barber shop in the  town center. The first photo is Veronica enjoying her pumpkin bread at Starbucks, and the second photo is Veronica with one of the local ducks. These ducks have the run of Winchester. Traffic stops in the town center when they cross the street.

Cool time-lapse video of the demolition and construction of the Modern Theatre. Adrian LeBuffe, Project Architect

En Ka Fair 2011 Redux

Last weekend I posted a couple of photos from my phone of the En Ka Fair. The En Ka Society is basically our local town's version of the Junior League. They are a charitable organization of women that raises tons of money and gives it out to worthy Winchester causes. Their major fundraising event is the En Ka Fair (click on the name for an article about this year's fair), an annual street fair located in the center of town with "rides for both children and adults, games, books, jewelry, a quilt raffle and plenty of food" (clicking on that link will take you to the En Ka website). The fair runs for two days, Friday and Saturday, in late May every year, and it was heaps of fun. Particularly since it had been raining all week and it seemed as if the rain stopped just for the En Ka Fair, then started right back up again. Here is a photo from Friday night:

She played this Lucky Ducky game and picked a prize-winning duck! The video I took of this is hilarious. The water was moving so the ducks were moving FAST. She had quite a time trying to pick one up.

Saturday morning brought the En Ka Parade. I think if you get money from the En Ka ladies, you march in the parade. The En Kas give money to lots of different groups (Girl Scouts, Brownies, Winchester High School marching band, McCall middle school band, to give a few examples), it was impressive and heartwarming to see just how far-reaching their charity is, and the parade let us know exactly where our money was going that we were spending at the fair. Great advertising!

Veronica rode the carousel three times and she (mostly) enjoyed it. I think it moved a bit fast for her. We also rode a dragon ride together as a family. Here are Adrian and Veronica outside our dragon:

And here she is inside. She was excited, but I don't think she realized the dragon was going to start spinning. When it did, it scared her a little bit, she she warmed up to it.

We had lobster rolls (New England fair food!) and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. We tried to get her to taste the lobster roll, but she refused. She had a full morning and fell asleep in her stroller on the walk home:

Then Adrian and I did what we usually do on Saturdays during nap time. I did the laundry and Adrian did some house renovation/yard work. After she woke up we went right back to the fair! The center of town is only a 10 minute walk from our house. I think she had the most fun on this truck ride:

Here she is showing the big boys how it's done!

 And a fair isn't complete without a ride on Daddy's shoulders:

We took several videos, all of which can be found on Veronica's youtube channel by clicking here (scroll down and click "Load More" to see all the videos). Here's a video of her watching a Choo Choo Train ride. She wasn't quite tall enough to ride it (not quite sure why, this ride was much tamer than the truck ride), but she loved watching it and she's totally going to own this ride next year.

So that's what we've been up to. Veronica is becoming more and more verbal and is becoming a total mimic so we really have to watch what we say (especially in the car). She can sing along to the ABCs (and she requests to sing it all the time) and she can count to 10, though she prefers to start at four. She needs to be reminded to start at one. She used to love veggies, then there was a period of time when she refused all veggies. At least she still ate fruit. Now she's slowly bringing veggies back in. Her current favorite song is Wheels on the Bus, and she loves to sing along and do all the hand motions. I have to remember to try to get that on video, it's so adorable. She knows her colors and shapes and her favorite colors are purple and pink, and her favorite shapes are stars and ovals. She's a daycare baby so recently she has learned how NOT to share. Apparently she has a favorite play bottle at daycare that she uses to feed the dolls and her teacher discovered she had put the bottle inside her shirt. When the teacher asked her why she did that, she said, "Veevee bottle. No friends." Looks like we have to work on that sharing thing.

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New Splash Park opening in Winchester on Saturday!

I hope it's a good park. We're going to try to pop in on Saturday to
do some reconnaissance.
http://winchester.patch.com/articles/splash-park-set-to-open-on-saturday

Easter 2011: Jack and Veronica

Photos and Videos from May 2011

May brought warmer weather (finally), which meant my dad was willing to come up to Boston again. The last time he was here was in October. He was/is a huge help with all of the renovations we have done and still have left to do, so we were very eager to have him back again. He visited for a week and he and Adrian got so much done in that amount of time. First and foremost, they removed a window in the dining room and removed the part of the wall underneath the window (after relocating the electric outlet that was directly underneath the window). After having successfully torn down the old stairs to the basement, filled in that hole, made another hole in the floor of a different room, and built a whole new set of stairs to the basement (at a much safer, less steep, angle) last autumn, I had full confidence they would be able to remove the window and install the door in its place, no problem. What I was completely surprised by, was that they did it in A DAY. Mother's Day, to be exact. It was a great Mother's Day gift, to finally have direct access to our backyard instead of having to go to the front of the house and then back again. Which also means there will be a lot more grilling in our future (yay!). Here is a photo of the window (this was taken when the previous owners were still in the house and using it as a living room). The window they removed is the one to the right of the corner, note the electrical outlet directly underneath it.

And here is a photo of the beginning of the demolition:

In this photo the window has been removed (it is laying on the ground) and there is a nice big hole for the new door:

This photo shows the installed door from inside the dining room:

And this one from outside looking in:

Impressive, right? I was very impressed. And that's our grill, ready for use. Adrian fired it up a few times while my dad was here and the flank steaks and rib eyes were delicious. For the rest of the photos of the door renovation, click here.

In May our town had a little baby animal petting zoo set-up on the Town Common for free. Veronica loved petting the kittens, puppies, bunnies, chicks, lambs, and even a pot-bellied pig! Here she is petting a bunny and a kitten:

 

The rest of the baby petting zoo photos can be seen by clicking here.

And lastly, May is the birthday month of both my mother and brother. Serendipitously, Veronica learned the Birthday Song this month. Here she is singing it:

She totally cracks me up. Hap boo day, too yoo!

Photos and Videos from April 2011

April was a full month for us. The weather finally got warm enough for us to get in some playground time. We took Veronica to her first cultural event, Japanese Taiko Drumming. She did very well. We also went to New York to go to the opening of my brother's show, Wonderland. He and Erik just recently moved to Williamsburg in Brooklyn so Adrian and I got to explore Williamsburg while taking advantage of family babysitting. Their new condo also has an awesome playroom and really sweet swimming pool, both of which Veronica loved. And, most importantly, Veronica finally got to meet their dog, Charlie. She wore him out daily. After the opening of Wonderland (which was FANTASTIC), we went to our  first Seder, thanks to the lovely Joels of Watchung. We wrapped up April by having an Easter barbecue at our friends', the Johnsons, house. Jack Johnson has an incredible playroom in his basement and Veronica had a great time playing with all of his toys. Here is a photo of Veronica (with banana on her face) and Charlie (looking a bit pooped):

The rest of the April 2011 photos can be found by clicking here.
And here is a video of Veronica playing with Mav's toys at the Joel Seder:

(Veronica's videos can be found at her YouTube channel by clicking here.)

Photos from February 2011, Videos from November 2010 to February 2011

I (finally) uploaded a whole mess of photos and videos from all the way back in November 2010. We had A TON of snow over last winter (80 inches from December to April!) which also meant lots of sledding for Veronica. Our new house borders the Middlesex Fells, with lots of hiking trails. The Fells were beautiful covered in snow. Here is Veronica enjoying her new sled:

And here is her first downhill sled ride!

Here is a video of Adrian reading Veronica her favorite book, From Head to Toe, when she was 16 months old in January. She loves doing all the motions:

There are several more videos from November through now on Veronica's YouTube channel. For all of the Veronica videos, click here.

For the rest of the February photos, click here. Included in our February activities were: sledding, the snow we got (did I mention we got a lot?), homemade play-dough, and salmon en croute.

En Ka Fair: Winchester is FECUND.

En Ka Fair!

Sign to Me, Sing to Me

At the daycare, they have Sign to Me, Sing to Me. A woman comes
regularly to teach the children sign language through songs. Parents
are welcome to participate so I took a little break from my work day
and went downstairs to take part. It was lots of fun. We learned all
the farm animal signs and Veronica loves making animal sounds.
Veronica's attention span is amazing and she loves to participate.

I can't express how much having her just downstairs has meant to me
and my peace of mind. Parents are encouraged to drop by the daycare
any time and I love that I get to see her in the middle of the day. I
usually go down during my lunch hour. I talk to her teachers about how
her morning went and how much of her lunch she ate and then I kiss her
while she's napping. When she was younger (I would say since she
turned 1) I didn't want her to see me during the day because she would
get upset when I left, but I think she's old enough now that I can
start dropping by when she's awake again. Looking forward to it.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Thu, May 19, 2011 at 9:36 AM
Subject: Photos of Veronica
To: Patricia Llana <pllana@gmail.com>

Patricia,
Here are some photos of Veronica during Sign To Me, Sing To Me &
seeing if a magnetic train will stick to a coffee can with Jessica.
Language & Science Activity.
Adrienne & Jessica

Adrian's home made duck prosciutto

Caterpillar & Bugs in Coffee

Veronica loves painting and drawing. Here are a couple of photos of her making a caterpillar with glue and paper. The other photo is of her and her BFF, Lana, playing with bugs in coffee grounds. I am very very glad she's not one of those toddlers that tends to stick things in her mouth. Usually, when she finds something unusual, she picks it up and brings it to me with a look on her face that either says, "What is this?" or "Yuck, I'm pretty sure this is garbage." She's also mastered throwing things away in the kitchen garbage can even though: (1) sometimes it's not trash that she throws in there, and (2) she has yet to master using her foot to open the lid (granted, this skill is fairly advanced) so she uses her hands, which totally grosses Mommy out *sigh*. Baby steps, right? (You can click on the photos to enlarge them.)

New Door!

Last Sunday (Mother's Day) Adrian and my dad took out a window in the dining room, moved the electrical outlet from under the window, tore down the rest of the wall underneath the window, then installed a door so that we now have direct access to the backyard. They did this in ONE DAY, and installed a door knob and deadbolt, too. Amazing! Take a look at the photos. The "BEFORE" photo of the window was taken before we moved in so the previous owner's furniture is shown.We now use the space as a dining room. The window we took out is the window on the right side of the corner. You can see the discarded window on the ground in the backyard in the "DURING" photo. You can also see the moved electrical outlet at the bottom left of the "AFTER" photo. What my dad and Adrian have done to our house so far continues to amaze and impress me.
BEFORE:
 
DURING:

AFTER: