No time like the presents

It seems there has been a package leaning up against the front door when we get home from work every day since Veronica turned one. Veronica hasn't been able to contain her excitement with all of the gifts. She really appreciates all the generosity and the love and is way behind on thank you notes. Auntie Kristin capitalized on Veronica's love of the zoo (with a rhinosaurus of course). And Uncle Bill nailed his gift so well that Vv plays with it constantly and we haven't even taken it out of the box yet.


After all of the celebrating of her, Vv had to learn to celebrate others and watch Lena open presents at her 1st birthday party. She wasn't too sure about letting Lena get all the presents, so she stole her Mama's lap. Very clever sweetheart.


And of course the best gift of all was a west coast cousin to play with. Veronica was very excited to meet Jackson McDevitt Leary... or maybe Vv was just excited that Jackson's house has big girls to play with and costume jewelry to try on. Either way, congratulations to the Leary & Sebo family and good luck getting some sleep. Let us know when you're ready to start trading baby sitting duties.

I'm #1... I'm #1!

Happy first birthday to Veronica! As you can see, Veronica has mellowed over the past 12 months. It's probably due to all the pancakes.

Veronica's birthday party was a few days early since Grammy made the trip west to celebrate with her. It was a ballooned themed party because Vv can't come within 30 yards of a balloon without pointing it out and demanding we walk over to see it. Veronica invited the usual crew over to fawn over her on her big day. Grammy decorated each of her birthday cupcakes with either a V or a 1. Veronica appreciated the fine craftsmanship that went into creating the little masterpieces. Veronica's unwrapping skills have improved since Christmas, although she still needed a little help. And there were all kinds of presents. There were some loud toys and some quiet toys and Veronica enjoyed them all. A happy birthday for sure.

We here at Veronica Tales never need much of an excuse to post tubby pics, but last night was especially fun. Veronica has enjoyed playing in bubble baths for the past few nights. And last night Daddy enjoyed playing with the bubbles too. Let's see the crew at Project Runway make bubbles look this good.

As Veronica approaches her first birthday, she is ready to wean off of formula and graduate to the next step. And here in the Northwest, that means lattes. Veronica woke up rather bleary eyed on Sunday morning and Mama took her down to Starbucks for her indoctrination. Apparently Vv has been watching because she knew exactly what to do with it. She even knew how to prove she was done chugging... not sure where or who she picked that up from.

Pa-sgeghtti

Maybe Daddy should have made meatballs? Veronica thoroughly enjoyed dinner this week… and I mean thoroughly. Daddy excitedly made a new recipe for Bolognese sauce and Veronica couldn’t get enough of it. We may have to shelve Bolognese sauce in favor of meatballs until Vv can learn to handle a spoon. So yes, as we enter Fall in Seattle it is cloudy with a chance of meatballs.
Given Veronica’s skill for pointing out dogs and birds, it was time to upgrade to zoo animals. Mama and Veronica started taking weekly trips to see all kinds of new animals. Large, flightless birds are currently her favorite. Snakes are not.
Veronica received her first first birthday present this week and it's bumper-to-bumper on the rainbow bridge. Many thanks to Auntie Mer and Auntie Fran. The songs are infectious and the box says it's appropriate up to 36 months... so really, many thanks.

My angel wanna wear her new shoes

Veronica got her first pair of shoes this weekend. Vv loves to walk outside and it very quickly became clear that her soft leather soled Robeez weren't going to cut it in the great outdoors. We walked around the yard and down to the park... ok, she was carried most of the way to the park... but, the robeez looked much worse for wear and we decided to make the step up to shoes. Now armed with shoes, the rough streets of Seattle don't stand a chance.

And a further sign of the times is Veronica's growing vocabulary. She learned the sign for milk a few weeks ago and has been helpfully telling us when it's time for another bottle ever since. The sign for 'more' quickly followed and she has been helpfully telling us when the first bottle didn't have enough formula in it ever since. Veronica came up with her third sign on her own. Or more accurately, she co-opted waving 'goodbye' to mean 'outside'. For instance, Daddy waves 'goodbye' in the morning and heads outside to go to work. So logically, when Veronica wants to go outside she starts waving at us. Now she stands by the front door waving at us until we take her 'outside'. And just tonight she starting signing 'dog' after meeting Auntie Jen's new dog Sasha.

The Tivo was alive with the Sound of Music this week. Mama thoroughly enjoyed sharing the family Von Trapp with Vv for the first time. Veronica has only seen a few scenes so far. Even with the entranced state she enters when we let her watch tv, the Sound of Music is going to take a while to get through with Daddy whining about it in the background the whole time.

Stepping Up

Mere days before turning 11 months old, Veronica began doing the unexpected. Okay, maybe we should have seen this coming with all the standing from three blog posts ago, but look at her go! She can nearly walk all the way across the room and yesterday she actually ran for a bit, although she may have just had too much momentum behind her. Vv only started crawling 4 months ago and it looks like she may be done with it in another week. Unbelievable.

Veronica had visitors from north of the border this week. Alex and Tim live in Ontario, but were visiting Vancouver, B.C. (Alex's hometown) this week. They made the mere 3 hour drive from B.C. and had to pass a pop quiz at the border just to meet Veronica. The visit was short, but seeing them was sweet. Come back soon.

And lastly, some gratuitous pictures of Veronica on a swing. Daycare was closed today, so Daddy had to sneak out for the afternoon to watch Vv.

(UPDATE!): Better videos of Veronica walking have surfaced. She is cruising right along and picking up souvenirs along the way. What do you think Vv, is walking hard?

Zoo tunes

Veronica attended her first concert last weekend. And no, she isn't yawning in the picture, she's learning to blow kisses. We saw Nanci Griffith at the Woodland Park Zoo as part of the summer Zoo Tunes series. And for you trivia buffs, both Mama's and Vv's first concerts featured a rendition of "If I had a hammer". We went to the show with Heaters, who (mis)behaved like their usual goofy selves. Is that any way to behave at a rock concert hosted by animals? Veronica of course had a great time since the concert featured all of her favorites: live music, big kids, and dancing (sorry, Veronica Tales' official videographer was too slow to capture live action).