Our world changed in unimaginable ways three years ago today. It's hard to believe Veronica is "old" enough to even be three, especially when I go back and read one of our first posts, The birth of Baby V, to Littlebots. She has grown so much since that wonderful day Dan and I became parents. We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful, intelligent, humorous, and beautiful daughter. She challenges us, and sometimes we even wonder what we have gotten ourselves into as parents, yet at the end of the day we are thankful to be a part of her life.
Veronica took part in a very beautiful birthday tradition in her Montessori class today. We were given a birthday folder about a week ago and charged with the homework assignment of writing her "Celebration of Life" story. In this story, we tell about Veronica and what she can do, or her milestones, at birth, one year old, two years old, three years old, etc. As the mom or dad reads the story to the entire Montessori class, the child takes a picture of that corresponding age around the circle. Afterward, the teacher lights a candle and the child carries a globe around the circle for each year of life, followed by a singing of "Happy Birthday" and then the child blows out the candle. The entire ceremony is followed by a birthday snack. Veronica really enjoyed showing her pictures to everyone, and I enjoyed seeing her interact with her classmates.
After school, we took Veronica to Build-a-Bear as part of her birthday celebration. This was an iffy outing for two reasons. One, after school, Veronica is often exhausted, and two, we tried this same exact thing last year on her 2nd birthday, but she didn't really understand the process. So this year, we were curious how she would do when we got to the mall. She went straight to the store, inspected the animals to choose from, and at first started to build a black bear, but changed to a horse. She was very excited about her choice (she actually had been talking about horses at school today, maybe a new interest of hers, which makes mommy very happy!). She helped stuff it, put a heart in it, and then moved on to the washing and combing of her horse. Next, she went to the clothing items. She wanted a lead and a stable for her horse. Build-a-bear didn't have either, so we settled for a dog leash and a dog house for the horse. Lastly, she named her horse. This horse will now forever be known as Pal.
After our quick trip to the mall, we headed back to school for Fall Festival. Veronica had a blast hanging out with her classmates and participating in the festival activities. She really enjoyed the inflatable bouncing and slides, but didn't care for the cake walk since she didn't win the brownies she was eying. We spent the last few tickets we had a on a blue blowup guitar and a cookie, and then we left to head to Frankfort. Dan's youngest sister was in town for the day, and since she had yet to meet Warren, we wanted to take advantage of her visit. We had a great dinner and birthday cake to celebrate Veronica and Lorin's birthdays. Veronica also got some adorable dress up presents. We now have too many options for Halloween costumes!
We finally made it home and got the little ones, Warren, Veronica and Pal, all tucked into bed by 10 PM. It was a great, but very long day, and Veronica enjoyed her 3rd birthday; however, the celebration is not finished! We have more celebrations planned for Saturday and Sunday...so it will be a party-filled weekend in honor of our little princess!