Chicago

We were in Chicago for Bruce's wedding, here are some pics from Lake Michigan, Lincoln Park Zoo and the nature museum. The lakefront district was very impressive with acres and acres of parks and museums. You could park at the zoo and go there and the beach in a single morning - we really had a great time and here is the whole album.

Cecilia's 3rd Birthday

The day started out with Grandma and Cecilia making frosting for the decorate-your-own-cupcake activity for Cecilia's party. There is no sound to this video, but it was hilarious! I'm not if more frosting was eaten, or made...



She was so excited she couldn't eat any breakfast - she essentially had frosting for breakfast while she was helping Grandma make the different frosting colors for the cupcakes. So of course, she crashed during her own birthday party and spent about 20 minutes sitting on Mommy's lap sucking her thumb. But she rallied and had a great time the whole day!

Here are some highlights.

Blowing out candles and decorating your own cupcake. The kids surprisingly did not make much of a mess! Cecilia was soooo excited about decorating your own cupcake, but in the end, she just wanted to eat the one that already had her candles in it.

 

Opening presents (with just family afterwards):

As you may be able to tell, Mommy made balloon animals (actually, mostly balloon swords) and Auntie Jen was awesome painting faces!

The full set of pictures can be found here.

Belmont Town Fair

In May we went to the Belmont Town Fair, which was an absolute madhouse, and one of those odd days in the spring that hit 90-something degrees. Nevertheless, there were rides, which of course Cecilia enjoyed.

The video is a little difficult to see, but here you go:

Swim class in the Spring

We started up swim classes at Boston University again in the Spring, and for the last class, they let you come in and take pictures and videos. No sound here, but you can clearly see how much Cecilia is enjoying it.



This class was "Parent-Tot C", which is the precursor to "Tots in Training", where kids transition to being in swim classes without parents!

Blowing Dandelions

In case you're wondering, the big red t-shirt is an extra small from daddy's ultimate team. Cecilia is -really- good (and really loud) at yelling "GOOOOO DADDY!!!!" during his ultimate games.

At the Playground with Nana's Crew

Feeding the Ducks and Geese

Phone is busted so no sound.

Books by Brookins

Cambridge Commons

Even though it's less than a mile away, we have so many playgrounds within a couple blocks of our house, we never made it to this one, which is very close to Harvard Square. It's a super awesome playground! Very innovative and creative, as you can partly see from this video.



We also got to go to a local fair at a church nearby, where they were having some kids' activities and used stuff for sale. The highlight for Cecilia was this huge bouncy house that was more like an obstacle course, with a huge slide at the end. She went on it 5 times in a row, and kept coming back to us for more tickets to do it again. At the end, the person admitting kids into the obstacle course let her go on it a couple of times for free.

With the Lubrettsky's

One weekend in May, we had to leave Cecilia with her cousins for a couple days. Doesn't look like she was suffering too much:

She went to a Christening with Ben, Jen, Aaron and Jacob, got to wear her super pretty dress, and played with Olivia and Abby for hours. Sounds like a pretty good time...

Haverhill Kids Fest

In early May we went to a little rinky dink Kids Fest, held in a huge parking lot of a small nearby town. I gotta be honest, the main reason we went was because they advertised a few bouncy houses, which Cecilia was hugely into at the time.



But they did a great job! It started out with a stuffed animal/doll parade:

And was complete with face-painting:

They also had an awesome drumming circle:



And an animal demonstration. The turtle crawled all the way across the parking lot!



All in all, a very good time. :)