Settling into 2015

Hi everyone! Seems like we should post at least a little something about 2015 before Phoebe’s…wait for it…fifth birthday! What a joyful five years it’s been.

Here are a couple videos from mid-January; for Christmas Benjamin got a doll who sits on the potty. Benjamin isn’t ready to start potty-training yet, but we figured it couldn’t hurt to increase his exposure to the idea.

In January, we had strangely lovely weather. While others around the country were suffering through horrible snowfalls and bitter cold, we were out biking in the sunshine. January 28 was Winter Bike-to-Work Day, and the kids and I rode to daycare together. Now that Phoebe can ride a pedal bike, the mile and a half to Take-A-Break takes a lot less time! I pulled Benjamin in the Chariot, which I left at daycare in order to ride to work.

On February 7, we had another glorious day, so we took advantage of it by going for a long bike ride with a classmate of Phoebe’s, Fritz, and his parents. They live only a mile away from us, right on the Coal Creek Trail, and we made it 6 miles that day, with a stop at a playground to run around and eat some snacks.

In mid-February, we finally moved Benjamin to a seat at the table; Dave has never liked having a bulky high chair sitting around, and Benjamin was eager to start using a booster seat. Now the mess goes on the table instead of onto the tray!

February 14

A good way to spend part of Valentine’s Day: baking chocolate chip cookies! I always have some helpers in the kitchen.

On February 21, the weather forecasters promised a big snowstorm. For a while, we got hard little round pellets of snow and a lot of wind. The snow did pile up over the course of the weekend, but since it was spread out over two days, it wasn’t too bad. No one had to drive to work, so that helped, and church was canceled, so we took the kids swimming at the rec center on Sunday morning.

February 22

Phoebe has been working a lot on her reading lately. She’s finally interested enough to stick with it! She occasionally deigns to let Benjamin look on, and she’s done a lot of work on a couple of young reader books like Go, Dog, Go!

February 26

March 5

My mom asked if Benjamin is getting any better at eating with utensils. Here’s the video evidence!

March 7
The kids and I made a pineapple upside-down cake and blueberry muffins this afternoon.