March

More. Snow.

Then the snow melted and it started to feel like Spring....

Loves from our neighbor's horse (we let her use our field for grazing)

My favorite moments!  Sunshine, soil, seeds!

Spring break trip to the coast

Jaxon learns to ride his pedal bike in about 10 minutes.  It was amazing!

"Mommy come take my picture while I dunk the ball"

March is here.  Winter is trying to stick around.  We had some more snow days and the kids were both well enough to enjoy the snow.  Mid month we all got sick and I ended up with laryngitis and lost my voice for a week.  By the end of the month I was still struggling to get all of my octaves back.

We did have some dry days.  We took advantage of them and took a few hikes, worked in the garden, and made a trip to Newport for a day during spring break.  Jaxon also learned to ride his bike.  He had been doing very well on his strider bike and we decided it was time to try a real bike with pedals.  Our neighbors ended up giving us a bike and we had to convince him to try it.  He was a little bit nervous but was off and pedaling in no time at all.  It took Sierra a lot longer to learn after using training wheels, so I highly recommend the balance bikes!  We made several trips to town to let the kids ride on concrete rather than gravel.  They have a great time and we get a workout trying to keep up with them on our feet.

Once the weather starts to turn, I have a hard time keeping Jaxon busy enough inside on the rainy days.  We've played a million games, read the same books over and over, and so I try to come up with some physical activities to wear him out :)  He loves it when I watch him play basketball (it would be great if he would do it himself while I did laundry but that's asking too much I guess), we bundle up in rain gear and he loves to ride through the puddles on his bike, and he also likes to play badminton (we use a balloon and pass it back and forth between the rackets), and catch.  I guess the benefit is that I get some exercise too.  We are all ready for Spring.  It can't come soon enough!

February

More cooties.

Celebrating Sierra's fantastic report card at Applebees

Jaxon is 5!

We had more snow this month.  And more cooties.  Sierra ended up with a flu bug.  She had a fever for several days, eye pain, joint pain, and in the end the virus ended up causing some inflammation in her legs and for several days she couldn't walk without crying in pain.  We ended up taking her in for an ultrasound and they found it just to be inflammation due to the virus.  No fun :(  It's been a bad year for germs! 

Jaxon ended up being healthy for the first time since his birth for his birthday though.  He turned 5 years old this month.  I'm still trying to process the fact that he will go to school in the fall.  He sure is ready academically.  He can count to 100, read 3 and four letter words, add and subtract single digits, knows all his shapes/colors/letters/numbers.  We are working on his handwriting because that still is a struggle for him.  He has a hard time gripping the pencil correctly so I bought some grips that will hopefully help with his finger placement.  We had a low key party for him with a homemade Ninjago cake from Grandma Shelly. 

Sierra continues to amaze us academically at school.  Her report card was full of E's (they don't get letter grades at this point but get graded based on whether or not they are below, meet, or exceed the benchmarks).  It's a joy to see her love to learn and really enjoy school. 

We are continuing to get snow.  The kids love it (Sierra has been sick both of the last times it has snowed) and so does Sugar the dog.  I don't mind if it snows and melts within a day but the days on end of frozen ground definitely are not my favorite.  I'm praying for Spring in hopes that it will bring sunshine and health for us all.