2005. Can you believe it? It's finally here. Ours got off with a bang. People in the neighborhood were shooting off fireworks starting around 11pm (after we went to bed...pathetic, I know) and it was constant until well after 12:30am. Someone actually fired up an electric guitar and got away with playing it for 15 minutes before someone apparently told them to cut it out. Needless to say, we didn't sleep much that night. The girls seemed to sleep through it though, and we actually got to sleep in all the way until 6:22am!
Phoebe is a whirling, twirling, running in circles dervish these days. She's our little tank. She runs around the house, falls down, runs into stuff, falls over her sister, gets back up and starts over again. She actually slid on her knees on the kitchen floor for a little ways, then she got back up and took off again. She's very helpful around the house when she wants to be. She likes to help pick up most of the time, and she gets the changing pad out for herself. She can also get herself completely undressed...which isn't so helpful all the time. Phoebe is just talking, talking, talking. She's starting to use multi-word sentences. Mostly 2 and 3 word sentences. Phoebe has started her winter class at THPRD, movement includes learning to walk like a bear, singing songs like "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes," log rolling down an incline, climbing over, under, and through gym equipment, jumping on a tiny trampoline, and walking on a balance beam placed on the floor. She also liked watching Ellen's first ballet class and imitating some of the moves there. She doesn't miss much. She's really started enjoying reading more. She'll sit and listen to some long books. Though when she's looking at them herself, she still looks at some of them upside down. Not sure why.
As mentioned above, Ellen started her new winter class too. Ballet and tap. She'll do 4 weeks at ballet and 4 weeks of tap. They're starting with ballet, but for the first class we hadn't gotten her a dance outfit yet. She was disappointed when the other girls were wearing outfits. She spent most of the class following the other kids around, but not really doing any of the moves herself. But when she got home, she was able to do them all perfectly. She always pays attention, even when we don't think that she is. Neither of them miss much that's going on. The last day of the month was supposed to be a Zoo class on elephants for Ellen. I had scheduled out the day to be off already, but the night before, we got a call that the class was cancelled due to instructor illness. We were bummed, but I got to spend the day with the girls anyway. We did a bit of errands and then we went to the Conestoga open gym. The girls got to run around and play. Ellen makes friends to play with easily. She was running around and playing in the houses and play structures with a bunch of the kids that were there. Phoebe, on the other hand, didn't really know what to make of the place. There was just so much to do. There was a car that she really wanted to play with, but it was never free until Ellen ended up in it somehow. I got her to trade for a little while. Then Phoebe found a little push cart and started doing laps around the place. After about 40 minutes, she was done. Both the girls left peacefully. We did a couple errands on the way home. Ellen is really starting to try to dump her afternoon naps even though she needs them. She likes to take advantage of her ability to leave her room for potty stops. She spends a long time in the bathroom if we don't stay on top of it. It's not too bad as long as she stays quiet and doesn't wake Phoebe, but the problem is, she'll keep herself awake until it's almost time for the end of naps and then fall asleep. Phoebe, of course, loves playing with her sister. So as soon as she leaves her room she runs straight for "Lellie's" room. Things have been going bump in the night lately too. A couple of times, Ellen has either fallen out of bed or hit her head on the wall in her room. It's been loud enough to wake us both up and run into check, but she's been fine both times. She's been having fun with all the games she got for Christmas. I have yet to beat her at Chutes and Ladders. And no cheating either, she just gets all the good ladders. I usually win at Candy Land though. That's right. I said it. I can beat my 3 year old daughter at Candy Land. She's pretty good at Boggle Jr. too.
In other news and activities this month, we had a stuttered start to our festivities following New Year's day. Since we both had the Monday following off, we thought we'd go to OMSI, but much to our dismay, it is closed on Mondays. We went the following weekend, however, and had a good time. We had made plans to go out on the next weekend, but Portland experienced one of it's patented 1 day ice storms. All of Saturday, January 15, we were trapped in the house. Kids were outside sliding down our hill again. By Sunday afternoon, though, it was all gone, and everything was back to normal. No snow this year...even in the mountains. The ski areas were closed down by the end of the month due to lack of enough snow. So it looks like no skiing again this year . We were even hoping to get up to the mountain for some snow shoeing, but that's even looking remote. We'll keep thinking positively.
Next month, Birthdays!
Journal Entry: February 1, 2005