Balance and Helpfulness

OK. I am back, and better than ever. :o) My patience has returned, and with it my sense of humor. Today I was canning again, and Jake was working on the beams for the cabin. I have some Adventures from today, but first I had better finish yesterday's...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures!!!!

So, back to yesterday. I will try and remember. Hmmmmm. I am always telling Isabela that patience is a virtue. Yesterday it was certainly not one of mine. Maya Bear was cranky and wanted to be held. Isabela wanted to be a mouse, and mice must not have to listen to their mothers. And I wanted to get a bunch of stuff done in the kitchen. None of our wants were compatible, which led to inevitable conflict. Yes, I could, and should have shifted my paradigm. I am after all the adult. There are many times that I wish that I wasn't. Sigh. Too bad we are all stubborn. I think what irritated me the most though was Isabela's eating habits. Normally, it bugs me but I can handle it when she takes a tiny bite of her lunch or supper and then announces that she doesn't like it. Or when she eats just a few bites and then says that she is full and wants to be excused. But yesterday, she did that twice(!) in a row and then got up to bed and said that she was hungry! Aargh! It is making me lose my patience again just writing about it. I thought that if I left her alone for a while about eating certain things (vegetables) that she would come to them of her own accord eventually. I didn't want to set her against vegetables for life by forcing her. However, she has become Carbohydrate Girl. Since she is growing, and developing this is very worrisome. I am afraid that her tastebuds are becoming too accustomed to refined carbs and she will never develop healthy eating habits. So, no more! This is one area in which I don't intend to regain my patience. I don't know if she could sense that or not, but today she voluntarity ate a bunch of vegetables without any prompting. I don't know where that came from, but I like it!

Kling-on Maya was not clingy today. Jake said that he could feel bumps under her gums. She won't let me stick my fingers into her mouth anymore. Ususally I am tying to get out something that she tried really hard to get in. I spoil everyone's fun! She napped very well, and was cheery the rest of the time. I am so glad to have my happy girl back again, teeth or no teeth. She is so much fun. She absolutely loves her sister and crawls after her as fast as she can, making delighted little noises. She is saying, "Mama" and "Mum" pretty regularly now. When I tell her to say "Daddy" she blows a raspberry. Maybe that is because he gives her zerbits all of the time. Anyway. She is getting so good at balancing. When she is concentrating on something else she will let go of whatever she is hanging onto and stand for a few seconds before grabbing back on or falling back onto her butt. She has no difficulty at all eating her vegetables. In fact, there is very little food that she doesn't like. Hooray! I just hope that she keeps it up.

Isabela spent today making up for yesterday. I took her dress up clothes away yesterday after she wasn't listening and head-butted me when I was putting her into time-out. This made a big impression since one of her favorte things to do is play dress-up. She still managed to change her clothes several times today. She wore a jumper without a shirt underneath, a spring dress with big red flowers, a striped pink shirt with pink pants and (aaargh!) her mouse costume. She found it in the launry when she was supposed to be napping. I came upstairs and she was on the counter in the bathroom digging in her fish tank and wearing her mouse costume. She knew that she was in trouble and didn't even object when I stripped it off and put on more normal clothing. So far it doesn't sound like it was a particularly good day, but actually it was. We told her right away that she couldn't be any animals today since she had been so naughty as a mouse yesterday, and she was really good about it. She also helped Jake in the shop and me in the kitchen. She sat on beams and supervised Jake, and kept her ear protection on. She also played in the sawdust and made a house for her "snake" (actually a coiled air hose). In the kitchen she used the apple peeler/corer/slicer for a long time. She prepared a lot of apples while I put them on drying trays. She kept at it even when it got hard. She also has been using the bathroom all by herself. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I don't even have to remind her to wash her hands most of the time. She played nicely (for the most part) with Maya Bear and even left Oberon alone.

I know that there are more funny stories, but if I want to have patience tomorrow (today, I guess), I have to get some sleep. Good night all!

Laura and the Helpful Human and the Balancing Bear

Patience, patience.

I believe that I am normally a fairly patient person. Today I somehow lost my patience vibe and couldn't seem to get it back again. Yesterday, a friend came over and we got a whole bunch of canning done in the morning. The kids played and everything was hunky-dory. Perhaps that is why today was so frustrating. It was a difficult day for all, and therefore it is time for...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures!

Isabela has very strong opinions on what she should wear most days. Yesterday it was a cute yellow spring dress that was way to big for her, complete with thick tights with hearts on them and a pink fleece sweatshirt. She kept taking off her shoes and running around in the yard. By the end of the day her tights and feet were encrusted with dirt. Today she immediately decided she was going to be a mouse, dressed up in her mouse costume and wore it ALL DAY. How bad could it be, you wonder? Well, many of you know that she likes to pretend to be a dog. Apparently, being a mouse is even more fun and she can keep it up. We were corrected whenever we tried to refer to her as Isabela (It's The Mouse, Mom). She also spent a great deal of time in the lilac bush that grows along our driveway. She believes that mice live in trees, you see.

EEK! I have to go. My computer is about to run out of juice and I didn't bring the charger up. (Mental forehead slap)

I will complete this tomorrow night if I don't get a chance any earlier. Sorry! Good night all!

Laura and the Patience Testers

Squirrel Feet, Windowsills and New Teeth

WOW! It has been a crazy couple of weeks. We went up to Rice Lake. I had my Preserve Fest. I am now almost recovered from Preserve Fest. We got a lot of things done, but it was a lot of work too. Anyway. The girls have been having a lot of fun, which brings us to...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures.

I am going to have to make this post short, since I can hardly keep my eyes open. I will also be adding pictures when I can. I left my camera cable up in Rice Lake, so the pictures are currently trapped on the camera. There are a lot of cute ones, when I finally get to it. Isabela loves having her picture taken. She is a little Diva. Yesterday she put some of the blue latex gloves we had been using for dicing hot peppers and put them on her feet. "Look Mom! Squirrel feet!" She wore them everywhere, and insisted that she was a squirrel. And since squirrels are such good climbers, logically she should be able to climb any tree she wants as high as she wants. Right? Unfortunately her very mean mother didn't agree. But she did want pictures taken of her silly squirrel feet. After putting one glove on each foot, there was only one glove remaining, so her hands had to share. Apparently squirrels have two arms, but only one hand. She found it rather difficult to do things that she felt squirrels should be doing with two hands in one glove, so eventually that idea was discarded. Instead, after being told that she couldn't bring sand in the house in a bucket (she had acquired a pet ant, which soon afterward experienced death by too much affection) she decided to use the glove to transport her sand. She managed to penetrate the Mom defenses farther than with the bucket, but still wa caught by the time she reached the kitchen. I am afraid that it is still sitting on the kitchen counter waiting either to be rescued by Isabela, or for some sort of disaster in which it spreads sand all over my floors. Although with the first option that is likely to happen as well.

Windowsills is a game that Jake and Isabela frequently play. She named it of course. Why is anyone's guess. She said that it is because they make windowsills, whatever that means. It consists of Isabela standing on our bed near the headboard and Jake standing on the floor by the side of our bed both with their arms raised above their heads. One of them falls facedown first and the other one falls on top. For some reason this is hilarious and she wants to do it "One last time" again and again ("I do not think that means what you think it means"). It is very funny to play with her because she laughs so freely that it makes you laugh too. They play right before bed, which settles her down (not).

Maya had a great weekend last weekend and wasn't needy at all. She must have been storing up for this week because, holy smokes, has she wanted to be close to me. I know that I have thought this often in the past, but she really must be getting teeth. She was running a small fever last night. That really worried me at first. I am just not used to either of them being sick at all. She also must be working on some kind of Grand Champion Slobberer award. She completely soaked a couple of onesies and dripped on anyone or anything that was close. I suppose that it is about time she got some teeth, but I love her toothless grin, and I really miss my happy girl. She has been awake much more too. We have already put her back to bed twice tonight, and she hardly slept at all today. I am quite sure that I will get little sleep tonight, but what else is new? There is no doubt that she is worth it though, and goodness knows I wouldn't be comfortable either if I had new teeth coming in. Oh no! I hear her waking up again. Gotta go!

Good night all!

Laura and The Squirrel and The Sleepless Slobberer

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know. That is a weird title, but all will be revealed! Wednesday's are our errand day, so we were all over the place today. Not much happened to me today, so I guess that I will turn it right over to...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures!

Isabela has some sock monkey pajamas that her Aunt Kerri gave her and she just loves. They have buttons up the front and she has been insisting on buttoning them up herself. In fact, she insists on buttoning and zipping everything up herself lately, even other people's clothes. Yesterday Maya had a jacket on that I had left open and Isabela couldn't stand it. I left the room for a minute and when I came back Isabela had buttoned up Maya most of the way. So much for the side story, back to the sock monkey pajamas. The buttonholes are a little too big so the buttons don't stay buttoned. This is quite frustrating for her since she has to have everything just so (Today she lined up all of her shoes in the closet in a perfect crescent shape). But she keeps plugging away and buttoning it up again. This morning all of the buttons had come undone and she finally voiced a complaint, "Mommy. My buttons keep trembling open!" Oh dear. What a way to start your day. It is no wonder that I am able to keep an optimistic viewpoint! I have humor around me all of the time.

Maya is an amazing sweetheart. She puts up with her busy sister like I cannot believe. Isabela was trying to pick her up and carry her yesterday and Maya hardly protested. I have to keep a close eye on them, because Maya just puts up with whatever Isabela dishes out. She has the best smiles too. Her whole face lights up. And the best part is, right now her whole face lights up when she sees ME. :o) She will be playing very contentedly by herself and then I will say hi to her and she will absolutely grin and start crawling toward me as fast as possible, giggling the whole way. How can you not pick her up and give her a bug hug and kiss after that? She also loves to grab my pant leg and use it to stand. Then she grins up at me and makes all kinds of baby noises. Darling.

On Wednesdays we go to an on-farm store where we buy many of our groceries and our milk. They have horses there and today we brought them a carrot. Boy did that bring all of the horses to the fence in a hurry. Isabela and Maya loved it. They both giggled a bunch. After feeding the horses the carrot (we had to break it into several pieces to be fair) Isabela requested that I pull a bunch of grass so she could keep feeding them. I finally had to call a halt to that since she could have fed them all day. She is not at all afraid of them. Surprise, surprise. And Maya didn't seem to be either. I do hope that she doesn't have her sister's fearlessness since I am not sure that I could keep up with two fearless buggers. Maya does seem to be a bit more contemplative though, so I do hold out hope for a relatively peaceful childhood.

The Bethesda Country Fair is this week and started today. That is like a giant garage sale around here. I told Isabela that we were going to the toy store and that she had one dollar to spend and could pick out one toy. She kept very busy picking out a toy while I bought shoes and clothes. She would bring a couple over to show me and I would ask her which she wanted more. She was pretty good at prioritizing and sorted through a lot of toys. When I was finally done she had one toy that she liked the best. I looked at the price and laughed. They were three for 25 cents. So, she got to bring home three more toys after all of that sorting and she didn't even spend her whole dollar. :o) While I was looking at the clothes she found a shirt that she couldn't live without. It was way too big for her, but it was pink and had a sun and ducks on it, so it had to be good. She offered to take her shirt off and try it on, but I nixed that idea, so she decided that she would put it on over her other clothes. It covered the whole outfit that she was wearing, but I bought it for her anyway because it says, "We can't all be morning people" on it. Now, that certainly doesn't apply to Maya and Isabela, but there are definitely times when it applies to Jake and me.

Maya was a good sport through the whole ordeal and only started to get crabby toward the end. When we got into the car she immediately fell asleep. Poor little pumpkin. She woke up when we got home though (10 minutes) and was immediately cheery again. She doesn't really take long naps like Isabela does, but I don't think that she expends quite as much energy either. She thinks before she moves, but Isabela just moves.

Now for the mystery of Valentine's Day. Isabela loves this holiday. Jake and I get Valentine's Day wishes almost everyday. Tonight I was even wished: "Happy Valentine's Night Mom". She usually follows it up with a heartfelt, "I LOVE you". Funny girl. We have tried explaining that it isn't Valentine's Day everyday, but so far with little effect. Oh well, it is nice to be loved.

Well, that is it for tonight. I am writing a little earlier because looking at some of my past posts, my writing leaves a lot to be desired when it gets to be that late. Hopefully this post is slightly better. I am still too tired to proofread though, so this may be just as bad. Oh well, no one is perfect.

I hope that everyone has an excellent night and a wonderful day tomorrow!

Laura and the Bubbling Buttoner and Marvelous Maya

PS - I will try and get some more pics up tomorrow.

Karate and Sleep (or lack thereof)

Today is my karate day. I take the girls with me to my morning class and then I have black belt class at night. Tonight I even had some knife fighting afterwards which was fun. I think that we are going to do that from now on. Isabela has been coming with me to my morning class since she was three months old, and that is when I started bringing Maya too...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures

Isabela loves it. She runs around like crazy and tumbles all over the mats. One of the instructors brings her daughter with her in the summer, which means even more fun. Today Isabela was rather subdued though. We were working on some tonfa and sai forms and she just sat and watched us most of the time.

I started bringing a playpen for Maya since she can now quickly crawl anywhere she wants to go. She is not a fan. I always bring lots of toys, but still receive only frowns from my youngest. Isabela was the same when she was confined to a play pen, but she got over it eventually. Maybe Maya will bear a grudge for life, but somehow I don't think that either of my good natured girls is a grudge bearer (knock on wood).

Usually on karate days both of them are pretty tired and nap time goes well. Today started out beautifully. Isabela announced that she was tired and she wanted to sleep in the guest bedroom. I said fine and next thing I know she is tucked up in bed reading herself some books. Score! Well, my elation didn't last. She went on to request lots of food (she had already eaten lunch) and received a granola bar:

Me: How can you still be hungry? What happened to the granola bar I just gave you?

Isabela: I fed it to Puggy.

Me: Isabela! That was for you. Don't feed Oberon. How much did you give him?

Isabela: Um. (Endearing grin) Lots.

It was enough to drive a person crazy. I usually let her get up if she hasn't fallen asleep by 4. At about 4 she said that she was thirsty and I brought her some water. I was going to tell her that she could get up, but then she snuggled herself in and said that she was going to rest. I kissed her and told her that she could get up in a few minutes. When I came back ten minutes later to get her she was asleep. Figures. When she does take a nap she usually sleeps for three hours. Maya, on the other hand, takes pretty short naps, and you can't occupy her with a Baby Einstein DVD either. She has zero interest in anything on the TV. She would much rather move or eat. I put a Baby Einstein in today so that I could get some dishes washed. No go. Isabela used to love them, but Maya could care less. Jake came home while it was going. I was holding her and Jake was standing in front of the TV eating some chips and talking to me. Suddenly her attention sharpened. I was surprised and I told Jake that she was interested after all. He moved out of the way so that Maya could see the TV, and that is when I realized that she was looking at the chips, not at the TV. I am fine with her not wanting to watch, it would just be nice occasionally when I want to get something done.

Karate night is Jake's night to put the girls to bed. Maya is very easy. You put her in her crib, make her giggle a little bit with a toy, say goodnight and leave. Isabela has a whole routine: brush teeth, go potty, read three books. This routine, unfortunately, does not result in instant sleep. In fact when I came home she was still up. I went upstairs to say good night and she had dressed herself up in her rabbit fur vest. She thought that this meant that she had to be a bunny so she begged me to find her rabbit ear headband, and was hopping all over the place. Silly, goofy girl. So cute though.

I am falling asleep, so I have to go before I fall asleep and drop my computer. That would be very bad. Good night everyone.

Laura and the Karate Kids :o)

PS - I don't have any pictures from today. Tomorrow I will try to get some more. Good night!

Noise and Joys

Hello, hello! I hope that everyone had a good weekend. We definitely did around here. We got the jungle gym to a point where we can pause for a little while. We don't have a slide up yet. Those buggers are expensive and we are hoping that they go one sale soon. I was hoping that we could find a used one, but so far no luck. Jake is thinking that he might build a suspension bridge from the deck to the platform on the jungle gym this winter. Isabela would love that. I guess that brings me to...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures

I was telling Jake today about some of the funny things that Isabela says. He had never heard this one although she has said it for a long time: "Mommy! Don't talk to the radio!" Whenever I am listening to public radio I tend to argue or agree out loud. Isabela even objects when I nod or shake my head now. She knows that I am paying attention to the radio and not to her. Heaven forbid.

Maya was lonely today. She hardly took a nap and wanted to be held a lot. I was trying to make grape jam and wash a mountain of dishes, so this was a little difficult. In fact I only finished the jam and dishes about a half hour ago. Everything was just slower today with a baby on my hip. I love to snuggle with her and I love it that she wants to be with me, but I do like to get things done too. She is starting to say Mum-mum-mum-mum-mum though so I can hardly resist that! She is also putting everything in her mouth that will possibly fit. Isabela today sounded just like me when she was trying to get a piece of grass from Maya: "Oh! Tch! Tch! Tch! Maya!"

Isabela had a pretty good day. She got to brush Oberon (he hated it). She chased her Dad up and down the jungle gym and fell and got hurt (scratch on her wrist, bump on her head) a couple of times which was a wonderful excuse for hysterics. And she also got to get naked in the yard. I filled up her kiddy pool on request and she stripped. I managed to get her into a bathing suit fairly soon after, but I am sure glad that we have a fence. :0)

I can't think of anything else right now. It is too late. Morning comes early around here.

Good night!

Laura and Irrepressible Isabela and Mouthy Maya

PS - This is actually being published in the morning because I fell asleep while choosing the pictures. I woke up around three with the computer still on my lap (Thank goodness!) and my light on. I think I might need to be more careful.

Maya Bear Experiments

I didn't think that I would post tonight, but I have a cute story to tell about Maya that I don't want to forget. So...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures:

The girls and I went to Madison this morning to meet up with an awesome friend of mine (Morgan) from high school that I hadn't seen in way too long. Both the girls loved her right away. No surprise and Isabela was soon cuddling with her and stealing her scone. We had a breakfast snack on the Capitol lawn and Isabela soon found friends and was playing tag and sliding down stair railings until her mean mommy took her away. I was explaining to Morgan how Isabela is very good at introducing herself (HI! My name is Isabela), but not so great at asking the kids their names. So this is the conversation according to Morgan: "HI! My name is Isabela. Your name is immaterial. Want to play? Want to run?" I laughed so hard. That is perfect. Exactly how she acts.

I brought the camera with me, but the battery ran out after only a couple of pictures of Maya and Morgan. After breakfast and a gabfest we went book shopping. Of course I am barely able to fit all of the books that I bought for Isabela onto her already overflowing shelves. I have an addiction. We read many of them tonight. She is so quick! She remembers everything and makes great connections. I think that she needs new books all the time just to keep her mind busy. That is my excuse anyway.

I forgot both a sling and Maya's pacifier. Way to go. She wanted to put grass, sticks, leaves, etc into her mouth when we were on the lawn, and carrying around a (huge) 9 month old and a stack a books wasn't something I would want to do everyday, but it was fun. She took a nap on the way home which meant that she wasn't tired at all when we got home. I kept her up for a couple of hours, and then tried putting her in her crib. She didn't protest at all, and we didn't hear anything on the monitor for a long time, so I thought that she had gone to sleep for sure. Then I came up to check on Isabela and found out that Maya was still awake. She was standing up in her crib facing away from me so I watched her for a while. She had taken one of the toys off her shelf (she can reach it from her crib) and was holding it over the side of the crib and shaking it. As I watched she took it, held it at arm's length and deliberately dropped it and then peered over the edge of the crib to examine what had happened to it. Then she turned around, sat down in her crib, took another toy and began pounding it against the mattress. Bam. Bam. Bam. Stop. Examine toy. Repeat. We might have a scientist on our hands. Either that or she has some repressed rage.

So, that is all I have for tonight. I still have a few hours before the circus begins again.

Big smiles to all!

Laura and Isabela the Intrepid and Maya the Mad Scientist

Time

Hey. You guys must think that I am a real wimp. I just realized after posting that it was early on Saturday morning that it says on my post that it is around 9 pm Friday night. I looked at all my posts and they say the same. I don't know what time zone they think that I am in, but I assure you that it has been close to midnight almost every time I have posted. 9 pm! I wish! What I would do to have all my stuff done and be in bed by then. Ha! Anyway. Good night all! Wishing you sweet dreams and an outstanding day tomorrow. Oops. I mean today. Night!

Laura

Short Post

Just a short post tonight. Or early Saturday morning I guess. Busy times around here. We worked on the Jungle Gym again. Still some to do, but Jake got another climbing thingy built. It was too dark to take pictures when he got done, but I have some from earlier today that I will put on yesterday's post. Now for a short version of...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures

Isabela learned how to answer the phone today. Jake called right when she was waking up from her nap and she answered about the same time I did. Jake and I didn't even realize that she was listening right away. Then she giggled. She was pretty pleased with herself. She asked where we were and thought that it was hilarious that I was right downstairs. She normally doesn't like to talk on the phone, but tonight when one of my friends called she wanted to talk right away. I am not sure that I like the direction that is taking. :o)

Maya is enjoying using her lungs. She makes tons of funny noises and her sister is often telling her to be quiet. Since Isabela has given Maya "time-outs" in the past, I am surprised that she hasn't tried that recently since she is quite upset when Maya doesn't listen to her instructions. Maya is a Mommy's girl these days. I know that it will switch again, but I am enjoying it at the moment. When she cuddles and lays her head on my shoulder it is the cutest thing in the world. She mostly wants to move around though. She tries to stand and climb on everything. She moves with much more deliberation than Isabela did, so I don't have quite the worries that I had with Isabela (yet).

Man, I would say more, but I really have to go to bed. We are meeting a friend in Madison in the morning, so I have to get everybody ready to go and out the door by 8. Not an easy task let me assure you. Isabela needs to eat at least twice in the morning or she will perish of hunger. Gotta go.

Laura and the Clambering Children

Jungle Gym

Jake has been building a jungle gym for the girls. Like most of our projects it started out as a simple idea, but quickly snowballed. They are now going to have a deluxe jungle gym. Go figure. Jake was talking at first about having some mechanical thing where they could turn a wheel and move the whole thing side to side, but thank goodness that idea got scrapped or we would be working on it all winter. It is still pretty fancy though, and I admit I have added to that. Today I spent a few hours working on the canopy for it. I picked out stencils at the craft store with the girls yesterday and today we painted. But I am getting ahead of myself...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures!

Last thing first. I had a bunch of dishes to do tonight, so Jake volunteered to put Bela Boo to bed. She objected quite strongly and even told him that he was "not a good reader boy". I told him not to feel too bad though since she told people once that her mom couldn't read. We finally compromised that he would get her ready for bed and I would come up and read to her. Of course once they started playing she regally consented to let him read to her. She has been "reading" too. She has a few books that she has memorized and she is always excited to "read" them to us. She knows all of her letters now, although she sometimes has trouble with different fonts. She especially likes to read the letters on my shirts. If I try to move when she is doing this she instructs me to "sit right down and hold still" so that she can read.

Maya went to sleep early tonight, right before Jake got home. She did wake up again though, about 10 or so. She hadn't had much for supper so we brought her downstairs and fed her a little. That girl sure knows how to be cute! If you smile at her she giggles; if you make a face at her she giggles; if you wave at her she giggles. She is as sunshiny as her sister. She has another cute move too where she tilts her head way to the side and smiles a cute little smile. Jake is doomed. These girls have him wrapped around their little fingers. She was pretty happy to see Daddy, and he was thrilled to get to see her. They love each other so much. They even snuggled a couple of mornings ago and took a little nap. Very nice for both of them since they don't often get the chance.

This morning our bed was like an airport. Jake was in and out getting Maya, putting her back, getting her again. And then of course Isabela flew in too. She was very snuggly this morning for a change, and actually snuggly too, not Isabela-snuggly. She was playing the concerned sister, a role which she is excellent at when she chooses to assume it. Maya was tired, but struggling to stay awake. Isabela was patting her back saying, "Shhh Maya. It's OK. Shhh."
Very cute and it actually worked. Maya went back to sleep for a little while. Amazingly enough, Isabela was being soothing. Sometimes she tries to be soothing, but is just loud. I think my little girl is growing up. Sniff. Sniff.

Back to the jungle gym. Today it rained all day so we couldn't work on it, but yesterday we got a bunch done. We got a rope up and now Isabela can climb right up her climbing wall. She doesn't have a good way of getting down yet though, so I had to rescue her every time she got up to the platform. Then of course she would run back around to climb up again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. She has been helpful as well. She helped Jake hold up a board yesterday, and today she "helped" me stencil on the canvas for her canopy. "Whoops! I got paint on your hand Mommy! Whoops! I got paint on you again!" And so on and so forth. I did most of it during her naptime and finished it tonight after she went to bed. Our neighbors are going to have a great view of it, so I thought it best that it wasn't too creative. :o) Maya was in the swing while we worked, and as usual got a kick out of all of the activity. She loves the swing, she loves being outside and I think that she loves the view up there. I don't have any good pictures of the jungle gym right now, but I will take some tomorrow and post them. In fact, I think that I will post all of the pictures for this post tomorrow. I am tired and my computer is running out of juice.

Good night and good luck!

Baby Alexa

Well, here I am again. This format is much easier for me. After spending the weekend in RL working on our driveway - lots done by the way - we took a detour to La Crosse. Jake's brother Mike and his wife Gretchen just had their first child, a little girl. They named her Alexa and she was only a week old when we saw her yesterday! What a little cutie! Jake and I are thrilled to be an uncle and aunt and the girls finally have a cousin! And I guess that brings me to...

Isabela and Maya's Adventures!

We told Isabela at the beginning of the weekend that we were going to go see Baby Alexa before we went home. She asked about it all weekend, and as you can see she was pretty excited! She was very gentle, but tended to pet her like a dog. Not really a surprise, she would do the same thing to Maya. Maya, on the other hand, didn't seem at all interested. I thought that she would be since she loves to watch Tyson, our little neighbor who is only about two months younger than her. But I guess that Alexa just can't hold her attention now, especially since she is used to having noise and movement all of the time with her big sister around. As Alexa gets older and starts to move around more I know that Maya will pay more attention. After a few years their age difference will hardly matter and they will hopefully get lots of chances to play.

Today Maya needed some loving. I guess that she missed me, which is nice, but meant that I didn't get much done. I held her a lot and that seemed to do the trick. Tomorrow I am sure that she will be off exploring again! She wants to stand all of the time. I am thinking about moving the stools out of the kitchen since I am afraid she is going to pull them over onto herself. She is much more stable than Isabela was. Isabela's butt would wiggle all over the place when she tried to stand, but Maya is pretty firmly planted. Today I put the Dancing Bandstand back together. Isabela loved that toy and would always attack the dancing monkey on the top. Maya made an immediate grab for the monkey, but then seemed to lose interest. Maybe tomorrow she will want to play with it more, when she is feeling more secure about Mommy sticking around.

Isabela took a long time to take a nap. She dug out a bunch of dress-up clothes and tried them all on. She finally settled on a red sequin bedecked dancing costume. She looked pretty fancy. After taking a pretty short nap she woke up screaming. She took maybe an hour to settle down. I don't know why she occasionally does that. I think that it might just take her that long to completely wake up sometimes. I tried to get some video so that I could hold it over her later in life, but of course the battery was dead. Bummer. When she was finally able to function again I showed her how to play with Starfall on the computer. We had tried this program a few months ago, but she wasn't into it. Now however, since she has been asking what letter all kinds of words start with, we tried it again with success. She still needs help with moving the mouse, but overall did very well.

Sorry, I haven't been posting very funny stories. Just wait, I have several that I should write down, and there are always stories in progress. Now, I have to go to bed so that I can greet the day with the same cheer that my little girls show!

Good night all!

Laura and Isabela the Screaming Dancer and Maya Missing Mommy