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!