No Safe Place (at least for a almost 2 yr old)

As Ja`el gets older, I find that I am learning that there are many more potential dangers in this world than I thought. Take this morning, for instance. While Jon was outside burning things (think Beavice and Butthead--"hehe. fire, fire.") I decided to take a shower and get ready for the day. I set Ja`el up with some toys, etc in the bathroom and we were good to go. After I got out, I let her go in and stomp around in the puddles while I continued to get myself put together. Mind you, I took special precaution to put all the dangerous items out of reach and thought we were covered until, a few moments later, I heard Ja`el say "stuck". She then followed it with a more panicked "FINGERS! STUCK!!" I ran to the shower and, sure enough, she had stuck one of her fingers into the drain holes and couldnt get it out. Thankfully it wasnt so bad as she sounded and after a little more water and a slight tug, we got the stuck finger unstuck. She cut it pretty good and howled even better, but alas, we now know not to stick our fingers into shower drain holes...or any drain hole for that matter.

Swimming lessons

I have a fish for a daughter. I had a small inkling that swimming would be her thing when she would yell "BATHTIME!!" every time we crossed the long bridge and completely bypass all the toys at the park and head for the lake when we are at city beach. She is a water baby. I kept trying to describe swim lessons to her this morning and afternoon, but I dont think she really got the full picture until we were at at the gym, looking at the Olympic sized pool, full of "friends" swimming and splashing. She was literally squealing with excitement. There were about 9 other parent/child pairs in the group for our first swim lesson tonight, but none happier than my daughter and myself. Daddy came and joined us for a little while before starting his own workout and was able to capture some of the excitement. Although she didnt cry when we got out of the pool like I was expecting, she talked about it the whole way home. We cannot wait until our next lesson on Thursday!

Easter in Sandpoint

So Jael is growing faster than we could have imagined and so we thought we'd share a bit of what she looked like this Resurrection Day(Easter). There's aprox 175 pictures we took narrowed it down to about 15 and that's still a bit much to post here, until l looked at that cool publish feature in Shutterfly. Enjoy! But here's a few teaser pics.

14 pictures
View Album at Shutterfly

That was AWESOME!!

So Ja`el was playing in the hall with her sippy full of water and she spilled some on the floor. Saying more to myself than to her I said "so are you going to clean that?" Then down the hallway she goes, I was assuming to her bedroom. She instead comes back from the bathroom with one of her washclothes and starts to clean up her mess!!!! Of course, she then proceeded to spill more water onto the floor in order to continue cleaning, but I am so proud!

The Great Skiing Adventure

If there was any doubt of this fact, there isn't anymore. Ja`el loves skiing and her Carharts. With squeals of delight she was enjoying the 50 degree weather and the soft spring snow while sliding down a hill in our yard. Uncle Jimbo, Auntie Erin, Mom and Dad all pushed her around in the snow. She started to shuffle by herself but preferred the sliding around letting gravity do it's thing.

I don't know about you all, but this looks like a Tele turn.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

This may very well be the best pic ever.

Ja`el's New Love

Although she still loves playing in the snow, I believe Ja`el is just as ready for warm, sunny weather as the rest of us. We had a small taste of it when we went to visit Jon's family in Boise and my sister's family in Twin Falls last week. It was clear and above 40 degrees most of the time; but, most importantly, there was no snow. So, as any self respecting North Idaho-ian would do, we spent as much time as we could outdoors. This included daily trips to the park. And this is where Ja`el fell in love. She loves the "wees" (this word, I believe, means both "swing" and "slide"). She loves playing the the sand. She loves going on walks. She simply loves being outside. Therefore you can imagen her disappointment when we came back to rainy, wet Sandpoint. Not only do we not have her "Ja`el's" here, but the parks are still covered in snow and ice. This last week back has NOT been fun. Here she is, stuck with boring ol' mom, in a place where she can only be outside for about 20 min before she is soaked and shivering. She is even waking up in the middle of the night shouting "Wee!", "walking!", and "Ja`el!". I can safely say for the both of us, we are ready for Spring.
The tube slide is her favorite.












Love this girl.

This is what happens when we leave the park. :(