A very Merry Christmas from the Jensens! It is especially exciting to celebrate Christmas with a little girl who came out the first morning we had the Christmas tree up and just stood there saying, “tree – pretty lights!!!” This year we celebrated our family Christmas early, since we were with extended family on Christmas day. We chose a night to have “Christmas,” and we had a special dinner and then went to Main Street in Arlington to look at the Christmas lights.

Afterwards we came home and let Becca open her first gift – Christmas pajamas. Becca and I went out looking for her Christmas pajamas a few weeks ago and she’s been excited about getting them. She loves how soft they are and was delighted to finally be allowed to wear them. After the Christmas pj’s, we sang a carol and read the Christmas story from Luke 2. Then we let Becca open the rest of her Christmas gifts. She was quite pleased with everything, but the highlight for her was getting a Snow White book! Josh and I both received some very enthusiastic thanks and kisses thanking us for the gifts. Christmas with a toddler is priceless!

Josh gave me some very special gifts for Christmas – even made me cry, but that’s for another post.

We’ll post more on Christmas later, but for now I’ll close with a few pictures of some other Christmas activities: Making Christmas ornaments and delivering cookies to our neighbors (in front of Becca’s Christmas wreath).

Josh and I put up the Christmas tree (thanks Aunt Rita for letting us borrow it again!) the first Friday night in December while Becca was sleeping. Saturday morning, we put the lights on before Becca got out of bed. Becca was so amazed and delighted – “Tree – pretty lights.” The following night Josh put up light around our living room. It’s so cozy with all the lights on.

The night of the Arlington Christmas parade it rained. We decided that we didn’t want to attend a parade in rainy weather. I was really disappointed, since I’ve been looking forward to the parade since last year’s. I thought Becca would really enjoy it. Josh decided since we didn’t go to the parade, we should have our own. So we put our “parade clothes”on, got our instruments, and paraded around our home.

Becca got an early Christmas present – a front facing car seat. Becca loves her new seat. She loves facing forward. You can see from the pictures of her first ride, that she was quite delighted. Three days after getting her new seat, Becca was still laughing with delight every time we went somewhere.

We saw a really neat house in Plano, TX. Gordon Lights is a home that synchronizes their Christmas lights to music. It’s quite impressive. The entire cycle of songs is about 30 mins. Becca loves the lights…she said, “Becca so happy!”

If you’re interested in seeing a bit of what we saw, here’s a youtube link to one of the songs they did.

Here’s a post filled with random details. One of the great things about being a mama is that every day is filled with all sorts of delightful randomness. Randomness that makes me stop and smile and think, “I love being Josh’s wife and Becca’s mama.” Becca’s big accomplishment for this week is climbing out of her bed (a pack-n-play). She successfully climbed out twice during nap time. The first time she was crying that she had to go potty (a typical nap-time escape routine); the second time she played in her room for quite some time before she appeared to me – quite proud of herself. When I asked her to show me what she did, she was quite excited and I was shocked to see her do a full flip, landing on her back. (I was thinking, “THIS is how you get out of bed?!) She stood up and said “Becca really funny,” but when I asked her if she was hurt, she started crying. I guess that’s not how her two first escapes went; ever since that third experience she hasn’t tried getting out of bed again. (However, a few times since then we’ve gone into her room and found her in the pack-n-play when we hadn’t put her there. Apparently she likes climbing in to play with her “friends” — who all get thrown in first.)

Above is a sneak peak at Becca’s Christmas dress. I figured since Christmas is on a Sunday this year, Becca better have a nice dress to wear to church.

What you see on the left is what we call “magic underwear.” For quite some time I’d been wanting to get Becca some big girl underwear to see if it provided any extra motivation in taking a break from her playing and going to the potty. I found out that most stores don’t carry underwear for a little girl like ours. The smallest I could find is for 30lbs: Becca is 24.5lbs, but it worked. Becca enjoys wearing her magic underwear and so far it’s proved to be useful in helping her go to the potty.

This weekend we had dinner with some of Josh’s former Thai students. Dow (next to Amy in photo) finished her Ph.D this semester and is returning to Thailand at the end of this month. Dow treated us to a wonderful Thai meal to thank Josh for reading her dissertation to help with the English grammar. Both Dow and Mook made sure that we didn’t eat anything too “simple.” We enjoyed our time with them. Becca liked the fish tank, except the largest fish frightened her. When it started swimming towards her she yelled “Nooooooooooooooooo!!!” It was really cute.

A few months ago a family from our church gave us their daughter’s kitchen set. It’s an amazing set, including fridge, sink, stove, and oven, with a full set of dishes, coffee maker, food, pizza (with removable toppings), and all sorts of kitchen gadgets. Becca’s favorite things are the plastic cookies and the pizza. Moms, it’s the kind of kitchen we dreamed of having when we were little girls. We’re very thankful to the Countrymans for their generosity to our family.

This past week Becca decided her legs were getting dry and that lotion would be the solution. Only problem was that she forgot to roll up her pants and in the process she moisturized the couch, too. [Another lesson to Daddy that I should should check quickly when things get quiet. -JJ]

Becca is enjoying Mama’s Christmas cookie baking. She loves cookie dough. Becca continues to enjoy reading. We got 7 new books at the library and read them all in one sitting as soon as we returned from the library (including 2 Curious George books – lots of words).

Friday night, Josh surprised me by taking me to hear one of our favorite singer/song writers. I thought we were meeting Dow and Mook for supper, but was shocked when we went to the concert. I had no clue where we were going. We got to hear one of our favorite songs, Planting Trees, as well as a series of songs going from Creation to the birth of Christ. The Matthew genealogy is one I hope to learn one day.

From Becca’s annual spoon picture, you can see she’s come a long way since Nov. 2009. Her current weight is 24 lbs. and 7 oz. (19th percentile) and height is 32 in. (8th percentile). She might be on the small size but right on track compared with my 2-year-old stats (weight 22.3lbs; length 32.5in.) . . . she’s small just like her mama! Dr. Raine gave Becca a glowing report. We’re very thankful for the good health God has given her these past 2 years.

We had a wonderful day celebrating Becca’s 2nd birthday. I told Becca that we were going to go to Chick-fil-A on Saturday for her birthday. During the week whenever I’d talk about Becca’s birthday she would tell me that we were going to Chick-fil-A on Saturday! But before we went to Chick-fil-A, we had a little surprise for Becca . . . bounce houses! Our mall has a place with lots of bounce houses. Becca was quite delighted to get to “fall down” again. After our fun outing, we had more Flopsie cake and we opened presents. Then we went for our annual visit to the NICU to thank our nurses for taking care of Becca.

My sister Emily visited with us for a week at Thanksgiving (Tuesday to Tuesday). We really enjoyed having her with us – she’s the perfect house guest and was a great help at Thanksgiving and with Becca’s party. Becca loved her Aunt Ememememe. When we were at the Woods, Becca would go to see Emily in her room every morning. I’m not sure exactly what they did up there, but Becca got a make-over one morning. Becca cried the morning I told her that Aunt Emily had to go away to her own home. Becca pointed to the bed and said “Aunt Ememememem – right here!”

One other fun thing we did as part of house-sitting was enjoy the Woods’ outdoor hot tub. They told us we could heat it up, so we saved it for the Friday night after Thanksgiving. Becca loved it and so did we. Josh and Emily warmed up in the hot tub and then jumped in the freezing pool and then hurried back into the hot tub . . . Becca and I watched. The same night, Becca got to stay up past 7  to watch the Hoops and Yoyo Christmas special on TV and Elf on a Shelf. We told her it was part of her birthday celebration. And of course, Emily and I just enjoyed being sisters.

A big thanks to Emily for all her picture taking!

The day before Thanksgiving, Becca and I went to the Fort Worth Zoo with my sister Emily. I wasn’t sure the weather was going to be good for zoo-ing, but it turned out to be a perfect day to visit the zoo. Each time we go to the zoo, Becca seems to enjoy it more. This visit she got some close up views of several animals. She was delighted to sit on the alligator’s back, since we have a little rhyme about alligators that she enjoys saying.

A big highlight for Becca was riding the train. She really enjoys trains and once I said we were going to go on a train ride, Becca’s thoughts were focused on one thing – TRAIN RIDE! Another interesting experience was feeding the hungry birds. Once you had a seed stick in your hand, the birds were very eager to be your friend. Becca wasn’t too sure of what she thought of having birds up so close to her. She kept saying “no thank you! no thank you!” We had a great day at the zoo – thanks Grammy for sending Aunt Emily with $$!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was the best Thanksgiving we’ve had in a few years and we’re thanking the Lord for an excellent day. Emily was a great help with all the preparations. Just like last year, the turkey and Becca were close in weight. Our turkey was 20lbs and Becca is 24lbs.

We were house sitting at the Wood’s (same house we were at this past summer) for 10 days and the extra room gave us the opportunity to invite more people than we would have been able to in our apartment. We had two families from our church – the Countryman and the Rodriguez families. Both are families without any relatives in the area. We had a wonderful time of fellowship with them all. After our meal, we had a little birthday party for Becca.

(Josh here to wrap things up by linking to funny a little video I made last week using footage I recorded during one of my research trips this summer. The link goes to the previous post.)