Sunday night Becca transitioned into a toddler bed. I’ve been delaying the transition due to timing, problems she’s been having sleeping through the night, and the fact that I’m never anxious to move Becca to the next step of growing up. It just so happens that the day Josh decided to put the bed together was also the day that Becca took a nap from 2:30-5:15 (very unusual). We’ve taught Becca to stay in her pack-n-play, so she understood staying in her bed. However, the excitement of a new bed and her extra rest resulted in Becca’s happy chatter in bed until 10PM. She’s done this before in her pack-n-play, but without us wondering if her little face was going to appear any moment. Around 4AM I heard a noise and then little feet running across our bedroom carpet. Then there was Becca next to my head (accompanied by Flopsie and Naaman) asking to come in Mama’s bed. I couldn’t resist the sweet little girl’s request; however, this will not become a common event. Since Sunday Becca has done a super job staying in bed. She still takes forever to fall asleep, is waking up during the night, and getting up wide awake between 6-6:30, but besides that, all is going well.

Next door to our apartment complex there is a community garden, where people can rent plots for a year. We’ve been able to get a plot (4×20′) and are planning to start our little garden. Our idea is to focus on growing produce that is more expensive to buy. This past weekend, Josh replaced the sandy soil with very nice compost. Becca enjoys being in the garden and we’ve been able to meet many other gardeners.

And a quick overview of the week: Friday night we had the Hsu family (piano students) over for a meal. The next day was normal Saturday morning piano teaching, and Josh worked in the garden in the afternoon. That evening Josh took me out to buy me headphones for my piano – so I can play when Becca is sleeping! Sunday – church and garden work. Monday Becca and I had Anna over for lunch. Tuesday Becca and I spent the day with Yani and Amaris; we were out from 9:30AM to 6PM. We went to the Dallas Arboretum, and the weather ended up being beautiful. Wednesday Becca and I went on our weekly library trip and I taught piano lessons. And Josh – well he goes to school every morning to work on his dissertation and do department work.

Here’s my belated record of some of the special presents we exchanged at Christmas. Josh complied two very nice song text books for our family. The Jensen Family Hymns 2010-2012 contains all the texts of the hymns we’ve memorized and plan to memorize this year. Josh got two copies – one hardback and one paperback. The paperback is very nice for using on Sundays on our way to church when we need some help with the words. Sing Ye Merry is the same idea but with Christmas texts [and a weird title -jj]. It was a really sweet gift that we’re enjoying. My other really special gift was an ornament in memory of the little one we lost last year. Mrs. Millard gave us one for Becca the Christmas she was born and for a long time I’ve wanted one to commemorate our little one. The gift was totally unexpected and resulted in instant tears. My special gift to Josh is a calendar with family pictures. I then take the calendar and write Josh a special love message to read each night of the year. It takes me a while to write all the messages . . . last year (with dissertations deadlines, etc) I didn’t finished the writing until June.