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.