Rebecca is 20 months old today! We're quicly approaching the 2 year mark. That's just crazy. We're excited to be celebrating Rebecca's 2nd Christmas next week. Rebecca is much more into everything this year. She's definitely fascinated with the tree, the lights and the ornaments. Only a few ornaments on the bottom half of the tree this year :P Rebecca picked out her own ornament...a mini replica of a Fisher Price school bus. She calls it a "coo bus." We've been having fun doing all sorts of Christmas goody baking. Today we made cherry bars..."mmm, che-wy." We're excited to open presents. Hopefully Rebecca will really get into unwrapping the gifts this year. Rebecca loves Christmas music. After about a week of listening to a CD full of new songs (new to her) she already had half of them memorized. She'll randomly start singing them, when the music isn't even on. She knows the words. And she enjoys opening the door on the Advent calendar every day...there are m&ms inside :) Rebecca likes to look at our nativity set. She talks about "baby Jesus in the stable," "Joseph," "manger," "angels."
We're definitely into full blown toddlerhood. The time outs have started. Potty training is slowly starting. Rebecca is getting better and better at feeding herself. And she's really showing her independance. But she is still very snuggly and loves to cuddle. She says "I wove you" and gives kisses all the time. She takes great care of her dolls/babies and is such a sweetheart.
These days Rebecca is into climbing...on everything. She's finally tall enough :P Her recent discovery is that she can get into the dining room chairs and reach everything on the table. No more setting the table for dinner the night before :P Rebecca has also figured out how to climb onto the piano bench. We'll be in another room and all of a sudden hear a little concert going on :)
Rebecca continues to do very well with her verbal skills. She talks in full sentences and can communicate with us quite clearly (most of the time) what she wants. And as an added bonus Mary is becoming quite fluent in toddler speak...she can understand almost any toddler...even if their own parents can't! Not sure if this is a skill that will come in handy for any other job. But for now it's working well.
We work on letters, numbers, shapes, colors, etc. every day. Rebecca knows quite a few of her letters by sight. She's even starting to "read." We have alphabet stickers and put some on her paper the other day..."B I G." She said what each letter was and then said "big." She can now count up to 14 and even recognize some of her numbers. She knows all of the basic shapes and most colors (aside from the odd ones, like turquoise or burgundy:).
Rebecca still LOVES Kindermusik ("our time"). She wishes we could go every day. We only have 1 regular class left for this semester. And then a class the first week in January that is open to all family members and will have a social time. We have already signed up for next semester. It begins at the end of January. We can't wait for our new CDs, books and instruments. Rebecca will probably have the music memorized in a week.
We are getting ready for all of our Christmas celebrations over the next 2 weeks and looking forward to spending time with family and celebrating the birth of our Saviour. We feel so blessed to have our own little miracle child with us on Christmas. And we feel so blessed to know the true miracle child that was born on Christmas Day.
