Everything Jensen

The day after Christmas we woke up to a light dusting of snow on our lawn with more flakes falling from the sky. Adelaide was so excited... at last, snow! Just like in her videos and books. She couldn't wait to put on her snow boots and get outside. Unfortunately, her enthusiasm was short lived. The snow quickly turned to rain as the morning progressed, which turned our winter wonderland into a slush puddle. In fact, the snow really only lasted  long enough for us to snap a few cute pictures. Instead of spending their day building snowmen and making snow angels, Adelaide and Eleanor were dragged to after-Christmas sales so that Dad could buy new slacks for work. Rotten luck.  Eleanor was pretty ambivalent about the snow, but she liked being encased in bunting several inches thick. Taking in something brand new. What are we doing? What is this white stuff?  Can I have some apple sauce? She just realized that snow is cold. Since all the snow me...

Merry Christmas! We had a pretty low-key Christmas this year. We stayed local and didn't have any visitors. By special request of grandparents, we did our best to document every "precious moment." Normally, our kids are pretty good at stopping to strike a pose for the camera. But, it was Christmas... and there were presents... and toys... and treats... and stockings... and with all those distractions we ended up with a lot of blurred, out-of-focus pictures of little girls looking away from the camera. Here are the best of the lot. Our smoke-free yule log Stockings full of t reats - p u réed fruit packs for Adelaide and baby fruit puffs for Eleanor. Mom and Dad were less healthy, bring on the Kit Kats and beef jerky.  The first and last "posed" picture of the day.  The girls hadn't found the presents behind  the couch (under the tree is) yet.  Presents! So sad this turned out blurry, but we're throwing it in anyway cause it...

Twas the day before Christmas and our little elves had finally recovered from their illnesses enough that they could be dragged out of the house to be tortured by... ahem... have a great time with their parents. Melinda has really been wanting to take the family downtown to see the National Christmas Tree and the Christmas exhibit at the National Botanical Gardens. So, this morning we bundled up the whole crew and took the metro downtown. Things started out okay, but the cold and crowds wore down the girls quickly. The National Christmas tree was our first stop. Our favorite state trees were Iowa and Florida. Unfortunately, the mile long walk to the botanical gardens was long and cold, and though the girls were bundled snuggly - they were decidedly unhappy about the situation. There were happy, smiling families all around us. But, the kids must have inherited Melinda's Californian intolerance for any temperature below 60 degrees.  Eleanor spent the entire walk le...

This past weekend, Matt headed down to the swamp to take finals, load up on text books and schmooze with professors. Three semesters down, one more to go.  Despite being one parent down, Melinda planned to continue on with the holiday merry-making. After all, there are only so many weekends in December to fit in things like the National Christmas Tree, ice sculptures at National Harbor, musical performances at the National Cathedral... but alas, it was not to be... Really, she should have known better. Every time Matt leaves town, his girls fall apart. The first time he left for his MBA, he was not on the airplane 20 minutes when Melinda was put on bed rest with pregnancy complications. Last time he left, both girls got hand, foot and mouth disease. So, it was only to be expected that team Jensen was in for a rough few days. Adelaide kicked things off with a horrible asthma attack. It happened literally minutes after her normal morning nebulizer routine. So, her...

There are a lot of fun things to do in DC anytime of the year. But, there are even more around the holidays. It's hard to fit it all in, but we are sure going to try.  Saturday morning, Melinda took the girls to a "Civil War Christmas" event. Cherry Hill farm, which was around during the Civil War, re-creates how Christmas would have been in that time period with actors and decorations.  It was billed as a family fun activity with kid crafts and stories, however, the staff were pretty unwelcoming. One woman followed us around the house hovering over Adelaide, crying out "Don't Touch!" whenever she so much as looked at something, and wondering allowed if I could handle two small children on my own.  We kept our visit short. Poor Adelaide,  it's hard to constantly be scolded when you aren't doing anything wrong. Outside the house, before everyone  started cramping our style. Our "shadow" even followed us into the ki...