Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone, and a happy new year to you all! We hope you've had a lovely Christmas and are enjoying some time off with family.

Jensen, Phil, and I had a lovely first Christmas together as a little family. It started a week early with a road trip down south to Great Nanna's house to celebrate Christmas with the James'. This has become an annual event for the family, and we enjoy getting away for the weekend, catching up with family, and also try our luck at catching a fish or two. This year, we extended our trip for a night, so we had a good little break. We learned quickly that the amount of things required for baby on a trip, means that a weekend away is almost not worth the effort of packing, loading and reloading, so it will be sometime before we hit the road again, however Jensen settled in nicely and did very well sleeping in his portacot and a strange environment, and was full of smiles for the family.

With Great Nanna

On Christmas eve, we paid a visit to the nurses in the NICU and took them a box of treats to get them through the festive season, which we are planning on doing each year. It's always so nice to see everyone, and they love seeing Jensen and how big he is getting. Each time we go, we see a different bunch of nurses, so hopefully it will work out that we will eventually see them all.

Merry Christmas Aunty Nurse

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas night at Grandma and Grandpa James' house. We woke on Christmas morning to find not only a mammoth mountain of gifts under the tree, but that Santa had left one of his elves behind.

Jensen had loads of fun opening his gifts, be it by ripping, or licking, and has been very spoilt by everyone (luckily mummy and daddy still had the travel pod on the roof of the car to transport all these gifts home), and played with his new toys, AND the packaging! His new tunnel was certainly a winner, and kept him entertained and busy like a hamster on a wheel for ages... He also likes the scooter/bike/vespa thing that Santa gave him...

Of late Jensen has had a few new experiences....he has tried his first lamb chop, moving on to a sausage, and now some toast. He seems to enjoy feeding himself, and making a mess, however, just needs to get a better grip on the chewing before swallowing thing....a couple of scary moments for mum and dad. He also enjoys munching on mango in his net feeder, he seems to just love it, making 'num' noises while eating....

Another new experience for him, which is not all that pleasant, is having his eye patched for two hours a day. Dr Smith, his ophthalmologist, suggested we do this with his right eye, to encourage his left eye to catch up to his right. Currently he has 6/90 vision in his right eye, (an improvement from 6/180) and 6/180 in his left (no improvement from last check). This means that what I can see from 180 metres, Jensen can see from 6 metres. His eyesight is still developing and we will be working with Dr Smith, and Vision Australia to further develop his vision.