Any green thumbs in the family?

Anyone who has talked with Joseph has probably heard about his farming dreams. It's not a constant thing with him but, once or twice a year, he gets on a long kick about how he wants to move to a farm--either right now or when he grows up--or farm in our back "yard". Joseph, of course, would also be the first to tell you that, "Just in general, I really can't wheel on grass." Which isn't exactly true but it's definitely not the best surface for him.

Anyway. We have long wanted to do some container gardening so that Joseph can get at what we're growing but we've moved every summer since Joseph was old enough to help plant a seed so we've never taken the plunge. With all we have going on right now, large-scale container gardening isn't a big priority but Eric really, really wanted to try out some lettuce this year. We both have mouth-watering memories from the summer Eric house sat for an older couple who told him to please harvest and eat anything that was ready in the garden while they were gone. Almost every night we went out and picked ourselves an amazing salad.

I can't claim much credit for this project. Eric did all the research and found that lettuce does pretty well in a pretty simple container. My basic contribution was to pick up the lumber during my weekly Home Depot run (during which I discovered that a 10-foot 2x6 board is the largest thing I can safely move to a lumber cart while wearing a baby). Then, during classic "let's do a project" mode at our house, Eric was working from home and pointed out that since the two little boys were asleep I could go out and set up the planter boxes. I was more than happy to do that all on my own but, of course, both boys woke up early and Eric ended up coming out and doing most of the work himself after all.

The kids were jumping out of their skin with excitement. Joseph and Margaret alphabetized the seed packets and placed the seeds carefully.

But William wasn't too pleased when he found out that we hadn't just built him a huge sand box to dig in all the time (I also can't claim any credit at all for this magnificent outfit of his):

Fortunately, there was plenty of watering to do so all three kids got to help with that.

Joseph has checked several times this afternoon and reports that we don't have any plants sprouting quite yet. We're actually a little late to the game with lettuce planting for New Jersey but we're supposed to have lots of cool, rainy weather for the next couple weeks so we're hoping that something will grow. If we have success we may look at what we can plant later in the season or expand things a bit next year.

And Joseph has now decided he wants to be a botanist when he grows up and is requesting that our next home schooling unit with the Rice boys be all about plants (click on that link for some more pics of my kiddos and a peek at what we did this week).

And please excuse our rather sorry-looking patio. We have a construction site next door and they put up a chain link fence inside our property line which we'll have to investigate at some point. And, just generally, the patio was left in a sort of chaotic state. But, living in the city, any outdoor space at all is a bonus so we're happy to have it.

New Shoes!

Posting about the kids' new shoes is a little odd but this is the kind of thing I get asked about a lot. Plus it gave me an excuse to snap a few cute pictures of a couple of my kids for all you grandparents out there.

If you've ever asked yourself, "What does Susan think are the best kid shoes?" wonder no longer. These are Keen Newport H2s. We first got a pair of these handed down to us the summer Margaret was one. I'd had a heck of a time finding summer shoes that were decently supportive and not sporting Dora the Explorer and Margaret was picky about comfort. Given that she was already walking several miles a day sometimes at that age, I was fine with finding her shoes that worked.

There's an endless debate--especially with children's items--about whether to spend extra for "quality." In general we choose the "budget" option whenever it is feasible. But these shoes are a definite exception. They retail regularly for around $50 a pop which is a lot to spend on kids shoes. But a few times a year the price bottoms out at around $35 which is only a bit more than a decent pair of shoes from Target. And these shoes have other benefits that justify the high price.

First, they are built like tanks. The kids log miles and miles of walking in these shoes and they hold up amazingly well. The original handed down pair of purple Keens is in storage and Margaret's pair from last year will join them. They both still look almost new. I have been burned in the past paying more for something thinking it will last well enough to pass down to the next kid but these shoes have renewed my faith in quality.

Second, the design of the shoes lets us replace other pairs we might normally buy. These are closed-toe but have plenty of breathing space. They are waterproof! And they don't stink! For summer these are the only shoes Margaret wears. They pass muster for me as Sunday shoes because they never look dingy and we walk to and from church. They also work during transitional seasons with a pair of socks. So, other than these Keens, the only other shoes I need to buy are a pair of boots for winter and two pairs of "holiday" shoes (one for Christmas, one for Easter) which I usually find for about $10 apiece. That's not too bad for a yearly shoe outlay.

Third, the kids love them. These arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon and William has not removed them except to change his clothes. He slept in them. That was a real treat when he crawled into our bed in the night and we got kicked in the ribs. Keens don't really work for Joseph's feet but William's shoes will definitely be kept for Gregory and we'll continue to save Margaret's in case she ever gets that sister she's praying for.

So there's my little treatise on kids' shoes. Next time someone asks me about this I can just point them here rather than re-typing all of these fascinating thoughts. And if, after reading this, you are ready to run out and buy some for your kids, two warnings: all Keens run small so you might have to size up and some kids hate them. The first two pairs we owned were given to us by a family whose girls refused to wear them. So I would recommend finding a place to try out your first pair. I bought them last year during the semi-annual REI sale and this year found them online (Shoemall.com) for 20% off and then added an 8% Ebates refund on top. Both times I paid $35.

Christmas 2009

Getting the Christmas post in just under the wire here . . .

We always put up our tree on December 23rd and decorate the next day. Getting the living room ready for our tree required some rearrangement of the furniture and looking for places to set our Christmas decorations required some cleaning. After living in our house for almost five months it finally felt like we'd finished unpacking and I snapped a few shots of our main living area for those of you who haven't been to visit yet.

This first shot is taken from the living room--about where the tree ended up--into what we've called the "play room." The futon is usually down in "bed mode" for guests and also because the kids like to play on it that way. The room was pretty trashed and uninviting but for Christmas became a lovely second sitting room.

The other corner . . .

And the other corner. The "fireplace" is fake and extremely ugly. We removed the linoleum "hearth piece" and the "logs" but that is as far as the landlord would let us go so we're living with it for now.

Then from the playroom to the rest of the house . . . You can just see the tree poking out where the rocker usually is. To the left of the hutch is the basement door. The beautiful french doors lead out to a large entryway and Eric is looking at me from the kitchen. The staircase goes up to two large, railroaded bedrooms.

So, there is the bulk of our home. Sorry to be tedious but I know some have been wanting some pictures.

All three kids helped decorate the tree.

William was actually great with the tree and has been spotted the last couple days pulling down a favorite golden star, sucking on it a moment, and then trying--in vain--to rehang it. So cute.

Christmas Eve we attended Mass at our parish down the street and then came home for cookies and eggnog.

Christmas morning we had our traditional Caramel-Pecan Rolls and pomegranates. The kids love pomegranates and found some in their stockings this year. That day we were on our own and decided to go into Manhattan. We had thought that some of the touristy Christmas attractions would be less crowded on the 25th. We were wrong. It was a very nice day anyway but we had a very brief visit to St. Patrick's Cathedral and a very brief glimpse of the tree at Rockefeller Center alongside thousands of our closest friends. We returned home in time to make a simple but spectacular dinner and then proceeded to get ready for a fun weekend of hosting. Eric's Dad and his wife came for most of Saturday and my whole family was here Sunday. We just love being close to family.

We stretch out the gift-opening through the whole Twelve Days of Christmas because the kids get very overwhelmed by endless gifts all at once. Epiphany (today) is when we exchange gifts for each other. Here are the kids enjoying their new game of Chutes and Ladders. Joseph and Margaret have gotten really excited about games over the last month and they are well-matched. Margaret has a better sense of the big picture--how to win--and Joseph remembers the rules and can read numbers better.

Eric and I gave each other books and William is so excited to dive right into mine:

I am a little too proud to say that I first conceived of the idea of getting this cookbook and cooking my way through it early last summer before I'd ever heard of Julie and Julia. I first learned to cook at all that way: by getting a cookbook and making everything in it. That had been a vegetarian cookbook and I've been anxious to do more with meat and learn about traditional sauces. If only I'd come up with this amazing idea a few years ago and started a blog about it . . . Anyway, I'm looking forward to working with this book although I won't be sharing the results here. Maybe we'll finally see that movie now that life has calmed down a bit as well.

A very happy Epiphany to all!

Cookie fun!

Growing up my mom made thousands of cookies each Christmas but she never, in my memory, made sugar cookie cutouts. I can appreciate why not. They are a major pain and not really all that tasty. But Grandma Marga did these with the kids in Minnesota last year and I thought it a fun tradition for the kids. We cut out the cookies yesterday and baked them. All our cookie cutters came, in one or another, from Eric's family. We inherited a coffee can of cookie cutters from Grandma Ada--several red Christmas themed ones that we couldn't make work and then a bell, a star, a circle and a "bar" with zig-zag edges. The kids told Eric last night, "We made stars and bars Christmas cookies." Hm. There was also a music note--appropriate from Eric's highly musical family.

Our other two cookies cutters were a wedding gift from Eric's uncle Steve: a cow, and the state of Wisconsin. These people are serious about their homeland.

So the shapes themselves aren't all that festive but the overall effect was very nice, in the end, and we sure had fun.

Margaret was pretty much in "production" mode cranking out three or four cookies to Joseph's one but sacrificing real artistry in favor of speed.

Joseph was very serious about every single one of his creations. Some highlights include a star having a solar flare:

And Santa Claus with his pack and boots. You can see the lone chocolate sprinkle which is his smiling mouth and the cinnamon candy is his "fiery eye." Apparently we need a little more Clement Moore around here.

I went for more whimsy with my cookies creating some festive homage to favorite Wisconsin destinations (Madison and Sturgeon Bay). And, because we prefer our milk from brown Jersey cows, a spotted bovine sporting a seasonally-appropriate red nose.

William napped through most of the project but woke just in time to consume a broken musical note while we cleaned up.

You're all invited

Joseph has put in his birthday dinner request:

corn

lupini beans

broccoli

So, who's coming to party with us?

He did say that instead of a cake he would like banana splits for dessert.

For fun this afternoon the children are playing "go to bed." Margaret is playing Daddy and reading a story to Joseph.

When I peeked in on them a few minutes later they were both snuggled together under the futon blankets pretending to sleep. If only real bedtime were that simple.

This and that . . .

What we do for fun on the fifth of April here in Minnesota:



You might think that building snowmen would be boring after five straight months of winter but the rest of the winter was so cold that the snow would never pack into balls. The kids put this together (with some help, I gather) while I made breakfast this morning. Then they knocked him down. And he'll probably be gone in a day or two. The extended forecast is starting to look up later this week and I'm hoping that we will finally have real spring. It's been sort of fun to note that it is almost always twenty to thirty degrees warmer in the city we're moving to than it is here.

And speaking of moving, I was trying to take some pictures of William's smiles while holding him the other day (those pictures to follow . . .) and accidentally caught this shot into our dining room.

I know I never got around to posting pictures of our house and I wish I had because it really is beautiful. I thought this one really captured it. Our lovely old house with all the built in glass-front cupboards and dark woodwork is one thing I will definitely miss about Minnesota. I think I'm posting this picture more for my benefit :)

Getting dressed

Just in case anyone is worried that the kids are going to forget where they're from, this is how they demanded to get dressed this morning (pink pants and all):



And in case you were worried that they aren't getting along as well out here in the Midwest, here is what they did when I asked them to sit closer together:


And, don't worry, we already have a baby-sized uniform that should be fitting the next Johnston kid by opening day.

Anyone need a babysitter?

It's great to know that whenever the next baby comes along (which, by they way, is not happening in the next nine months) I'll have two enthusiastic volunteers for carrying the baby in the sling:

St. Joseph, St. Louise and other fun

In many European countries it is the custom to celebrate "Name Days" in place of birthdays. Your Name Day is the feast day of the saint whose name you share. We do this in our family, too. We don't have particular traditions associated with Name Day celebrations, yet. This is really the first year that Joseph is old enough to notice or care about things like that. This year was a really big one, though.

The Feast of St. Joseph is a big feast in the Catholic calendar. It is normally March 19th. But this year that day falls during Holy Week and we aren't allowed to have feast days during Holy Week. St. Joseph is important enough to transfer liturgically, however, so he got officially moved to March 15th this year. March 15th is, every year, the feast of St. Louise de Marillac, so it was also sort of the minor Name Day for Margaret Louise. (In case you are curious, St. Margaret is celebrated in November and St. Dominic in August). We also were excited to celebrate Eric's first day off in months and, to top it all off, our good friend, Brett, invited us to a St. Patrick's Day party for Saturday evening.

The kids celebrated by getting the stomach flu.

This weekend has me rethinking the wisdom of allowing children to sleep on absorbent surfaces. The kids' actually have an odd version of this bug. Joseph was sick Wednesday night and then more or less fine for two days. Both kids were sick Friday night and then fine all day Saturday. We canceled our Zoo plans and recovered from the night before by sleeping in until 10:00 in the morning but decided we were all well enough to go to the party. Bad, bad idea. We owe Brett big time. Fortunately, he lives only six blocks from us so when first Margaret, and then, an hour or so later, Joseph threw up all over all of Brett's absorbent furniture, we were able to get them home in a hurry.

Both kids' happily ate their usual Sunday pancakes this morning and are now happy on the couch with Joseph's Name Day gift from us, Tinker Toys.


Tinker Toys are pure genius. We struggle with building toys for Joseph. He really needs things that stick together but he's not quite up for the patience required for Legos. Legos, and even Duplos, take a long time to build up into something interesting. But Tinker Toys get big fast. It even advertises this feature on the can, so I guess Joseph isn't the only kids who gets excited by this. Joseph's own creations in the last 24 hours have been mostly limited to scepters so that he can reign as King Joseph. But the great thing about Tinker Toys is that Eric and I want to play with them, too. I began a space shuttle yesterday and Eric built a swing set and a roller coaster. After seeing that Tinker Toys have the ability to simultaneously occupy both of my children for the entire time it takes for me to make pancakes, I may never want another toy for them again.

Boating

We're organizing baby clothes around here which mostly means that I occasionally place a few items in a clearly labeled storage bin and then Margaret pulls them out and climbs into her boat. Actually, I've made great progress but there are still two storage bins in the living room. Perfect: two kids, two "boats." They can each have their own. But where would be the fun in that?

(My camera, by the way, is only working about fifty percent of the time and I've been sick recently, so I apologize for the lack of updates. A hand-me-down camera will be acquired sometime in March and then we'll be back in business.)

Broken Camera

I haven't been blogging because our camera has started producing pictures like this:
That's supposed to be a white candle. Ditto on the walls. We already asked someone for a new camera for Christmas, so don't all run out and buy us one! Until then, I do have a few from the archives that never made it to the blog . . .

Now that Margaret is walking I've put her to work around the house. It's so nice to be able to put my feet up after dinner and let someone else clean up.

Just kidding. Maybe someday. We were just talking last night, though, about gifts we should give the kids. I had a few ideas for Margaret but I was really coming up empty on Joseph. Eric said, "Well, what does he do all day?" He plays with books. Really. Part of the reason, I know, is that he can't get to toys that easily on his own. But even when he's in his wheelchair or mobile stander he pretty much follows me around and wants to do whatever I'm doing. Same with Margaret. I just cleaned out the two bottom cupboards of my kitchen and removed all the cleaning supplies (which were already non-toxic, by the way) and breakable objects and filled them with all my pots, pans, bowls and tupperware. She'll sit and play for quite awhile. Her favorite toy this week has been a can of tomato paste. Yesterday I was cleaning a closet and gave her five cans of tomato paste and a box. She was happy for 45 minutes. I've said it once, I'll say it again. Kids don't need toys.

A Gift-giving PSA

I know that not everyone who reads this blog buys gifts for our children, but everyone who buys gifts for our children reads this blog, so bear with me as I offer a brief note for the consideration of the latter group.

Birthdays are looming--Margaret's first one, Joseph's third. I don't want to be too presumptuous but, if the past two years are any indication, many gifts will be arriving at our door over the next few months. We love receiving gifts, and so do our kids and we have been truly blessed at the generosity and thoughtfulness of all the gift-givers in our lives. We often think of the giver whenever Joseph plays with a toy or asks for a book. I do not at all want to sound ungrateful.

But . . . you may have picked up on the fact that space is a bit at a premium in our lives right now. Those of you who have visited, back me up here. We love our apartment and, honestly, we will probably always live in houses or apartments that seem "too small" to many people. We like small. Space limitations do require, however, that one be choosy when considering possessions. Please keep this in mind as you are selecting gifts this year. Books are easy to store. A giant ride-on toy--not so much.

You may be thinking, "The Johnston kids have a bazillion books. They can't possibly want more." In answer to this, I say that we have far less than a bazillion books and if you read aloud to our kids as much as we do, the collection would seem tiny indeed. Joseph would pretty much always rather read a book than play with a toy. We read him stacks of books a day. Once we've gotten through "Curious George and the Dump Truck" eighteen times in one week, we are definitely ready for something new. More books is at least as much a gift for the parents in this family as the kids.

Many of you know, also, that we intend to homeschool. We have extensively researched various approaches to curriculum and study and we know that literature will be a large part of our "schooling" as a family. We hope to be blessed with several more children and we'd like them all to grow up with a rich home library.

Each of the kids has an Amazon wishlist for those of you who would like suggestions. We got lots of duplicate books for Christmas last year, so this seemed like a good way for people who want to give books to see what we don't already have! Click here for Margaret and here for Joseph. We'll update these for Christmas as well. (My ever-improving tech skills also allowed me to put buttons for these in the sidebar of the blog.)

Those of you who like to buy the kids clothes, Joseph is wearing 3T and Margaret is wearing 12-18 months. If you want more specific clothing requests, please e-mail us.

If you really, really want to get toys, please bear in mind that we have limited space and that the kids still share everything (so a toy for one is a toy for both). We definitely prefer toys on the creative end of the spectrum rather than something requiring batteries. Do not worry about our kids being deprived of fun. They both get wildly excited for anything stored in the kitchen and, really, Joseph loves, loves, loves books.

Thanks for your understanding and, again, thank you for all your generosity.