A few more pictures

William Leon

We're thrilled to announce the arrival of the newest Johnston Kid. William Leon was born at home on January 30th after about 45 minutes of labor. He weighed in at eight pounds, two ounces.

We had planned to deliver at home, with a midwife, which is how Margaret was born. I had a fast labor with Margaret as well (2.5 hours) and had always joked that I was glad we'd planned a home birth because she would have been born at home no matter what. But she took her time coming in comparison to this guy and I really don't think I would have made it to the hospital with William. My midwife lives right next to the hospital, in fact, and she didn't make it to me in time for the birth. Eric caught little William and other than both of us getting a little chilled there were no complications with this birth. I'm doing much better and recovering much faster than after Margaret's birth.

I've gotten the feeling from a few of you that you want to see pictures of our newest arrival. We're doing our best but, as you can imagine, life is a bit full right now. We took many pictures the day of the birth but these were the only two that were both clear and blog-appropriate. We will look for opportunities to photograph the little guy in the coming days.

William does not look at all like Margaret and Joseph. They were both born with full heads of black hair and were wide-eyed from birth. William has a trace of blond fuzz on a big round head and he doesn't open his eyes much. He was two weeks early and is acting it--he sleeps pretty much all the time. His temperament so far is very easy-going which is probably why I'm feeling as well as I am. He sleeps for a long stretch at night and naps well on his own during the day. He doesn't fuss much.

The older siblings are loving him to pieces. They both want to hold him and kiss him and snuggle him and sing to him and give him toys pretty much non stop. We'll see how they adjust in the long term but I think everyone agrees that William is a great addition to our family.

News from the Johnston parents . . .

. . . because, let's be realistic, we will not be getting a Christmas letter out this year.

Eric had two noteworthy experiences this fall--neither of which should be news to most of our readers. But everything is more fun with pictures, right? We moved here to cold, snowy Minnesota because Eric was offered a pretty neat job opportunity. As I said in an earlier post, it wasn't the perfect job--and it wasn't meant to be a long-term career--but it was a really great job. Unfortunately, that job disappeared in October along with many others across the nation. He was working for a business that could not keep paying him during a rough economic season. It was quite a blow initially but we had some time to think through next steps. Coincidentally, a long-outstanding government case was settled in our favor the same week so we decided that Eric should spend the fall applying for academic jobs and doing some writing rather than looking for low-wage part-time work.

I have had a Mary Kay business since last spring and was pretty happy for an excuse to take that up again in a more serious way. It's really a lot of fun for me and it fit in well with Eric being home more during the day. So we've spent the fall with Eric home trying to work out of our bedroom and me heading out many evenings. It's been a pretty good arrangement for all.

Eric also officially received his Ph.D. this fall. He can now officially be called "doctor." It was pretty spectacular and I photographed the conferral of the diploma for all those who were unable to be there.

The arrival of The Tube via USPS:



The unfurling:


Looks official:



I didn't catch any shots of Eric updating his CV--sorry about that.

Next for us in the New Year--Eric has submitted a fair number of academic applications and has a few more in progress for this month. He is also pursuing some short-term work for the remainder of the winter and spring. And he is networking for adjunct positions for summer and next fall. We are hopeful that a wonderful teaching position on the East Coast will work out for Eric but the job market is competitive so we are also making plans to "make do" here in the Great White North a bit longer if necessary.

I intend to keep working in some capacity even after the newest little Johnston Kid arrives in February and I'm glad I have a way to earn income that is quite flexible--and fun!

And with that, we will return to posting about the children in our next installment . . .

Christmas!

I know. I know. I'm a pathetic excuse of a blogger. I started this blog with the intent of weekly posts and I managed to average that the first year. But this last year has been full of lots of twists and turns and surprises. Some updates on that later. I am resolved to revive regular updates here and I hope to get out a bit of a backlog over the next week.

To begin . . . Christmas for the Johnston Kids.

We really try to celebrate Advent and Christmas as two distinct seasons. The kids were the enthusiastic recipients of two different Advent calendars this year and I saw why these are so popular. It was a great visual for the kids as they anxiously awaited the start of festivities. Gifts arrived in the mail several times each week throughout December and as the pile of wrapped surprises accumulated Margaret, especially, needed a lot of diversion to keep from jumping out of her skin with excitement.

But the big day finally arrived. We brought in a tree on December 23rd. We had hoped to score a tree as cheaply as we did last year but we chickened out on waiting to the last minute because of a forecasted snowstorm. The local hardware store had huge inexpensive trees for sale and Eric brought home the biggest tree we've ever had to go in the biggest home we've ever had. I so wish I'd caught Margaret's face when Eric came through the door with a tree. She just stood in total awe yelling, "Whoa!"



Both kids, of course, had a lot of input on the proper care and feeding of trees.



We decorated through the day on Christmas Eve. Eric let me handle the lights because I'm fanatically picky about light placement. The kids helped me place the ornaments during the afternoon--mostly by requesting that I place all of the ornaments "on the highest branches."



Our Christmas Eve dinner this year was cheese fondue--beautifully prepared by Eric who always ends up doing the holiday cooking because I wear myself out with other preparations by the time dinner rolls around.


You might think we're crazy for combining open flame, skewers, and crazy children but they actually did really well. Joseph was really careful with everything and Margaret pretty much only wanted grapes for dinner.



We open gifts throughout the twelve days in our family. We brought a few to Eric's mom's for Christmas morning, then there is about one gift each day until Epiphany when we give the kids their "big gift." But Eric's mom sent over some special Christmas Eve gifts--new pajamas for all. It was tempting to post a picture of my cozy new nightgown but I'll just leave you with the kids who were very excited about their cozy new jammies. In fact, if you look you can see that Margaret put hers on immediately and wore them all through dinner.



We enjoyed a wonderful relaxing Christmas Day with Grandma Marga and family. Caramel pecan rolls for breakfast, lots of gifts for all, and a fantastic beef tenderloin dinner.

I'll post pictures of gift highlights a bit later and I do hope to get in a few "back issues" from this fall over the next week. Merry Christmas everyone!

We have a winner

Remember Margaret's two dollies? Well, we have a clear winner:



Margaret says, "Love Baby so much." The doll's name is "Baby." Nothing more. Nothing less. Margaret can't go to bed at night until Baby is wrapped securely in a scarf and smothered under Margaret's pillow. We'll have to work on her swaddling skills before the real baby arrives.

Rest time

All that reading would tire me out, too.

Labor Day Weekend

Eric's dad grew up in Sturgeon Bay, WI, which is in Door County--the "thumb" of Wisconsin. I think it's called "Door" because the early French explorers approaching from the Great Lakes thought of this area as "Death's Door" but it is a lovely place to visit now.

Grandpa Mike has a house right on Lake Michigan and now that we live a mere five hours away we hope to see a bit more of him and his mother and siblings who still live in the area. Our first trip was last weekend. Because of Eric's work schedule we went Saturday through Tuesday which helped us avoid the insane holiday lake and resort traffic in Minnesota and Wisconsin (I'm using the word "insane" in a very relative way as I've yet to see anything that rivals the daily traffic headaches in DC).

We had a lovely and relaxing weekend. The Great Lakes are really something--we fell asleep to the sound of breaking surf each night. The horizon goes on and on. But it always feels to me like "fake ocean." I know that the Lakes aren't trying to be like the ocean but I still feel just slightly confused every time I see them. Anyway. The kids enjoyed swimming. Joseph has always been a little fish so he was anxious to dive right in. He would have stayed in all day but he got seriously chilled after less than an hour despite the hot weather.



Margaret was terrified of the ocean when we last went almost a year ago. She sort of tiptoed toward the water with a lot of coaxing from Grandpa and after a minute happily plopped down just where the waves would crash on her and threw sand at the waves. Eric took her for a turn in the deep water, too but I was trying to warm up Joseph and couldn't get to the camera.


The next day we went sailing up Sturgeon Bay. Joseph was beside himself with excitement over the boat, the cabin on the boat, his life jacket, the "inboard" motor, the sails. Everything. He spent most of the trip on someone's lap helping steer the boat.


Margaret was decidedly less sure about the whole endeavor. She liked the "sputtering" part of the trip--as Joseph called it--and the sailing down the bay was okay. But tacking back up afterward with the boat leaning to alternate sides and lots more wind was not her idea of a good time and I was enjoying myself less than usual worrying about her going over the edge--which was probably much less likely than it seemed. She elected to remain below deck for awhile until we turned on the motor again.


It was a lovely weekend and we do hope to make at least a couple more trips this year to get to know this part of the family a bit better.