Thanks to my goddess of a mother, Johann and I were able to spend two weeks of frigid Minnesota January in beautiful northern California! She grew tired of waiting for us to have the time and money to make the trip out there, so she bought the tickets for us to come out and called it her birthday present. Imagine that.
Here are some of the pics from the trip. Of course I took hundreds, but these are some of my favorites.
This was taken in the Minneapolis airport when Johann and I were waiting for our connecting flight to Sacramento. This is the infamous bathroom (i.e., Shrine to the Wide Stance) where ex-US Senator, Larry Craig, was caught trying to do something naughty. Yes, I'm a nerd. I know this, and I am at peace.
Johann and his cousin Neva less than a minute after we arrived in San Francisco. The two of them went straight to the toy box and started working together to get the toys out. How cute is that?!
Just an ordinary day in San Francisco. Beautiful, sunny, energetic, and happy. Perfection.
Cynthia (Johann's auntie), Neva, Johann, and his grandma, Deborah.
Neva and Johann sharing a swing. Unfortunately, Johann had an ear-infection, was teething, and refused to sleep for much of the trip. He was, therefore, a beast and there wasn't much more sharing than the swing and sundry toys.
Because nerdiness apparently runs in the family, Cynthia and I also tried to share by nursing each others' babies. Despite our best and multiple efforts, it didn't work out. The kids were having none of that business. Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it - we don't have any photographs of these failed attempts.
Johann's uncle, Pedro, and Neva having quiet sleepy time.
Neva and Johann resting on the drive up to see their great-grandfather, Sigfrid Sandstrom, in Napa Valley.
Johann, Sigfrid, and Neva :)
A couple of videos taken during our visit with Sig :)
Johann with his grandpa, Dean, and his cousin, Neva.
Do you ever wonder about the fate of your child or children? How he or she will fare in the world on their own? Especially in a post-apocalyptic world, presumably when mom and dad are no longer around to help him or her out. Have we done right by our children? Should we be teaching them more survival skills? Like how to find a med pack or ammunition for their plasma rifle? When the time comes, will they be ready to hack their way through masses of mutant radiation zombies to scrounge for food at the abandoned supermarket?
Well Dan and I do wonder about these things and apparently we aren't the only ones ;)
So here are some photos of the three of us on Christmas Eve and then later during our trip to the Consoers for our New Year's celebrations. Enjoy!
Johann and his mama doing the Noble Duke of York :)
Dan and Johann with one of Johann's favorite toys ever. A robot-alien that was a birthday gift from his auntie Cynthia in San Francisco.
Johann and Dan with Elmo. Of course.
One of many of Johann's contributions to tree decorating. I unfortunately failed to capture his other additions, which included several books and CDs, a video game, and a thank-you card.
The three of us and Dan being all serious.
Johann at his Consoer grandparents' home. Looking longingly at the windmills. The kid was fascinated by those and, I swear, if we let him, he would walk all the way to the nearest even though it was nearly half a mile away.
Appreciating the sunset. Unfortunately with the wind-chill it was much too cold to be spending a lot of time outdoors.
Johann loving on his auntie Courtney. Plus, those PJs are really soft.
Johann with his grandpa saying "hello" to Maddie.
Johann with his Auntie, Brittany, learning how to use a spoon.
Johann with his great-grandfather, Warren.
Warren and Phyllis. Still showing the love after all these years.
These are just a few of my favorite photos from our Thanksgiving trip with the Consoers.
Johann with his great grandfather, Warren, on Thanksgiving day at the Consoer's.
Johann walking with his papa and grandpa on the Consoer family farm.
August Consoer's (Johann's great-great-great grandfather, I think) initials and the date on which he finished building one of the Consoer family's barns.
Another one of the Consoer barns.
Milton enjoying his time with his progeny.
Johann's uncle Dave, warming his cold little fingers. Awww.
And what an autumn to boot. Life in the Stewart-Consoer household has been *interesting* these last few months. A whole lot of good, and a little not-so-good too. For now I'll just stick with the good ;) It's been a while since I last posted and Johann has had, let's see, his first Halloween (woot), his first election (he was right there on his mama's lap while she voted), and his first birthday.
Of course, being the mama I am, I just had to take full advantage of the Halloween event to dress Johann up in the most potentially embarrassing costume I could find. That's right, the kid was a TEDDY BEAR! Paws, ears, and a red bow to top it off. The real deal. I know I can't get away with this forever. What do I have? Maybe one or two more years before he starts insisting on being G.I. Joe or Superman? This mama is going to get all the cutesy costumes out of her system while she can. Next year, I'm thinking a bunny costume will be in order ;)
Note Johann's two bottom teeth prominently displayed here. He has since finally grown his top two teeth as well, but that was so recent I don't have photos yet.
We decided every bear needs some time outdoors and what better activity than salmon fishing?
Of course, papa bears need to stay close by for safety.
After a long day fishing, we spent the early evening trick-or-treating at the university's dorms. Apparently people do that here because Halloweens in the north are often too cold for the little ones to be outdoors at night for long. This year's Halloween was balmy by Minnesota standards, but we went to the dorms anyhow.
Johann was a hit! Let me tell you, the boy has a knack with the ladies already. Those college girls were all over him. He was a little stand-offish at first, but after visiting the first few dorm rooms, he knew that not only was there gorgeous older women just begging to slather him with attention, but there was also a lot of treats to be had. After a couple dozen dorm rooms we decided to head to the local mall, which is another place people take their kids for Halloween. Unfortunately we arrived too late for the trick-or-treating, but Johann got some rides under his belt to make it all worth while. Apparently becoming an astronaut is on his long-list of potential career options. That and being a janitor, as he has a thing for toilets, but that's another blog entry for another day. Then there was the election. Ah, the election. What more needs to be said? I mean, really? Anyone who knows us knows exactly how we've felt for, I dunno, eight very long years. Just in case you've developed amnesia or something here's a cute picture of Johann to help you out. Note that the bottom of his t-shirt says "poopyhead." I don't want anyone getting any wrong ideas.
This is a picture of Dan and Johann just after a glorious political rally just two days before the election.
And here is a photo of Johann at the park just after we voted. I think he was picking up on the general vibe of the day :) People at the park were celebrating already!
Then there was Johann's first birthday. The year went by so fast! Please tell me that the next 17 years won't go by quite so quickly, because I don't think I could bear it. I already want time to stop. Dan and I overdid it with the gifts of course. Probably in an effort to make up for the lack of family around to celebrate with us. Why do we have to live so far away from everyone? Why?! Johann didn't know the difference, though, and I am certain he had a wonderful first birthday. I mean, there was cake to eat for the first time, gifts to tear up, string and bows in abundance, boxes to play with, and (oh yeah) lots of gifts and toys. Because no birthday blog entry is complete without the requisite cake photos, here are some of the little guy and his first tastes of the sweet pastry.
A tentative touch and taste.
And the rest quickly became history.
How is that for a happy one-year-old birthday boy!
(Johann and Dan have gone on a long Saturday afternoon walk to the lake. I've been trying to work on my dissertation, but I've ran out of paper, so I'm shamelessly taking advantage of this opportunity to write and post some videos.)
There is no doubt that Johann has always been a bright little kid. That said, I have to say that ever since we enrolled him (and us) in his first early childhood education class the kid has been developing in leaps and bounds.
Dan and I have tried to expose him to all sorts of stimulating experiences. However, living in northern Minnesota with these brutal winters (last year there was nonstop snow on the ground from late November through April), the opportunities to get out and about with a baby in the winter are limited. Well this late summer, when I realized winter was fast approaching, I knew I had to go the extra mile and commit ourselves to participating in activities that would require us to get out of the house and into the brutal cold and socializing with others. I'm not a big fan of the intense cold, so I knew we had to commit to this class or we would end up secluding ourselves without getting outdoors for days at a time like we did last winter. So I enrolled our family in early childhood education and family education class (ECFE) in September and we're just now finishing the second month.
Well, since we started the ECFE class Johann has started talking, learning to share (and hit), play, walk, and all sorts of other new things I can't think of at the moment. It is amazing how fast all this happened. Surely these milestones would have occurred whether or not we were involved in ECFE. However, the rate at which he has progressed, immediately upon starting, has led me to believe that ECFE has been a big part of his recent developmental strides. Even better than his developmental progress, though, I think the best part about starting ECFE classes is watching him play with other kids his age (this class is geared to children between the ages of 6 months and 1 year upon starting).
Johann is starting to develop "friendships" with the other kids in his class. There's this one boy who is a few months older, named Jack. Johann seems to look up to him and I don't blame him, the kid is really cool and a sweetie. Both his parents show up for class and they are really interesting and fun, so I can see where he gets his charming personality. Then there's Evan who is about one month younger than Johann. Evan and Johannn have a bit of a contentious relationship. They hit each other a little too frequently, and I'm dismayed to say that Johann is often the aggressor. That said, you can tell they really dig each other and are interested in each others' activities. Then there's Samuel. I think he's now going on 7 months, but he is really really small. He isn't a premie, just a small kid and he's just now learning to really crawl, sit up, and stuff like that. I have to keep a close eye on Johann when he's near Samuel because Johann has a tendency to just barrel through people and he could do damage.
Then, there's the girls. Maddie is a sweetheart and likes to stick by herself and her mama. She doesn't really socialize much, so Johann and her haven't really gotten to know each other. She's really cute, though, and always wearing an adorable new outfit. Allie is another girl and she is a few months older than Johann. She is so pretty and reminds me, a lot, of my niece and Johann's cousin, Neva. Allie's been busily teaching Johann how to sit and climb on chairs. Then there's Dahlia who is a new classmate. She's about 11 months old and just started class last week, so she's still pretty tentative and hangs back with her mama. Johann and her met at the park a few weeks ago when they were swinging. I told her mama about the ECFE class and they showed up the next week! Anyhow, these are Johann's classmates and he pretty much digs them all and they are so much fun to watch as they crawl and walk around playing, sharing, and generally hamming it up.
One of my favorite parts of the class, though, is learning from Johann's very first teacher, Sarah, and Sarah's teaching assistant, Tracy. These are two lovely women who have lots and lots of parenting and teaching experience. Without my family nearby I feel like Dan and I are kind of on our own struggling to learn all these day-to-day parenting skills that college and graduate school neglect for some reason ;) So, I can't even tell you how much I appreciate them. They've already taught me so much. Like how to encourage Johann to sleep (who would have thought this would be such a challenge??? certainly not me), eating, playing, playing gently, not hitting, and stuff like that. Johann loves to sit in Sarah's lap and tug on her excellent necklace while smiling at her and hugging her. He also loves to spend time with Tracy, who is the mother of three boys. She knows exactly how to get him to laugh uncontrollably by holding him up in the air just-so. He has really hit it off with these two women. It is so cute to watch.
Anyhow, I've included two videos that show off some of Johann's new skills. I'm so proud of the kid and hopefully you can sense the joy that he brings us. Leave comments! Let us know what you think! We love you.
This blog is dedicated to our friends and family, most of whom are hundreds or thousands of miles away. We know how much you miss us and, most importantly, how much you miss Johann. We can't wait to share the delights of watching our little man grow with you, and we hope you enjoy our little posts. You can expect shameless bragging, parenting cliches, cutesy pictures, and excessive hyperbole. Every once in a while, we might actually write about what is going on in non-parenting lives.
We miss you all and hope you read frequently. We care what you think and hope you leave comments. Let us know what you think. Or at the very least, let us know that you're reading. So please leave comments!
-Heather
Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. ~Gail Lumet Buckley
