We're Moving!!

Well, we're not ACTUALLY moving but our blog is! Today is the day to make the big move over to our new wordpress blog. There are going to be some nice features with that new blog that I think everybody will enjoy. But, you'll have to go there to find out about all the great stuff. So, hop on over to the new blog: cjhohnstadt.wordpress.com This blog will still be up for a bit but I won't be posting on it anymore after today. See you all at the new address!

Valentine's Day and other miscellaneous events

Well, I've done it again. I post almost once a day on this blog (in my head) but rarely find time to get it down on the computer. Oh well, I'll get there. In the meantime, here's what we've been doing this past week.

Valentine's day was lots of fun. It was a big day for us as we hired our first non-family babysitter to watch Anna while Cedric and I went out for dinner and a concert. Shaye, one of my old students who graduated last year, did a FABULOUS job with Anna and even cleaned up the kitchen by washing dishes and all. I was very impressed and Cedric and I had a great time as well. (the concert, in case you're wondering, was a St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concert...very nice and very close seat to see one of my favorite instruments...the tympani).

The weekend after Valentine's Day we took some time to celebrate family. We had a special dinner for my Mom at her house on Friday and then ventured off to Fairmont via Waterville to visit with Cedric's parents and sister. The day in Waterville with Cedric's parents was nice and Anna got a chance to explore the farmhouse more as she's becoming even more mobile everyday. We spent the night at Sandra's in Fairmont and while the company and time was fun, the night was not exactly on our list of best times had. Anna woke up about 2-3 hours after we put her to bed crying and would not settle back down (I think due to sleeping in a pack-n-play smaller than her crib in a strange room. We finally got her up with us for a bit until we all went to bed around 11. She still wouldn't settle so Cedric and I brought her in bed with us. That's something we basically don't do, ever, but desperate times call for desperate measures. We didn't want her to wake Sandra or the other neighbors in her apartment building so did what we needed to do to keep her quiet. Once she got into bed with us she wasn't crying but she also wasn't quiet. It was like a switch got flipped and she just started talking and babbling and laughing. We kept trying to get her to lay down and she would but she wouldn't stop talking, either. Finally we laid her back in her pack-n-play and just steeled ourselves to wait out the inevitable crying until she would settle down and go to sleep. We were both surprised to discover that just about as soon as we laid her down she hit the deck and slept soundly until 7:30 the next morning. But, since she didn't finally get to sleep until almost 1:30 we all were a little tired the next day. In the following couple days she's taken 2 hour naps and slept 12 hours at night to get caught up.

Even with all that we enjoyed spending the time with Sandra and had a great time playing Tri Ominos (my Valentine's gift from Cedric :-D) and helping her decide where to hang pictures in her apartment.

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!

I have no words to express the tragedy...

In my journey so far as a mother I've realized that there are LOTS of other things besides my philosophy of parenting that have been affected by Anna's arrival. Not the least of these things is the large amounts of compassion I feel for any child that is suffering. While this blog has mainly been about our family, I feel a change in the wind and will be adding more of my own thoughts to the blogroll mixed in among Anna's amazing accomplishments. So, on that note, here is today's thought on a recent news story...

On my way home from a meeting at school today I had the radio going in the background. I managed to just catch the tail end of a story about officials finding a four year old little boy in a garbage bag who had been beaten to death. I thought that was bad enough. Later in the evening I learned the whole story. I'm not going to go into the details because I can't fathom what would bring a person to do this to a child but for those of you who want to read the actual news article click here.

Hearing the story and the brutality that this little boy endured before his life ended just sickens me. What kind of society do we have where this happens to little ones? I know there are more stories than can be told of abuse to children but I think what really frightened me about this one was that the mother used her own children to help hold down this little boy (who apparently was her cousin) while she was beating him. Isn't it bad enough that they had to watch that happen, much less be a part of it? The other thing that I just don't understand is that afterwards the woman was afraid she was going to get into trouble and so she hid the body and claimed he had been abducted. Did she feel remorse for what she had done or did she simply realize she had gone too far and was going to get into trouble?

I am simply speechless about the whole thing and I just held Anna a little tighter tonight as I got her ready for bed and prayed that those who reach such a place with the children that they have in their care will have the sense to get help before their anger becomes destructive.

While this all sounds a bit rantish, let this be an encouragement to all of us with children in our lives to slow down, take a deep breath and above all remember to tell them just how special they are not just with our words but with our love.

Almost 14 months...where does the time go?!?

Wow, I can't believe I've been so delinquent in keeping this blog updated. I suppose it's not any consolation to you, my readers, (if there even are any of you :-) that I compose blog posts at least once or twice a day in my head. However, the reality of keeping house, keeping up with Anna and just keeping up in general doesn't allow for the computer time I once enjoyed. I have put together a few web galleries of photos for you to enjoy so here you go:

Anna's 1st Birthday
December 2007 family fun
Anna's 1 year photos

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the wonderful photos we had taken of Anna when she turned one were done by my good friend Shannon Tacheny (check out her site here). She does wonders with a camera and has started a thriving business specializing in child/family photography with an artistic flair.

Well, while there's lots more going on here that's all I have time for right now. Things to look for in the future...

The announcement that Anna is walking (no, it hasn't happened yet :-D)
Some great video of Anna laughing and playing
Our favorite photo of her "funny face" as we call it
And, last but not least, a move for this blog from our present address to wordpress...more to follow on that soon.

Hope all is well with you and yours and I'll be back again soon (I promise)

11 months old - can you BELIEVE it?

Hello all,

I know, I know....long time no post. What can I say? Things around here have been pretty hectic. I won't bore you with the details. I'm working on restoring our laptop so that I can post pictures of our trip to Chicago. It was really fun! Getting to see Tim and Monica was really great and it was loads of fun to see the girls finally be able to play together. Anna had (somewhat) mastered crawling when we went and was just learning to pull herself on up things. Auntie Monica sent back an activity table that Lauren had outgrown and Anna just LOVES it. There's lots for her to do on it and it keeps her pretty occupied.

Our latest find, however, has been Duplos. Not that I didn't know what they were...I just thought she might still be a little young for them. Boy, was I wrong. She has little table that I picked up during a spring cleaning day here in Bloomington (for free!) that had a top that looked like it was made for Duplos. Since I wasn't sure, the last time Cedric and I were at the Mall of America we stopped by LEGO Land to pick up a little Duplos starter kit to give the table a try. The Duplos work great with the table and Anna's favorite thing to do is to pull them all off the table and then try to put them back up. We're working on getting some more Duplos cheap (LEGO land isn't exactly the cheapest place to find LEGOs) so we can have even more fun!

Anna's latest developmental milestone has been mastering pulling herself up and exploring her world. She can also walk along with a little baby walker and it is SO CUTE! Here is a little video of her walking...no sound since the camera we were using doesn't record sound (sorry!)

10 months old

It goes without saying it's been awhile since I've posted. I could give you a list of things I've been up to (celebrating Cedric's birthday, installing a new computer lab at school, turning 30, catching up with my crawling baby, helping my sister get ready for a wedding celebration in January, visiting family in Dallas, celebrating our second wedding anniversary) but that would be boring. Instead I'll brag about my husband and baby...

First for Cedric: he's been working harder than I've ever seen a person work and the last two Saturdays have been a bit of a reward for his labors. He's been working as a character designer for NBC's new Saturday morning cartoon show 3-2-1 Penguins. The first episode aired Oct. 6th and I was ecstactic to see Cedric's name listed second among the character designers. In Cedric's words "I was ignored by millions of people this morning!" I LOVE THAT MAN! If you want to see what Cedric's been working so hard on, check your local listings and look for 3-2-1 Penguins on NBC's Saturday morning Qubo cartoon lineup. Oh yeah, and for our anniversary Cedric gave me half a day of his time so that we could install a new closet in our bedroom. It was a GREAT anniversary and a GREAT gift. (He did also get me flowers, a card and dinner out, for those of you wondering if we've lost the romance :-)

Now for the little one...Anna's been changing literally by the day the past week and a half. She started crawling three days ago (on her 10 month birthday) and hasn't stopped moving since. I'm so proud of her and all she can do. She's loving exploring and Mommy and Daddy are loving seeing her move and also loving the playpen we now have in the living room. Having the playpen for Anna allows her to explore in a safe place and also time for me to clean and cook without chasing a baby so that I have more time to play with my baby (out of the playpen, of course). Anna's also doing a great job learning about being "gentle" as she plays with my necklaces but no longer almost jerks them off my neck to see them. Now that she has four teeth she's working more at learning to eat "like a big girl" but still does better with pureed foods with just a few chunks. She is, however, a fiend when it comes to Cheerios and gets more than a little excited when she sees the classic yellow container coming out of the cupboard. I also found out this afternoon that her new favorite food is peach yogurt. I actually had to hide it back in the refrigerator so that she would finish her veggies before the yogurt.

Having brought you up to date on what we've been doing, check out this photo slideshow to see more of what we've been up to...

The Nutcracking Escapade

I love my husband. I love that he works so hard to provide for our family but I also love how silly we can get at times. Last night's adventure was no different. We managed to get Anna to bed early and then set to work on our computers in the studio. After a bit he grabbed the bag of unshelled macadamia nuts that we had gotten as a present when his brother returned from his honeymoon in Hawaii and he headed to the garage. Well, I'm not one to miss the action so I trailed along. The instructions on the bag of nuts said to "tap nuts with hammer." They weren't kidding. The first couple taps with a hammer sent the nuts careening across the floor with not a crack to be seen in the shell. Not wanting to miss any of the fun I grabbed a hammer myself and gave a whack. Aparently I had had my Wheaties that morning as not only did I manage to crack the nut but in the process crushed half the meat inside. Guess I better forget whacking and go back to tapping. We found out that if you keep hitting the nut with light taps eventually they will crack. But, that took too long for us so we eventually discovered that if you hit the nut somewhere between a tap and a whack you can manage to crack it open on the first shot. It was fun to be out in the garage with Cedric cracking nuts and it was even better when our well-placed tap-whack still managed to send a nut flying across the floor. We had a great time and the nuts weren't too bad, either.