In Fort Worth!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

We woke up this morning with snow on the ground! While I was baking Christmas cookies (something baby Scott actually ENJOYS as long as he's in the wrap ... I wear him everywhere), it started snowing again for hours. It's beautiful out there! Our neighbors are from south India and are running up and down the stairs throwing snowballs and laughing. I love the snow!


Another fun Christmas project: I made Scott ornaments.
They're very inexpensive (<$1 each) and cuter in real life. I bought clear glass ornaments (from Hobby Lobby), printed his picture on a transparency, cut it out, and added a little tinsel.

Wishing I could be sharing some Gluehwein with you all right now!

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for planes that bring Karen to Texas, $1.64 per gallon gas for the drive, the sweet new Osh Kosh baby shirts from Grandpa Koop, all-time favorite Thanksgiving cranberry dressing made by Mom, the Wagners for hosting 17 people for a wonderful meal, the aunts and grandparents that gave Luke & I such great rest, beautiful baby Scott, baths that relax the beautiful baby, Numi pacifiers, and our little College Station home full of love!

Swaddling

We've always swaddled Scott for bedtime and particularly fussy moments. These blankets (Aden and Anais) were a gift and are our favorite: we call them the Good Blankets. They're soft, cute, large enough to swaddle well, and breathable enough to use even in Texas summers. (The website has a good swaddling tutorial.)

Last weekend Aunt Bridget was feeling pretty fussy herself and got the swaddle treatment:

Latest

Scott: He's nearly outgrown his 0-3 month clothes, so I have been dressing him in my favorite ones. So cute!

Me: The abridged version of my thesis has been accepted by Applied Radiation and Isotopes!

Us: We're pushing back the move to California by one semester and couldn't be happier about it. Luke's department is happy to keep him, Mozilla gladly agreed to wait, I'm thrilled to get more time with him, and our families are looking forward to seeing the baby grow. In December we're moving to a 2 bedroom (more crawling space!) -- I'll feed anyone who wants to help! ;)

Michelle Obama

Wife, mother, intellectual ... role model! ABC article

6 weeks of Scott

What Scott's learned: how to hold up his head, roll to his back, and occasionally smile at his parents!

What I've learned: that I can't help the baby talk when he's around, that 3 to 4 hour stretches of sleep are all I need, and that his smile is awesome.

A video for y'all: 

One month!

At one month old, Scott weighs 10 lbs, 12 oz! That's nearly 4 pounds in just under 4 weeks.


We took our first out-of-town trip and visited family this weekend. Happy birthday to Flash and thank you to all the Fort Worth Wagners for giving Luke & me such great sleep! Looking forward to seeing Mom & Dad Koop this week for the Willie Nelson concert.

Scott came with us to the polls for early voting today. I tried to get a photo of the "I Voted" sticker, but this is what turned out. The room was kind of dark and the flash must have taken the guys by surprise. What pleasant faces, huh?

Wagner men are very handsome.

While Luke & Scott hung out today, I went to a Women's Studies class. The topic? Childbirth in modern U.S. society. It was nice to have an adult activity and interesting to be part of an academic discussion on an event that I have more than an academic interest in. (For anyone interested in the use of technology in childbirth, I've got a great article written by a female OB.)

Non-baby website of the day: fivethirtyeight.com, an electoral projection and poll summary site with really great graphs & charts.

hi from the little peanut!

Who knows Scott best?

Congratulations to Grandpa Koop (aka Cap) for winning the baby birth guessing game! His guesses were off by 4.5 days, one ounce, and 0.75 inches. None of the rest of us were anywhere close to such overall accuracy, but honorable mention to (newly engaged!) cousin Katie for guessing the right birthday.

Ooo baby baby

I meant to write about something non-baby related in this post, but my mind is handicapped by little sleep ...

One thing I love about being Mommy: I get to sing out loud a lot and my audience doesn't care if I know the real words. Turns out, though, that at 1 am (and 3 am, and 5 am, and 7 am ...), I can't think of many lyrics. I'm driving myself crazy singing "Lullaby and goodnight" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane". I'd sing Tom Petty, but the only songs I know are about girls ("American Girl" and "Free Falling").

What songs does Scott need to hear? Post me a comment & I'll sing them to him! & check out Karen's excellent nerd rock recommendation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMiRZ48d4Nc&NR=1

Events

<--- roses from Luke
I have three big events to write about today. Globally to locally:

1. This week, the US Senate overwhelmingly approved (86 to 13) the US-India nuclear deal. News of the approval has been overshadowed by the economic crisis and Pres/VP debates, but it's a pretty cool deal. It means that India can now buy and sell items that can be used for nuclear power generation -- including, as several US nuclear vendors are hoping, entire power plants.

There's been some talk in the news about whether this is a good thing, since India never signed the NPT (non-proliferation treaty), but little explanation as to why they haven't signed. The NPT states that the 5 countries with nukes at that time the treaty opened for signatures in '68 (US, China, Russia, UK, France) were the only five ever allowed to have nukes. India was developing a nuclear weapon (tested in '74) and therefore didn't sign the treaty. At least they were being honest.

2. EARLY VOTING FOR THE PRESIDENTAL CAMPAIGN has opened in some states. In others, the VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE to be eligible for Nov. 4 voting is quickly approaching. Check out voteforchange.com for more info on your area. TEXANS: postmark your voter registration application by Oct. 6 to be sure you're able to vote in this extremely important election!

3. Scott visited the pediatrician for his 2 week check up. :) He's now 8 lb., 2 oz. and 21 inches! Wow. He also had his first vaccination (very hard to watch) and has a cool band-aid to prove it.


Love to you all!

Really good lasagna

This spinach lasagna freezes well & tastes great. It uses less cheese than most lasagnas. I leave out the garlic and throw in a little extra spinach.

2 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
Garlic to taste (recommend fresh cloves chopped)
1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
1 28-oz. can whole tomatoes crushed by hand, with juice (important -- & fun! -- to crush by hand!)
1 6-oz. can tomato paste
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 c. chicken stock or water
1 egg
1 10-oz. package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, as much moisture squeezed out as possible
1 c. ricotta cheese
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 lb. lasagna noodles, cooked until firm, drained
1/2 lb. mozzarella cheese, grated

Heat 1 Tbs. of the oil in a sauté pan over medium heat, and sauté the onion and garlic until they begin to soften. Add the mushrooms and continue to sauté gently until they lose most of their moisture -- about 5 minutes more. Stir in the tomato sauce, canned tomatoes and liquid, tomato paste, salt, oregano, basil, and stock or water. Simmer 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat the egg and combine with the spinach, ricotta, Parmesan, and remaining Tbs. of oil.

If you plan to freeze the lasagna, line the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with heavy-duty aluminum foil, with enough foil hanging over each edge to cover the top.

Assemble: noodle layer in bottom of pan, 1/2 tomato mixture, noodles, spinach mixture, noodles, rest of tomato, mozzarella.

Wrap the foil around the entire top of lasagna and cool in the refrigerator. Freeze overnight and remove from the serving dish, then cover with an additional layer of plastic wrap. (This way you can use your pan for other things.) To reheat, thaw SLIGHTLY in fridge, remove all foil and wrap, and place in the original baking dish to thaw completely.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

One week

One week ago, Luke and I were getting settled in the hospital. Now I'm sitting here with this angel baby on my lap, unable to believe how much has happened in 7 days! Scott has learned so much: how to breathe, cry, eat, and make us fall apart with happiness and laughter. What an excellent addition to Team Wagner!

Thank you to sister/aunt Karen for posting early pictures and news on baby Scott for us and thank you for all the family and friends that have visited and helped us. We're looking forward to seeing the rest of you soon! For the first few days, we were pretty much holed up in our little nest, doing a lot of resting:



Last night we watched the presidential debate at Kelly's house, and lately we've been taking walks with Scott in the sling (which both he and I love). Today we took our Freebird's gift card (thank you Alex!) and went out for lunch and a stroll.

Our first non-family visitors -- Jeff, Shanna (with a little baby bump) and family -- stopped by on their way to the football game this morning. Scott was dressed for game day.



More soon!

Scott Alfred Wagner

Scott Alfred Wagner was born on Saturday, September 20th at 10pm. He weighed 7lbs8oz and was 19.25 inches long. He's already scoring high on his tests (how could you not with parents like his?) - his performance on his APGAR test was an outstanding 9/10!

He is absolutely precious - and I'm not saying that just because I'm related to him. Apparently he gets a bit fussy during the nights, but he put on an excellent show for grandparents, aunts, and uncle that got to visit him. We were there a few hours and he opened his eyes, wiggled around, and slept. The closest he got to crying was a few chirps.




They come home from the hospital today and Jenn is healthy and both parents are extremely happy! They even got naps earlier today.


Uncle Ben (aka Rice) already named Jennifer "Mother Nucleus" and Luke "Father Computer". :)

-Aunt Karen

Starting new things

I enjoy checking the Teutons blog and thought I'd start one for our family, too. We're enjoying a very calm, rainy weekend here as the rains from Hurricane Ike kept us inside most of the day. We took a walk around campus and everything looks to be in good shape: we saw a couple traffic signs blown over and one tree down (which seemed to have a damaged root system already), but very little standing water.

We're expecting the baby to be born any day now (2? 10? 20?), but no news yet. Here are some pictures of how he and I have grown!