Scott is 3!

Oh dear Scott, aka "Groceries" aka "Laundry" aka "Superman",

Happy Birthday son!  We loved seeing your spirit develop this year.  You are bold!  You are smart!  You are the life of the party. Sometimes you're just overwhelmed with love for your own baby brother.  Most mornings when you get in the car seat, you first have to sing the Brothers Song to Mark.  You made this song up.  You sit on top of him in his seat, gently smack his cheeks with your open palms, and whisper "You and me, you and me, you and me" through gritted teeth.  (He loves this, by the way, as he loves most things about you.)  Do you know Mark's second word was "Scott"?  Before he said my name or Daddy's, he said yours! 

Right now, dear Scott, you love wearing costumes (see Dad's blog).  You love singing Molly Malone, but you change the words to make her a fish who sells tacos.  You love your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, and everyone who does or has lived in Apartment #8.  You are starting to say prayers, and you pray for your friends. Because you are little, your emotions can really overtake you.  I'm learning that when this happens you want your green alligator blanket or your grey blanket, you want to be held, and if it's really really bad you want to sit on my bed and be read to.  Tantrums are tough on you and on me, dear, but the way you want to be soothed is pretty nice.

I love hearing you make up stories.  You are always figuring out how things work.  And I love seeing your bravery!  You climb trees, you climb rocks.  And I adore when a freshly slept Scott comes to cuddle with me in the morning or after your rare naps.

Can't wait to see what another year with you brings pumpkin!

Love,
Mommy

One year old!

This weekend we celebrated the boys' birthdays.  My mom flew in for the party (she hasn't missed a grandson's birthday yet!), Karen and Daniel drove in, and we had friends over for cake, silly string, and a pinata.  I'm excited to show you photos, but first, a little love letter to our one year old.  (Scott isn't officially 3 until Tuesday, so he'll have his turn.)

Little Marky!  Darling boy, you've been part of Team Wagner, alive and growing, for one whole turn around the sun!  Though you still seem so sweet and babyish to me, you are robust and tough.  You climb onto every tricycle you find and like to practice walking while holding our fingers or the neighborhood children's shirts and shoulders.  You love making everyone laugh by shaking your whole body "NO!" or clapping "YAY!" during mass.  You're starting to be a little bit naughty by pretending to give your toy to your brother and then snatching it away, but you do still share your bottles, sweetheart.  You like to cuddle stuffed animals and your favorite yellow blanket from Aunt Bridget.  You ALSO like when all of the neighborhood kids jump into your crib at once and wake you up from nap time by playing trampoline, but I don't like that very much.  Little boy, you are a great new addition to our team and I'm so very happy you were sent to us.

We hope you love your cow toy (from Mommy and Daddy), new books and clothes (from Cap and Juju), snacks (from Aunt Karen and Uncle Daniel), sand toys (from Flash, Grandpa, and all the Wagner family and pets), and sweet google-eyed card and goodies (from Kelly).  You are the best little present we and your brother could have asked for.

 
Last week we made a new friend at the park and she took 1st birthday photos for us.  Check you out, little dude, with  your parents:

My mom did the majority -- the vast majority -- of the cooking in our house growing up.  She worked and mothered and put healthy dinners on the table, with place mats! But my dad is a good cook too and made great meals on the weekend. He sent out his 3 most requested recipes in an email and said I could share here.  Thanks Dad! Now we want a follow up with Weekend Pancakes and The Good Stuff.

Granny Koop’s Banana Bread

This recipe is from my dad's side of the family, but was always made by Mom.  For Karen and Daniel's wedding guests, we baked 21 loaves!

3 bananas (mashed)                    2 eggs

½ c margarine (soft)                   ½ c white sugar

4 T buttermilk                             1 t baking soda

½ t baking power                        1 ¾ c flour

Mix all ingredients together.  Let stand for 20 minutes. 

Pour batter into pan (so pretty in a bundt pan!) and bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

Granny's Chili

This is a very forgiving recipe.  Less meat? No problem.  More veggies? Sure!  Diced tomatoes and  tomato paste rather than the soup/ketchup?  Go for it. But be warned: if you leave out the celery it is NO LONGER Granny's Chili.  About that I feel strongly.

2 lb Ground Beef

2 cans Red Kidney Beans

1 Onion

½ Bell Pepper

2-4 stalks Celery

1 can Tomato Soup
1 cup Ketchup

Brown beef, seasoning with 1tsp cumin powder, 1 tsp chili powder, 2 cloves minced garlic.  Add diced vegetables and saute.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 min.  (Alternatively, brown beef and then add everything to a crock pot, cooking on low for 6-8 hrs.) Serve with rice, shredded cheddar, sour cream, or my favorite: a slice of buttered sandwich bread and with a leaf of lettuce.

Bob's Salsa
Dad makes this nearly every time we visit San Antonio.  Why is it that heat outdoors is made better by spicy heat in your food?

3 cups Roma Tomatoes

5 cloves Fresh Garlic

2 cups Sweet Onion

2 ½ cups Cilantro Leaves

½ Jalepeno (seeds removed)

2 tbsp Lime Juice

½ tsp Salt

Chop garlic cloves first in food processor. Add up to 2 tsp of water as needed to process. Add other ingredients to food processor. Drain any excess liquid from salsa and refrigerate.

Mark, just before 1

 This summer has been a lot of things.  The best?  It was a parade of our lovely family through California.  My mom and dad were here 2 weeks! And Daniel and Karen moved here and we visit each other a LOT! And Luke's mom and Lauren flew out!  And Ellen!  Ellen took plenty of pictures and today I received her favorite Mark shots:

Ellen captures the big guy in action!

Mark playing at Scott Creek Beach

Baby hat!

Baby hat in pipe cleaners by Ellen!  Thank you so much photo aunt.

My oh MY I love every inch of his baby self.  He is round, cheerful, and just as squishy as can be.  Right now he's into making people laugh by shaking his entire body "NO" and smiling and giggling as he does it.  He's saying "Hi" and "Uh oh" wonderfully and is working on "tree" and "Scott", but no Mama or Daddy.  Our Marky is also the proud owner of 6 teeth, every one of them hard-won as they interrupt his typically happy attitude with bouts of super-drool, fevers, lack of appetite, and GI issues.  Being little is hard work.  But Marky makes it look easy.  

Thos begins a series of posts by others.  Tomorrow, my dad's favorite family recipes revealed!

My latest project

I'm going to take a free grad course from MIT OpenCourseWare.  From 9 - 10 each weekday evening (and hopefully a few more hours each week) I'll be cracking a textbook and reading lecture notes.  Then I'll make myself do the homework assignments and take exams.  It will be the best parts of grad school.  And since I've told you all about it, I'll feel accountable.  What am I hoping to get out of this?  Three things: mental exercise, conversation fodder, and a sense for exactly what area I would like to work in when our children are all born and in school.

I've narrowed it down to 3 choices: Nuclear Imaging, Radiation Biology, and Human Reproductive Science.  What would you choose to study?

Things to remember

Lately, Mark:

• started saying "uh-ohhhh" for nothing in particular
• learned to shake his head "no" but does so by shaking his body the opposite way simultaneously and laughing like crazy because he knows this makes us laugh
• heard my dad snoring, crawled up to the couch, pulled himself up, and blew a big raspberry at him

Lately, Scott:

• has been pretending to be other people.  Today he said "I'm Cap Koop, let's talk on the phone.  Ring ring! Hello!  I'm Cap Koop!  I'm driving to San Antonio, it's a loooooong way, I'm marry to Juju."
• holds bedtime conversations with Luke.  Tonight they discussed the sun and the moon.  Scott asked to hear more.  Then he said "That was cool talking" and went to sleep.
• still loves costumes.  Pirate, cowboy, police man, Superman, "spinning clothes" (Mom or Dad's T-shirt), surfer dude, anything different

Lately, Luke:

• has been running in Vibram toe shoes
• wants Jambalaya at least once a week for dinner

It's a great time in life.

2 blocks from Karen and Daniel's new house!

Inertia

When it's been a while since I've written, I tend not to.  I feel like my next post needs to be important enough, funny enough, insightful enough to earn readers.  (This is silly, I know, because I'll tell you what you want, what you really really want: pictures of the boys.) Anyway, to start blogging again I need to be acted upon by an external force and my chosen, self-imposed force is this: write SOMETHING every day for the rest of July.  

I'd like to be telling you how the last couple weeks have been great, full of fun everyday adventures since Karen and Daniel moved to Monterey and my parents came to stay.  I'd like to show you the new eyeglasses I picked out (while Mom and Dad babysat!) and my new haircut (same!) and tell you about the movies Luke and I saw (ditto!), but doing that requires pictures and editing and I'm just getting this posting ball rolling, so ...

We're starting simple.

This is what the boys' window looked like this morning.  See the hummingbird!  See the redwoods!  And my neighbors' saving money and resources by line drying their clothes!

Love,
Jenn