Happy Hannukah!

For those of you who do not know, last night was the first night of Hannukah.  We celebrated it right here at the Wagner house with menorahs (yes, plural), homemade latkes, homemade applesauce, and love. :)

We kicked the night off with lighting the family menorah.

Then it was latke frying time!  I made them from scratch and it was admittedly a little more work than expected, but totally worth it. 

 

Edie started her dinner off with some nice peas and carrots.  As you can see, she may have a preference for carrots...  Peas have a tendency of being left for last.

 

She was excited when it was time for her to have a taste of her first latke.  It was topped with homemade apple sauce (chunky style so she could eat it with her hands).

 

Edie approved, and made every bit of potato and apple disappear.  Yes, she managed to leave a few lone peas on her tray.

Oh, and before I forget, Edie played with her wooden Hannukah set all day.  We even lit her little menorah.  Yes, those are wooden latkes in a frying pan and a dreidel sitting in a pile of gelt.  It's an awesome set. (Thanks Livia, Katie, and Colin!) Not pictured is the other menorah (yes, that makes 3) that Edie has.  A nice plush one gifted by her Mumsy and Pops. :)

Happy Hannukah everyone!!

Happy Halloween from the deadliest animal in Africa (I know, scary)!

Ok, well she's more on the cute side than the scary side...

Yes, I had to use a bucket of candy to keep her from crawling off the chair...

Happy Halloween!

What a Week!

It has been quite the week here around the Wagner house.  I think Edie could sense that I was typing about all the great things she did in her eighth month with us during her nap last Friday, because she has definitely been working to outdo herself this week.  She started right away, and this is what I found when I went to get her from her nap after publishing the last blog post...

look what I can do!

This was the first time that she sat up completely unassisted and unprompted.  It is also the first moment in her life that I thought "this is truly going by way too fast."  Man was I in for a ride this week.

She discovered the wonder of splashing in the bathtub on Sunday.  Talk about a good time!

It didn't end there.  After a restless weekend with poor naps, we discovered her first tooth on Monday.  I would post a pic here, but my hundreds of attempts at capturing the thing on camera have been failures. 

Suffice it to say that her already gorgeous smile is going to be a lot cuter with pearly whites!

Next up; crawling.  That's right, after rocking back and forth on her knees for over a month, she took off on Tuesday.  Here's a video for your viewing pleasure:

Wednesday was Alex's birthday.  We went to his favorite restaurant (which is also just a short walk from our house).  Here's the birthday boy with his precious little angel.

Excuse the poor picture.  Forgot my camera, so I had to settle for the phone pic.  Edie was a hit at dinner making friends with the little boy at the table next to us and all of the servers.

Wednesday and Thursday Edie spent her nap times mastering the art of going from laying to sitting and back to laying.  In the process she tested out sleeping while sitting (turns out it doesn't work too well).  By the way, video monitors are AMAZING!  I love watching her problem solve her way out of things.

Yesterday, Edie had her first play date.  I found a great group of moms through Meetup and we are looking forward to our Friday play dates from here on out (or until I get a job).  Edie showed off her crawling skills, while Baby A handed her toys, and Baby B took them away.  I enjoyed meeting a few other moms in the area.

We also had a visit from Tio Mario on yesterday afternoon.  He stopped by a couple weeks ago, before Edie was crawling, and told me that she would be crawling before he came back.  Edie had a great time showing him that he was right.  What she didn't have a great time doing yesterday was napping. After an awesome morning nap, she decided she had better things to do while in her crib.  Mario and I watched as this happened...

Yes, she is standing.  And yes, we promptly lowered the mattress another 6 inches.

Last night I heard her talking in her crib at about 2am (party animal).  I was watching her play on the monitor when I noticed that she was getting very still and quiet.  Sure enough, she was testing out the whole sleeping while sitting thing again.  I had to wake Alex up to show him.  She was sitting up facing the camera and you could see her little eyes close, and her head tilt forward.  So cute.  After trying to sleep sitting up for a solid 20 minutes, she finally gave in and laid down.

I can tell from the beginning of this mornings nap and yesterday afternoons lack of naps, that it's going to be a few days before naps are easy again.  There are just too many new skills to practice! Until then, it's early bedtimes for the munchkin so she can rest up for all the adventures!

I'm sure you all love to see her new tricks, but Alex and I are hoping she doesn't start walking in the next week.  There are only so many new things we can handle emotionally.  She's growing up WAY too fast!  Here's to an uneventful next blog post.

Love you and miss you!
the Wagners

8 Months of Edie

Sorry for the blogging hiatus.  To make up for it, I have a wonderful post full of all things Edie :)

Edie turned 8 months old this past Saturday.

We can't believe it.  Where have the past 8 months gone?!?!

It was a big month, and Edie made a few strides in development.  She started finger foods (talk about cute). 

She was not always as good as she is now.  Here's a video from the first day... it took her a few tries to get the puff into her mouth.

She's also so close to crawling that we are sure she will take off any moment.  Here's a video of her rocking back and forth on her knees in an attempt to get the baby in the iPhone:

She also attempted to spoon feed herself for the first time.  Talk about messy.

Always helpful, Bear got a head start on the cleanup effort. 

Here's a video of the mess in progress:

It's a good thing that she still loves bath time.

Also, luckily for the laundry lady, she is not always so enthusiastic about feeding herself, or so messy when she does.

I had the camera all ready for a purple mess the first time she tried blueberries (I also stripped her down to a diaper and bib), but my fingers were more purple from cutting the blueberries than her face was from eating them.  Still cute though.

Well that sums up Month 8.  Hope you enjoyed!  Here's one last pic of our little model before we go.

An Easier Way to Follow

Ok, I've had a few people tell me that they tried to follow the blog and got confused about how to do it.  Apparently the following "gadget" that I had on the page originally, requires you to be a member or something. I don't know, I'm new to this whole blogging thing.

Long story short, there is now a much easier way to follow the blog.  Yay!  If you look on the right side, and scroll down, you will find a "follow by email" box that allows you to simply type your email in the box to start receiving emails when the blog is updated.  You will have to follow a couple simple steps after initially entereing your email to confirm you are in fact a real person with access to that email account, but it is pretty easy to set up.  If you have any trouble and you want to get these emails, let me know and I will be happy to help you out! For the people who figured out how to follow with the old method (all 4 of you), I will be removing that gadget after this post, so make sure you sign up the new way.

Since I know that you really only follow for cute Edie pictures, here's one for making it through this boring post.

Happy Following! :)

Yard Work Saturday

So Alex and I are living in a house for the first time since living with our parents.  This means, that it's the first time that we've been responsible for more than just a few potted plants on our apartment balcony.  We are so excited to have a yard, and a garden!  Ok, so we were kind of under the impression that we were going to be given a yard and beds to maintain and add to.  That's not quite what we got...

mostly empty bed

mostly empty bed

empty bed

dead grass/giant empty bed and a Bear for scale ;)

empty bed

According to the neighbor, the last tenant to actually care for the yard was over 5 years ago.  I believe it.  The owners hired gardeners to prepare it for us.  I'm pretty sure they were just told to rip everything out of the beds, and mow the grass/weeds.  That's all fine with us, we're happy to do the work, we just weren't expecting this much work. 

Our neighbor is a horticulturist (yes, these exist, and sometimes they are your neighbor when you need the expertise the most).   Unfortunately he seems a little jaded by the last five tenants, and I'm not sure he really believes that we will be making our yard beautiful.  To be fair, his yard is amazing and full of vegetables and flowers, and he has been subjected to people who let their grass get waist high in the past.  He even said that he took the weed-eater to the side/front yard of our house to prevent the grass from going to seed and affecting his yard.  Yikes.   

Well I can tell you now, Alex and I will not be like the past 5 tenants, and we will be maintaining and enhancing the yard we were given.  It's just going to take some time and work.  Ok, A LOT of time and work.  Saturday we picked up pine cones, tackled the weeks in the yard, and leved out the back bed (there was a huge pile of dirt behind the tree).

Here's Alex tackling the hill in the bed.

While he did that, I attacked what I can only assume to be prehistoric weeds.  Seriously, I've never seen such well established dandelions.  I took pictures of some of the more impressive roots...

yes, it is as big around as my finger

look at the length on this!

Alex kept asking me if I was going to show him the roots on every weed I pulled.  My answer was yes, because it was just unbelievable. 

While we worked, Bear hinted in the subtlest of ways that he wanted to play...

I did not stage that photo, he actually dropped his ball right on the shovel I was using.  Eventually, he gave up.

What was Edie doing during all this time??  Being cute of course!

Two hours, countless weeds, and one leveled giant dirt hill later we called it a day.  Now we have to figure out what will grow under a giant fir tree (according to the neighbor, not much), and get a plan of attack for some of the empty beds.  Also on the to do list... turning brown grass into green grass. 

Wish us luck (we're going to need it)!

Swings and School

Hi there!  Sorry for the blogging hiatus, it's been a little busy around here trying to get everything settled and getting Alex off to school/work.  The past week has been fun.  Alex has been busy with school, and Edie and I have been taking several trips to the park.  The weather has been gorgeous and sunny for the most part, although we have had a couple glimpses of our cloudy and rainy future. 

In the meantime, while we enjoy the last few sunny days of the year, Edie and I are spending a lot of time swinging.

Her favorite thing to do is watch the other kids running around and playing in the sandbox, and she gets a great view from the swings.  The park is only a few blocks from our house, and the walk is really nice.  Another plus, it's not 100 degrees outside, so strolling is actually enjoyable.

While we're at the park, Alex has been working hard.  His first day of classes was officially yesterday, but he's been at the university for the last week doing TA training and getting an introduction to his new department.  Here are a few pics of our walk around campus.

Beautiful UW campus

Edie loves it already!

Smith Hall - where Alex will be spending the next 4 years

Had to get a pic with the Husky

And because I know you've been waiting patiently for house pics, here are a few of the front.  Note that one of the first things we did was get the Texas flag up. :)

the front

Bear's new post

View out the living room window.  Yes, those are the flowers from Pike's Market

Ok!  I promise not to wait a week before updating again.

Taking a Break from Unpacking

Before you ask, no, we have not finished getting everything put away.  We did start hanging some pictures today, which is a good sign that we're getting close in at least a couple of the rooms.

After a quick run to Bed Bath and Beyond for some things, we decided that we needed to explore our new city a little bit.  We thought it would be appropriate to start with Pike's Market.

Yes, I realize that I could have gotten this photo right off the internet, but I promise we were there, and I promise I took this.  I didn't mention before, but the weather has been absolutely perfect since we arrived.  Cool nights, and clear sunny days.  Exactly what I would have ordered, and a great break from the Houston summer heat.

After walking around the market for a while, making sure to see the famous flying fish, we stopped for lunch at a great little place with a view of the water.  Here's Edie, happy as a clam in her high chair as we ate.  

Once we were refueled, we went back to the market to pick up a few things we were eying  on our initial run.  The flowers were absolutely GORGEOUS.  Not only that, they were so cheap compared to prices in Houston for a similar bouquet.  I picked up this beauty for just $5, and used it to fill two vases!  I just love dahlias, and they were all over that market in every color imaginable.

  

We also picked up some fruit and cheese before we were done.  I can't wait to go back and get some fresh seafood. After all the fun, little Edie was exhausted, and so were we. 

On the menu for tomorrow, exploring downtown Ballard and the farmers market, and walking around UW.  Can't wait!