Seth is 6 months old!

Seth is now 6 months. He is such a fun baby! He loves to laugh and spend time with his Mommy and Daddy. He is working on crawling, but he has mastered sitting and eating baby food, and (hopefully I don't jinx myself), sleeping through the night :). We love Seth and are really enjoying all of his growing, learning, and seeing his personality develop.

Seth's First Christmas!

Before Seth was born we decided to invest in an HD camcorder so we could always remember all his finest moments.  But for the first six months of his life, we were always too lazy to get our the nice quality camera and instead just recorded everything with our phones.

Well we decided that if we didn't use the nice camera to record Seth opening (...or just trying to eat the wrapping paper) his first presents, we might as well not even have the camera.

So we used the nice camera, and Seth was just as adorable as ever.  So adorable that we ended up filming almost 40 minutes of him. (Can you say first time parents?!)  We really wanted to share the precious moments with all of you, so we took the time to edit out all the boring parts...I know it is hard to believe that we could actually be boring! :)

For anybody that wants to truly enjoy the full HD version of the video (720 or 1080), you can see it here.

Let us know what you think of it, we hope you enjoy!

Seth meets puppy

Today while we were out and about we came across this puppy that Seth absolutely fell in love with!

Enjoy the video:

First Day of Daddy Daycare

This week Stephanie got a job and I was able to stay home with Seth for the entire day!  I will admit I was quite nervous at first, but the day went okay and both Seth and I survived!

One thing Seth loves to do is see himself, especially on our phones which have a forward facing camera.  While I was babysitting him I was using this tactic to entertain him a bit and thought it would be funny to record.  Well when I decided to record Seth decided to try and eat my phone!  I thought the resulting video was quite hilarious!

Stephanie, on the other hand, thought that Seth was going to pick up germs off my phone, however I was more worried about Seth getting his drool all over my phone!  I think she wins the contest for best parent in this situation. :)

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

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Halloween

This year for Halloween, Seth dressed up as a pumpkin. Justin and I were going to dress up as farmers, but we decided it would take too much effort. Pretty much, we just took it easy this Halloween. We really enjoyed being able to trick-or-treat with Seth at the zoo and our ward's trunk-or-treat. Seth was VERY generous in sharing his Halloween candy with us, (He doesn't have a sweet tooth yet ;).

We took Seth to the zoo boo, and we all had fun there! They gave out a lot of candy, had haunted houses that were not too scary, and we were able to watch the baby sea lion :)

Schramm Farms

We went to Schramm farms to enjoy the harvest atmosphere and the beautiful scenery. We also had fun taking pictures of Seth 



Seth's latest accomplishments

Seth is now 3 1/2 months old and is currently working on some big accomplishments. He showed us that he knows how to roll over...

 ...stand without help when leaned up against an object for a limited time....

... and hold his head up with ease when laying on his stomach...next step crawling :) We love watching him accomplish these new feats and look forward to the next thing that he will surprise us with. He is growing and changing so fast that it's hard to keep up with all of his new accomplishments. 

Trip to the Carnegie Science Center

Yesterday we decided to take a trip to visit the Carnegie Science Center here in Pittsburgh.  We had such a great time!  We are sure that Seth is now very knowledgeable in many scientific concepts! :)  Well at least we think so!

At the Science Center they had a Michael Jackson themed laser show that we attended.  Seth slept through most of it, and when he woke up he was trying to watch the show, but I think the images were moving too fast for him to track.  At least he seemed amused!

Also there is a large robotics area in the science center with many cool robots.  We took some pictures and videos for you to enjoy!

Here I am posing with the Roboceptionist to the robot area:

Then we found what may be the worlds best air hockey player.  In the video it is kind of hard to see just how good the robot is because the young boy playing isn't really pushing the limits.  However both Steph and I gave our best shot to scoring on the robot and failed.  They had been keeping statistics of the amount of goals scored by the robot and by humans during that day and it was
Robot: 315
Humans: 15

We also saw this robot that was shooting baskets.  They even had a hoop on the side that you could shoot on at the same time the robot did.  They kept track of the shooting statistics and the robot had made an amazing 80% of his shots and the humans had only made 20%.  This is the kind of guy you want to shoot those last minute game winning free-throws!



And for good measure we took a picture with some of our robot friends for memory sake.

Sorry we don't have any amazingly cute pictures of Seth, but rest assured, he is just as cute as always!  Except probably a little more cute... ;)

Seth's 3 Month Picture

So Seth isn't actually 3 months old yet, but I think he is sick of us taking his picture!  After 3 days, 5 outfits and over 200 pictures, without further ado, we present his official 3 month picture!

Family Pictures - Carnegie Mellon Style

Well we decided it would be a good idea to get family pictures as we are just starting a new family adventure.  Plus we wanted to buy Carnegie Mellon apparel and this this was a good way to rationalize the purchase!!! :)

We hope you enjoy!  We have also changed the theme on our blog which allows the blog to be a bit wider than before, and gave it a new color scheme.  Hope you enjoy!

You can see the rest of the pictures here.

The Many Faces of Seth

We hope you will take the time to see the many faces of our adorable Seth!

If you want to make a video like this yourself you should check our Picasa version 3.8 that was released today.  (No I am not being paid to advertise for them....but maybe I should be............)

For an HD version of this video see it on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=769sBaeyvac&hd=1

Seth is Happy!

Enjoy this video of Seth!  He says hello!

Pittsburgh Zoo

Well yesterday we decided to visit the Zoo so that Seth can start to learn his animals...OK so maybe he isn't that developed yet, but it is a good excuse for us to have some fun looking at the animals!

We particularly enjoyed going beneath the water to see sharks and other fish.  See the video and pictures below to enjoy!

Seth isn't quite sure what an Elephant is, but we sure thought they were cool!

Don't worry...I saved my beautiful wife from this dangerous encounter!

Seth didn't seem all that impressed with the sharks in this picture!  I was scared mindless!!!!!!

Well if you want to see more images go ahead and visit the Picasa Album.

Final Announcement

Well we finally decided on a final announcement which went out via this morning's mail.  Here is what went out:

However after we sent this invite out we took another picture that we liked even better for the main shot.  So here is what we think the best version is, even though it didn't get mailed out:

We have also been uploading new photos as we take them.  You can find them here.  If the link doesn't work use this address: http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/4508852/1/Seth%20Ryan%20Wagner?h=5baaac

Thanks for all the responses from everyone!  We are doing great and love hearing from you!

16-June-2010 8:33pm 8lbs 10oz 21.5inches

Tell us which one you like better!

See more pictures here.

Pittsburgh, here we come

On July 28th we will be getting in our sporty little PT Cruiser (oh yea we got a new car...I guess I should talk about that...OK I just did) and moving to Pittsburgh, PA.  Ok so not all of our stuff fits in the PT Cruiser so there will be a moving truck taking our stuff as well.

We have already signed a lease agreement on an apartment in Pittsburgh and we took this picture from our new living room.

For anybody that believed that I took this photo from our living room....I have some great stuff to sell you! ;)

I (Justin) have been accepted into a very exciting dual PhD program at Carnegie Mellon University and the Universidade de Porto (in Portugal).  We will spend two years in Pittsburgh, and then three years in Porto, Portugal and then I will walk away with a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from both schools.

We first made the decision to go to graduate school about this time last year.  We weren't sure where we would go, or where we should even apply, but we felt that it was the right decision for our family.  So I decided to visit the University of Idaho and Washington State University (WSU) to ask questions and get a feel for what graduate school would really be like.  I was dumb-founded when WSU offered to not only waive my tuition, but actually PAY ME to go to school there.  That lead to Stephanie needing to deflate my head as it had grown largely out of proportion, and then I started applying to any and every school I could imagine myself going to.  I figured if WSU was going to give me the red carpet, I should see who else would before committing.

Countless hours of writing application essays and filling out my entire life story countless times on each schools application later...I had applied to the following Schools:

MIT

Stanford

UCLA

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

University of Utah

University of Washington

University of Texas-Austin

WSU

Ohio State University
Every school except MIT and Stanford (who simply said sorry Charlie) made similar offers to the one WSU had made.  Most of them even paid for me to go and visit them!  So I spent five weekends in a row traveling to different schools, trying to decide which one would be the best fit.  

I was very excited about the offer CMU made and the possibility of going to Portugal. Stephanie, on the other hand, took quite a while to warm up to the possibility of living in Portugal for three years.  But none the less we made our final decision and now we are awaiting to embark on a journey of a lifetime as a young family!

Baby Update

Well many people have been asking us if we are ready for Seth to arrive.  I would ask if Seth is going to be ready for us!  We are so super excited to bring home a bundle of joy that our apartment is jam packed with baby stuff!

Just look at our spare bedroom:

I took this picture from the door so there isn't much room left in the room.  The stroller is jammed alongside the rocking chair which is squeezing next to the crib.  Then we have the bassinet and car seat in the middle of the room because quite frankly there is no other place to put them!  Well we may be drowning in baby stuff, but we sure love it!

A little while back a surprise baby shower was thrown for Steph at work.  They gave us a diaper cake, we thought it was picture worthy, so enjoy!

Seth Ryan Wagner

Here is Seth Ryan Wagner. When we were first married, I asked Justin what boy names he likes, he humored my question and without much thought, said that he liked the name "Seth." I hadn't thought much about that name before, but I liked it and agreed that it was a good name. When I was pregnant, we both kind of assumed that if it was a boy, we would name him Seth. It was a boy and the name stuck. Besides, doesn't he look like a Seth in this picture? :)
Justin's middle name is Ryan, and in both of our families, the oldest son has the same middle name as the dad, so this was an easy decision. Something fun we found out about the name Seth is that in the scriptures Seth was one of the first son's of Adam, and it said that Seth was a righteous man and was just like his father. Justin was pretty excited to hear that because he thinks it means that Seth will be an engineer just like him :)

31 weeks down, about 9 more to go!

This pregnancy has been going great! We are going to a birthing class this Saturday, and we have a crib and many other baby things set up and ready to go, so hopefully we'll be prepared when Seth comes...well as prepared as possible :)

It's a boy!

We were very excited to find out that we are having a boy! Justin was especially glad, even though he might have been paying more attention to the numbers at the side of the ultrasound then the pictures of the baby. (typical for an electrical engineer;)