It's been a while!

I have been such a slacking blogger lately. But I have an excuse. I have been busy and also out of town. It is late tonight, I have been up since 1:45 AM California time and I have to get up very early in the AM for aerobics. I will post more tomorrow. In the meantime...to unwind...I am doing Matt's favorite thing in the world and am going to fill out one of those questionnaires that he LOVES!! (*wink, wink*) Enjoy.

You're feeling: Excited to go to Boston and New York at the end of this month.
To your left: My bed and a window.
On your mind: I can't wait to exercise tomorrow because I ate too much in Utah and didn't hardly exercise all last week.
Last meal included: A small bowl of Special K Red Berries
You sometimes find it hard to: Go to bed when I am filling out these surveys.
The weather: Clear and spring warm-mid 60's.
Something you have a collection of: Mary Higgins Clark books.
A smell that cheers you up: Fresh cut grass.
A smell that can ruin your mood: Someone who just passed gas.
How long since you last shaved: A couple of hours.
The current state of your hair: Wet and pulled back into pony.
The largest item on your desk/workspace (not computer): Printer
Your skill with chopsticks: None.
Which section you head for first in a bookstore: Magazines.
Something you're craving: Exercise.
Your general thoughts on the presidential race: Not much, I suck at political talk, but I laughed hard at my dads explanation of Operation Chaos.
How many times have you been hospitalized this year: None, but its only March!
Favorite place to go for a quiet moment: ??? I guess my room?
You've always secretly thought you'd be a good: Piano teacher.
Something that freaks you out a little: Scary movies and not just a little, A LOT!
Something you've eaten too much of lately: Oh jeez. Here we go. I ate too many of my moms chocolate chip cookies, too much of her pasta salad that has way too much mayo, I ate too much Cafe Rio pork salad (twice in the last week), too many Chili's peppercorn burgers, and way too many chips.
You have never: Broken a bone.
You never want to: See a snake again.

I tag Matt, Matt, and MATT!!!!!

Warm Days

Our days are starting to warm up again. For us, that means lots of park time and deck time. And the worst allergies. Thanks mom and dad Rasmussen for the awesome supply of Allegra-D that has been saving my hide for the last week. Despite that, I am so glad that spring is here. I actually don't even know if spring has officially begun yet, but it feels like it this week. Just in time for an Easter weekend. Matt and Reagan at Larkey Park.
This was her first time sliding down a 'big-kid' slide by herself (with some limited help from dad).
Reagan's 'frustrated' face. I believe in this photo, she was asking for me to help her up on the couch.

We spent the last couple of weeks letting Reagan play with the plastic eggs and basket. She loved it! It got her geared up for Easter, about as much as she could with her understanding.
Chilling on the deck. Wearing her princess shoes!

Beautiful tree that gives me horrid allergies.
Three months from tomorrow, my child will turn 2 years old! Is that crazy or what?

Animal Sounds Part 2

So here is the video of Reagan doing her animal sounds. Her first one is the cow (mooo), then the rooster (cock-a-doodle-doo), the owl (whoooo), and lastly the cat (meow). Enjoy!

Less than a month...

...until The Office returns!! April 10th. Until then, I am going to post our Office quote from the very last episode aired, The Deposition. If you can remember way back then, like 500 years ago, it was when Michael and Jan had to appear before the lawyers because Jan was suing the company. They read Michael's diary and that is where I got the current quote.

Dancing with the Stars begins soon, but I am not going to watch it much, I think. I am already bored of it (too many seasons), just like I got bored with The Apprentice after like 3 seasons. Plus, I don't know any of the people paired with the dancers.

There is this new show on Food Network called Ultimate Recipe Challenge. It is good. I watched the cakes episode the other day and it took all my willpower not to jump up and make a chocolate cake that night.

I am loving American Idol! I love the top 12, but I do think the wrong person went home last night. Kristy should have gone. She is pretty and nice, but not a very good performer. She kind of just bounces in place on stage. Her 8 days a week was pretty horrible. Also, here are my thoughts on the other people: Jason is such a pretty guy that I think if he were a girl, the guys would be all over him. I don't like dreads, but the guy has one of the "prettiest" faces I have seen. I love David Archuleta, lick-lipping and all. The licking lips bugs Matt, though. I wasn't a huge David H. fan. I really like Michael Johns, mostly because he seems sincere and I love Australian accents. I am a HUGE fan of David Cook. The guy sounds like the lead singer for Nickelback, does he not? I just think he is a great performer. Chiqueze (yeah my spelling may be off) is really good, and finally got some praise. Okay, girls: I don't like Amanda because I don't think she sings well at all. I already mentioned Kristy. Brooke is dang good and I love the playing piano while singing thing. That takes mega talent. I do wish she would stop crying at the end of every performance, though. It gets old. Ramiele doesn't impress me much, she is kind of boring. I think Ayesha was actually very good and I was surprised to see her in the bottom 3. I also like Carly, her voice more than the tattoos. I LOVE the song "Come Together" so her performance was one of my two favorites (the other being David Cook). Overall, the boys are so much better than the girls, though. I know TONS of you guys watch it, so post your commentary...Jeff/Selly, Melanie!!! I love reading what others think each week.

In other news, someone is blaring music outside my window right now. If my child wakes up from her nap because of it, I will seriously open up a can...

Modern Medicine

I apologize for the lack of photos lately. I do have some darling ones of Reagan on the camera, but I haven't taken the time to upload them to the computer yet. Soon!

We had a weekend full of coughs, sore throats and lack of sleep. Both Reagan and Matt are sick. Matt handles it well, I really don't have a need to worry about him! He just prefers down time to relax, rather than being fussed over. This was the first time, however, that Reagan has been truly sick. She has had some colds here and there, but she had a temperature all weekend and couldn't sleep and just was lethargic most of the time and cried a lot. I wrestled with the idea of taking her into the doctor all weekend. Is it possible she could have an ear infection? If not, what else could they do? Nothing really. Anyways, after another bad night, I took her in this morning.

Her doctor is excellent and he checked Reagan thoroughly. She had lost some weight, which made me even more grateful for the good eater she has always been! I held her while she screamed and he checked both her ears and announced that they both had a pretty good infection. I was dismayed. I felt such a range of emotion that I couldn't help but start to cry. I never thought that seeing Reagan in pain and hurting would hurt ME like it did! I was kicking myself for not bringing her in sooner. I was so sad for her that she was hurting. And I was SO THANKFUL for modern medicine. That my doctor could simply look in her ears and announce the problem. That I could walk into the building next door and get her some medicine that would cure it in a few days! She was behind in her shots, so they administered 4 vaccines. It was almost too much for her to endure and she became hysterical. I just bawled while the nurse and I held her down and after 2 shots, she asked if she needed to stop. I told her she didn't and she gave her the other 2. It took Reagan a good 15 minutes to stop trembling.

I am glad that our exhausting day is now coming to a close as Reagan is finally starting to nap peacefully.

Free Concerts

We have Dish Network and with it (sometimes) comes this free channel called HDNet. There is hardly anything good on it except for when they have free live concerts...in HD!! A lot of the bands we don't like, so we just skip past it, but in the last month, I have seen the following concerts: Gwen Stefani (she's allright, I actually liked her better in No Doubt), Third Eye Blind (one of my favorite bands!!), 311, and some others that I am not totally into, but hey, it was a free concert! This kind of makes up for us not being able to see Angels and Airwaves at the Warfield tomorrow night...kind of.

Animal Sounds

Last fall I bought Reagan a book with pictures of animals and their sounds. We read it for quite a while and occasionally we still read it. Some of her other books also contain animals as well. A few weeks ago, I received one of those babycenter emails (you know the ones) and they had an article about talking to your child. The part that stood out to me was that even though Reagan still hasn't fully learned yet how to respond (as in talking sentences), she still is understanding much of what I am saying. So that was a big boost for me.

This morning, she wandered over to her books and pulled down the Animal Sounds. She started flipping through the pages and, lo and behold, she was making the noises!!! Well, most of them. She knows dogs, owls, sheep, cats, and my favorite, flies or bees (which to her, make the same noise). All other animals make a generic noise that sounds a bit like, "BGHAAHH...BGHAAHH." Her favorite is the owl. We have encountered this animal a few times, both in Animal Sounds as well as in The Very Busy Spider. I am really proud of her!!

In other language developments, she can now identify what a park is. We pass Cowell Park many times a week and she will always say, "Slide." She knows and repeats most of her body parts, especially her facial ones. And even when I say something to her and she doesn't quite know how to put it into words, I know that she understands what I am saying! It is a fun thing.