Easter 2009

It was a beautiful Easter full of family, candy, easter egg hunts, and being thankful for the Savior and his atonement and resurrection. I don't have much else to say about it so here are a couple pictures I took of Reagan. We tried and tried to get a good picture of her with her bunny ears on, but most of them turned out with her either mad/confused or making a crazy face. See?


She had fun playing with "cousin" Maribel. (My cousin's daughter).


Modeling her Easter dress. (This is her new face she makes in every picture.)

What happened?

Whatever happened to my sweet little newborn who loved to be swaddled and only had enough hair to stick a tiny bow with corn syrup to her forehead? I miss her just a little bit, but this new "big girl" that has taken her place is just as much fun I guess. =)

Turkey Lurkey

Today Nana (my mom) took us to get ice cream and to good ol' Hovander Park (a childhood classic of mine) to look at the farm animals. I feel like I need to take advantage of this beautiful weather because rain (and possibly snow??) is on the radar in the next few days. Reagan has been practicing her animal noises lately, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to put her new found animal sound skills to use. Unfortunately, the only animals there right now are of the bird variety. Is it a bad thing that when I see a big fat turkey, I think of how good that turkey would look in the middle of my table for Thanksgiving dinner? Disturbing, maybe, but at least I'm honest. We named this guy "Turkey Lurkey."

Oh, what's that? You'd like to see that big juicy guy up close? I thought you'd never ask...

Sans the blue face and wobbly gobble, looks pretty appetizing, eh?

We were slightly hesitant to get close right at first, but as soon as Turkey Lurkey started doing his gobble gobble dance, all was right in Penny's world.

If that isn't a look of just pure joy and utter excitement, I don't know what is. Or maybe she's like her mom and thinking of how delicious Turkey Lurkey looked. I wouldn't doubt it. She loves her meats.

We took a bath tonight to get rid of the evidence that we had a very fun-filled day rolling around in the dirt. She doesn't like when I give her funny hair-dos. She prefers the more sensible "swept back" look. Well, today, in good Turkey Lurkey fashion, we went all out. Here was the end result (lots of drool in these pictures. More teeth coming soon):


Flock of turkeys or Flock of Seagulls?

"Ummmmm...mom? You're not putting this on the blog ARE YOU??"

I spoke too soon...

Apparently I had a couple more blog posts in me. Phew! I just wanted to say how much I love my brother, Elias Stephen Pratt. At 16 years old, he is often much too cool to hang out with me and hug me as much as he used to, but I love him just the same. He is such a good kid, as well as very handsome and incredibly talented. Last week, I had the opportunity to watch him and his band, Fight the Shun, perform at Meridian High School's talent show. They write all their own songs and are individually very talented musicians. Their songs are all very catchy, and I hope Eli still remembers me someday when he becomes a famous rockstar. Fight the Shun also just performed at a Battle of the Bands in Burlington and did fantastic! Unfortunately I was not able to make their performance, but I was so proud after reading a couple newspaper articles about them. One older musician commented on how good Eli was at the bass. I love that no matter how much Eli has going on or how many friends he has over, he will always take the time to play with Reagan and give her hugs. I'm such a proud older sister!

Eli is the one on the far left with the red bass. What a cutie!
Photo courtesy (hopefully, ha ha) of my very talented photographer friend Amanda.

A couple short videos

Here are a couple of videos that I took from my phone. We'll call them "A Day in the Life of Penny." In one, she is pushing her stroller around. I love the way her little legs look waddling along. Please ignore my loud breathing in that one. And please don't tell me I always breathe like that? (I'm hoping it's just because I was holding the phone so close. Gross.) The other video is of her kicking Jason's face on our bed. So sweet, huh? =) She is in her "cave" as we like to call it - the space between the two big pillows on our bed.

What we've been up to...

Lately, I've been trying to write more exciting posts. No, exciting may not be the right word but more INTERESTING perhaps? Well, some time has gone by and...I've got nothin' for ya. So here's another somewhat boring update of what we've been up to. But, if you love us, it's not boring I hope. I actually really like to read everyone's blogs of what they've been up to and whatnot - even with no pictures, I always read them and find them interesting. I always think others' lives are interesting, but maybe they're just good at writing intruiging blog posts? Who knows - Nevertheless, here's some of what we've been up to.
- We were all sick for about a month and I found it pretty miserable. We had gone over 9 months without Reagan being even the least bit sick, which is a pretty good track record I think, but when it hit, it definitely hit and the poor girl just wasn't herself for weeks. It was so strange. I felt like I had a whole different baby. She is usually so happy and calm and easygoing and suddenly she was irritable and seemed totally indifferent to anything I did to entertain her. It was a really depressing couple of weeks. I felt so helpless. We just cuddled a lot, watched movies, and I nursed her pretty much all day long. What was her already small appetite got even smaller and all she wanted to do was nurse, which was okay with me because it gave me a lot of time to just cuddle and be close to her, something that doesn't happen very often nowadays with such a busy little girl! We made about 3 doctor visits and each time they just kind of shrugged their shoulders but I kept taking her back because I knew something just wasn't right. She got hives all over her body - EVERYWHERE, even her face, and I could tell she just wasn't feeling too hot. Turns out she had roseola. In fact, I had pretty much diagnosed her with this before we even took her to the doctor. I guess I should listen to my mothers intuition more often! They gave us some cream to put on her hives and they went away almost instantly. It made me feel terrible that she was so uncomfortable that whole time and all she needed was a little ointment. A few days later she was a different person. She is back to her sweet, wonderful, happy, and very BUSY self! (I can't keep up with her!)
- Reagan has been taking one or two steps here and there. She has a little miniature stroller that my parents got her that she pushes her "babies" around in and it's really helped her be brave enough to take some steps on her own without it. One thing that I love about her is that she has a very sweet and cautious personality. She is very busy, but also a very careful girl. She knows her limits and just looks at you with an "are you joking me??" face whenever we try to get her to do something that she doesn't want to. I love her personality. I don't know what it is, but I can tell that she has such a tender heart. It's amazing that even though she can't talk yet, I feel like I really know her heart and her personality. She gives me hugs and kisses (we're working on the no-tongue thing. That may become a problem when she can date, haha) and tells me she loves me (in her own little way). She is just my best little friend. This is probably a weird thing to say, but I feel so connected to her, like she is wise beyond her years. Sometimes if I'm sad or having a hard time with something, she just looks at me like she really knows what I'm going through. I love her age so much right now, and being her mom is more than I could ever ask for!
- She is also babbling a ton and it cracks us up all day long. Most of it is nonsense, but every once in a while it really sounds like she is saying something. Some things that I swear she says over and over again (even if she doesn't know it) are: Go away! Bad dad! (Much to Jason's dismay, ha). Hello! and Googly googly (this was from a movie we watched and Jason kept saying it over and over and one day she just started copying him. Maybe we should teach her real words?
- Jason just had a week off from school last week and it was bittersweet because I got used to him being there with us all day and starting today he is gone all day again! It was so nice to have him around relaxing with us. Poor guy works so hard, but we love him!
- Conference weekend was great. I can't ask for anything better than listening to those inspired people from the comfort of my own home (and my pajamas) with the people I love! They are all so aware of what is going on in the world and it gives me so much comfort to know that I have access to modern day revelation in an often hectic world.
- The weather has been BEAUTIFUL! We've been enjoying being able to go outside so much. I don't feel so vitamin D deprived any more. Reagan loves being outside and being "loved" by the sun. However, she doesn't love grass a whole lot. Sometimes I'll set her down in the grass, expecting her to crawl around, and she just lifts her hands up and gives me an unsure look about it. Haha, see what I mean? She's so cautious! I am okay with the grass myself, but I just don't like the crowds. Call me anti-social or something but I hate being at a park on a nice day, but having it be packed with yapping dogs and smelly naked people and obnoxious tight-rope walkers. I want to rent out all of Boulevard Park for the day just for me and Reagan. Think they would do that for me? I'm pretty mean, I know. I'm sure those people are thinking the same thing. "Won't those annoying moms with their babies just stay away?" =)
Welp, that's pretty much it. If anyone stuck with me for this long, I thank you kindly. And a blog post is never complete without pictures, right?

Nanny Cam?

I know that there are more expensive and authentic "nanny cams" out there, but my clever and technology-savvy husband rigged up one of our very own! I can't explain the technical part of it, but he put our video camera in Reagan's room on her dresser so that there is a perfect view of her crib, and it is now available on our TV for our viewing pleasure. Since we are too lazy to walk the 10 (this may even be a stretch) steps to her room and peek in her door, I can now watch her every move after she goes to sleep from my very own Nanny Cam TV channel! (I feel like this is an infomercial.) It will come in handy on the weekends when we are watching movies and want to check on her periodically. With the press of a button on the remote, we can see what she's up to. Last night after I put her to bed, I was working on my computer and thought I heard her whimper a little bit, so I turned on the TV and saw her standing there in her crib. I resisted my urge to jump up and get her and instead watched her:
- stand there for a few moments, looking around with a worried look on her face,
- whimper a little and look directly at the Nanny Cam (she must know something is up. Shoot!)
- smile and start to dance back and forth(no I am not making this up!)
- give the Nanny Cam one more devious glare, and
- dramatically fall down into her crib again and fall back asleep, all within seconds.

I sort of felt like I was watching the discovery channel. Instead of Shark Week, it was Baby Week and I was watching her in her natural environment without any outside distractions.
Now, this may be an infringement of her right to privacy and personal property, but let's just say that as her mom, I have a warrant. And I'm so happy that I do, because she is hilarious. Watch out babysitters, we may rig up something a little more disguised for the future!