Happy Memorial Day!

Since we had a beautiful Memorial Day we decided to take a walk down to our favorite grocery store while our house was being shown yesterday morning to pick up some meat so we could grill out. Reagan enjoyed watching and helping Daddy grill! We hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend as much as we did! :)

While Reagan wasn't entirely thrilled with her cheeseburger she loved the blueberries and strawberries!
Thank you to Aunt Arla for the adorable patriotic dress!

Visit from the Schwantes Clan

On Saturday part of the Schwantes family stopped to visit us on their way to Williamsburg. We throughly enjoyed the visit and wish we could have spent more time with them! Hope you guys have a great rest of your vacation and thanks for stopping in!!! :)

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Receiving instructions from Great Aunt Carla/Grandma

Reagan's first piano duet with cousin Daniel
Reagan loved giving and receiving hugs from big cousin Lily

We had to get a picture of the three little cousins on the way too! Out of 14 Carlson cousins there are only 4 girls and 3 of us have babies due this fall. Now we just need to get Brittany in on the action... We should probably get her home safely from Iraq and married first, however.... Jodi and I have almost the exact same due date and Julie is about 6 weeks ahead of us and recently found out she is expecting a little girl. Congratulations Julie and Nick!

Sorry It's Been So Long....

I know from the number of comments I've received that several of you are wondering if we're still around. We are, we've just been so busy, since returning from Tennessee! I started to get behind while waiting for Reagan's birthday pictures to arrive from the photographer (still don't have them - maybe the CD will come today???). By the time it became apparent that I wouldn't receive those in a timely fashion I was tremendously behind on the blog. Once you get behind it becomes somewhat overwhelming in determining how to catch up...

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Another reason I've been behind and felt overwhelmed is we decided with another baby on the way it didn't make sense to stay in our townhouse. That said, we have been frantically working to get our townhouse ready to put on the market. By the grace of God, our house went on the market today! We are extremely excited!!! If you can believe it our first showing is already scheduled for tonight! Please think lots of good thoughts for us! The homes that have been priced correctly in our neighborhood have been selling in 1-2 weeks. We think we have priced our home to sell so please send lots of prayers our way that we will find interested buyers in the next couple of months! The less pregnant I am when we move the better! For those of you who are curious I think you can check out our home at the following link:

http://matrix.mris.com/matrix/public/displayautoemail.aspx?ID=28534395-474224849-12

It should be the first one listed. In case it's not, our address is 136 Cameron Station Blvd. It's a grey townhouse with maroon shudders and two dormers. It should be pretty easy to spot. Let us know if you know anyone moving to the area who's interested in living in Alexandria. We throughly enjoyed this home and it's location we just want a few less steps now that we're going to have two little ones.

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Sorry again for the long delay in pictures! Hopefully now that I'm semi-caught up I'll be able to keep it going. No promises, however, since our home is on the market and we don't know how often it will be shown or how long it will take to sell. Have a great week everyone!

Watch Me Grow - 12 Months

I can hardly believe it, but we've already reached our last Duck picture! This year has flown by and we certainly feel very blessed and lucky to have Miss. Reagan in our lives! She is such a joy and provides constant entertainment with all her various antics! :)

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At Reagan's 12 Month appointment she weighed 22 lbs and was 29 in long. Both pretty much average which is where she's been since she was born.
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I'm waiting for birthday pictures from the photographer so I'll hopefully be able to post those soon. In the meantime you can check out some super cute video (including my favorite of Reagan blowing out her birthday candle) on You Tube at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJyFiSPiXPY . Thank you Great Uncle Martin for taking and posting the videos of Reagan's party!

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Reagan still loves to read! Her favorite authors are Sandra Boyton and Dr. Suess. I would say she easily enjoys her books more than any of her toys. She does love baby dolls though - we hope this love of babies translates to her little brother or sister ! :) Reagan is saying several basic words such as kitty, cheese, uh oh, Da, etc. Her favorite food is hands down cheese. If we would let her, she would live on that alone. She is so funny the way she gets so excited anytime we ask her if she would like some cheese to eat. lol :) Reagan started walking on April 19, at her birthday party. She walks every where now and hardly ever crawls. She has started learning some body parts and is generally curious about most everything. She craves attention and hates it when ever anyone leaves. We've been having various work done on our house in preparation of it going on the market. Anytime any random estimator or worker leaves she cries. Reagan even cried when the Chinese take-out delivery man dropped off the food last weekend, I guess he was supposed to stay and play. :) She is so much fun and so funny! lol :)

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12 Months - April 2008

11 Months
Newborn - April 2007

Not so new tricks...

Better late than never, right? So, these would have been new tricks if I'd posted them a month a go when I took the pictures... They're still all things Reagan is up to and in too though so I thought I'd go ahead and share them. She is such a little nut and loves to get attention from anyone who will give it to her!

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Here's your silly bow, Mommy!

When ever someone exclaims "Oh Dear" or "Oh My!" Reagan puts her hands on the side of her head. She also does "All Gone" but putting her hands out to the side and shrugging but I apparently didn't snap a picture of that.
Reagan became fascinated with her belly button several weeks ago. Since she caught on to nose and eyes so quickly once she became interested we told her it's her belly button and now she points to it anytime she's asked where it is. She also likes to inspect Mommy and Daddy's belly buttons.
There it is!

Cousin Dan and Heidi taught Reagan how to show one finger whenever anyone asks how old she is.
I couldn't get a good picture because Reagan kept turning but you can kind of see that she is talking on two phones. Her hectic social calendar apparently requires the use of multiple phones...

Hanging Out With The Girls

While we were in Tennessee Kelly, Anna, Reagan, and I went to visit one of my best friends and bridesmaid, Emily Bass, and her daughter Sarah. It was so much fun to have all our little girls together! It was kind of surreal to be spending time with two people who I've been friends with forever and now we all have little girls the same age. Who would have thought?!?!

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Reagan and Sarah playing together

Anna enjoying her girl time :)
After Anna woke up, we had a photo shoot of the girls. Emily took a ton of awesome pictures! Unforunately the CD she burned for me is already packed up for our move. This is the one picture I captured with my camera of our three sweet baby girls.

To see more cute pics of Anna, Sarah, and Reagan check out Sarah's blog at: http://www.markbass.blogspot.com/

The Myers Family

Last week we were able to get together with one of my really good friends from college, Jane (Dalton) Myers and her family. While we've kept up via phone, e-mail, and most recently baby blogs, we haven't seen each other since Jane's wedding 5 years ago! That was far too long and we'll have to do better in the future!!! We finally had the perfect excuse to get together as we've both had babies in the last year and thought it was time for them to meet. We had a great time and think Wil is adorable! Thanks for driving up to meet us Jane, Bryan, and Wil! We can't wait to see you again and happy 5th anniversary! :)

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Reagan checking out Wil - he sure looks like fun!

Sharing Wil's toy
Reading together
Bryan and Wil
We at least made an attempt to get a group photo after lunch together. :)

Anna and Noah

Last week we went spent part of the day shopping with two of our baby friends Anna and Noah.

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Anna and Reagan in matching outfits and ready to go!

You look like you need a big kiss to get you going this morning Noah!
After shopping we headed back to Anna's house for a bit but Noah couldn't join us unfortunately. Reading together back at Anna's house

Playing together Sharing Anna's pacifier
Thank you Anna, I'll share my blanket with you
Back to the books
(Please note the weener dogs Jane :)

The Deckers

Last week we went to visit one of Grandma Sherry's best friends and her two beautiful grand daughters who were visiting her. Reagan thought they were both quite entertaining and we enjoyed the visit. Thanks for having us over!

Reagan's first game of "Pass the Pickle"

The Greatest Show On Earth

While Grandma Sherry and Grandpa Ted were visiting us in DC last weekend we went to Reagan's first circus. Actually it was my first real circus too! :) We all loved it and will definately be going back!!! Reagan was fascinated with everything but especially the elephants. We had a wonderful time and were glad Grandpa and Grandma could join us!

Selecting which items Reagan needs the most, that would be all of them... lol :)


Grandpa bought Reagan her first Cotton Candy and it sure was yummy!
Looks like we brought a clown home with us!

Reagan's New Tricks

The biggest news of the day is Reagan is almost walking. I tricked her into taking a couple of steps today. While Reagan was holding my hands I slipped them out of her grasp and lightly placed my fingers on top of hers. While I wasn't supporting her in anyway she only continues to walk as long as she feels my hand. As soon as I lift my hand she falls down. So, as we've suspected for a while now she can walk she just doesn't realize it. We'll keep working on it and keep you posted as to when Reagan is officially walking completely and totally on her own! :)

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Reagan started blowing kisses while we were visiting Illinois. She especially enjoyed blowing Aunt Julie kisses. Now she prefers to blow kisses instead of giving you a kiss directly. While it's a bit difficult to capture a kiss being blown in still pictures, Great Aunt Faye asked us to have Reagan blow her a kiss once she started. So, this post is especially for you Aunt Faye! Thank you to Aunt Julie for the cute outfit! :)

Looks like Reagan is sending Aunt Faye an extremely juicy kiss!
While we were in Illinois Reagan was fascinated with Grandpa Jim's deer mounts. Grandma Karen and Reagan spent a lot of time playing/looking at the deer. One of the things Grandma Karen started was pointing/asking "where is the deer's nose? Reagan's nose?" We've kept this game up since returning home and this week Reagan has started pointing to her or your nose when asked. :) Here she is pointing to Daddy's nose.
Here's your silly bow, Mom
I crack me up! lol :)

Long Lost Buddies

We've been trying to get together with Reagan's buddies, Harun and Musa, for months but had to keep canceling because one or the other of the three was sick. Yesterday everyone finally managed to be healthy so we were able to get together for a playdate. Now that we're headed into spring and summer everyone will hopefully stay healthy and we'll be able to start our weekly playdates again. Thanks for having us over guys! We had a great time! :)

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Group hug!

Mind if I sit here?
Playing together so nicely!

Snack Time!!!