Long time, no post

Well, the Rath family has definately started 2007 off with a whirlwind of activities. Last weekend, Regan and I made a quick overnight trip up to Elkhart to see my sister, Brandi and her two kiddos. We also had to pick up our Christmas presents from Papa and Nana. Eric was in Abilene for a band contest thing, so he didn't get to go. Here are a few pics from that trip.
Regan, Papa and Nana
Regan and Aunt Brandi. We found out on Friday that the Bennetts will be relocating to Farmington, New Mexico sometime in the next month. Rick got a much better job working at a hospital, and career-wise it's a huge step up for him. Of course, we all hate to see them move so far away, but we also know that there isn't anywhere they can move that God won't have them in His hands.
Aubrey holding Regan.
And Regan basically beating Kyle up. I love the look on his face! Regan is pulling herself up on everything.
The next biggest news in our life right now is that I have started working part-time at Amarillo National Bank. I work 7:30-12:00 in the electronic banking department. It was a hard decision to go back to work, but one that is necessary at this point. We were very blessed to have my three cousins from Dallas come up and babysit Regan last week for our first few days and then my mom came down so she could watch Regan on Friday.

While she was here we got quite a bit of ice and a little bit of snow, so she was "stranded" here an extra night and went home this morning. We had so much fun and it was a lot easier to be at work knowing that Regan was in good hands. Starting tomorrow, our regular baby sitter will come to our house. She's a band director without a band, basically, and is teaching part time with Eric and the other guys at the junior high. She needed something to do in the mornings so we've put her to work! I told Eric that she's more qualified to watch Regan than we are because she's certified in CPR and First Aid!

God has been more than faithful in pulling together all the right elements for me to take this job, and I take comfort knowing that even though it's not what I had planned for this time in our lives, it's what God wants me to do. But if you think about us any time between 7:30-12 Monday through Friday, you might say a little prayer! :)

Here's our little snow bunny on her 8 month birthday!
Regan laughs all the time. She is so funny and happy. Mom took this picture last night. I forget what she was doing, but whatever it was, Regan thought it was hilarious!
I promise I'll try to do better at updating, but I'm not promising anything!!! :)

Lots of Christmas pictures!

We had a wonderful Christmas with our family in Oklahoma. We spent Friday through Monday at my aunt and uncle's house in Ponca City and then on Christmas evening we went to Tulsa to be with Eric's family for a few days. Here are a few pictures from our time with my family:

Regan was very good at opening her presents, although she was more interested in eating the wrapping paper than playing with her new toys!

The Miss Priss look Last year after Christmas, I bought this onesie at Wal-Mart for $1.00 thinking our baby boy would look so cute in it. I think it still looked pretty cute, even if it was on a girl! What's funny is that Kyle got the exact same onesie as a hand-me-down, so the kids had matching outfits for Christmas Eve.
Here are the grandkids after church on Christmas Eve. Aubrey is next to Kyle and Kylie is next to Regan. How cute are they!?!
While we were there, Regan had her first taste of sweet potatos and applesauce. Seperately, not together. This is her adorable reaction to the applesauce. I think it was a little too tart for her taste. She loved the potatos, though!
The big girls thought it was so fun to watch her eat, and she sure hammed it up for them!
Here is a picture of how many gifts were there. It was crazy!!
And a group picture of everyone on Christmas Eve after our family candlelight service. There were 19 total and even though it was a full house and a late night, I can't think of anywhere else I would've wanted to be!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas...

Tuesday evening we had a winter snow/ice storm. It rained all day Tuesday and got everything really wet and soaked, and then it froze and the rain turned to snow, so we ended up with snow on top of ice. Eric was just sure that he wouldn't have to go in for the 1/2 day of school yesterday, but of course they wouldn't call off the day that everyone has a party during class, right!?!

Anyway, here are some pictures of the park across the street. It's really scary looking with all the trees falling down and hanging so low. It looks like the Nightmare Before Christmas! This is a tree right in front of our house.
This is down the street. They've actually come by with caution tape and practically blocked off the whole park until the city can come through and clean it up, but who knows when that'll be!
And to the left of the house.
Since it was so cold, Regan and I stayed in all day and wrapped presents. I am unofficially the worst present wrapper ever known to man, and I loathe wrapping our presents, but it had to be done. Here's my little helper showing me how to do things right.
I've had this stinking wrapping paper since our first Christmas in Joplin and I'm tired of it, so I finally just gave a bunch of it to Regan hoping to use it all up. I didn't.
As we pause to reflect on a tiny baby, our Lord and Savior clothed in human skin, it is our prayer that each of us take the time to thank him for the sacrifice which brought him here in the first place. Jesus is certainly the reason for the season, but it is the power of the resurrection that gives us cause to celebrate! Merry Christmas!

Santa Clause is coming to town...

Well, I'm not sure if Clause is spelled with an 'e' or not, so for the sake of this blog, we're going to spell it with one.

Last night was the Randall High winter band concert and a special guest made an appearance! After shaking his groove thing on the podium (yes, it was embarassing!) he led the top band in a fun song of "sleigh ride". Regan thought it was fun to watch the jolly old man in red conduct the band. (For those of you interested, she did very well at the concert)

After the concert was over, we went backstage so Regan could have her picture taken with Santa Clause. I'm not sure why he isn't wearing his beard here.. the hair was itching his head so he took it off.She wasn't sure what to think of her dad. She didn't cry, but she sure was sucking on her pacifier pretty hard!
Today I had to go to the mall to pick up Regan's 6 month pictures at Sears. I put her in her Santa suit and we went and got her picture made with the "real" Santa Clause. This is a picture of that picture. I hope ya'll can see it good enough. She did so good and was fascinated with his beard! I love the way her ears stick out from her hat -- I think it makes her look like an elf!

Regan's week

Ladies and Gentleman, an incredibly exciting new experience in the Rath household has taken place. Introducing.... a baby who sleeps through the night!!! Yes, that's right. Regan has finally started to sleep through the night. Sure, we've had our glitches a couple of times, but we just let her cry it out and she's usually asleep again within a few minutes. She's even started to not cry when we lay her down for her nap. She had just woken up from her nap when I took this picture. She was having a spit-upish day, so I finally gave up on changing her clothes and just let her be naked with a diaper and socks on.
This was week 1 of Eric's two straight weeks of gigs. In order to feel somewhat close to him, I took Regan to the dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker on Thursday night. It was really good, despite our daughter making spitting sounds for the last half of it. I wanted a picture of her with a ballerina, and this was the only non-anorexic looking one I could find. I'm not even kidding. Sorry it's blurry, but I accidentally had the camera on the wrong setting. Grr.
Every day when Eric comes home from work, he takes Regan back to our bedroom with him while he changes clothes and that's his time to talk to her and mess around with her. I was lucky enough yesterday to take this picture and I think it is so precious! Regan likes it when we give her eskimo kisses, so that's what Eric was doing. She's so cute because she gets real still and has the sweetest look on her face. My heart gets all bubbly looking at the love on each of their faces.
Regan is about thisclose to crawling. She does what we call her sea lion crawl because she flops her legs behind her and pulls herself along with her hands. She's really starting to get where she wants to go, too. Yesterday when I was getting ready I put her in the middle of the living room with some toys and I heard her fussing and when I went in to check on her, she had gotten all the way to the hallway!
This is Regan checking Tooter out this morning. We're dog-sitting for the day while Granny and Papa went to Childress. Regan thinks Tooter is pretty interesting. She even let the dog lick her in the face! She loves to watch her tail wag but isn't too interested in touching her... yet.

Snow Day with Daddy!

Last Thursday when we woke up, there was 7.5 inches of snow! Because of all the snow, Eric didn't have to go to school, so we had a very fun day.

After breakfast Regan was sitting on the floor playing and Eric was working on his computer and he kept playing peek-a-boo with her. That's her favorite game to play ever. It was hilarious!


Eric likes to put Regan's binky in his mouth and then she leans over him and puts it in her mouth and pulls it out of his. She thinks it's so funny. She kept making Eric laugh and she was laying on his tummy and whenever he would laugh, she would bounce -- it was pretty funny to watch!


I wish every day could be a snow day with Daddy!

Regan's First Thanksgiving

"How can you not cook dinner? This is Emma's first Thanksgiving! It's not? When was she born?" (That is for James)

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving in Tulsa with the Rath clan. It started out with a trip to the doctor for Regan, Eric and I. We all had the snots, so Richard called a doctor in their church who "worked us in". We mostly had viruses, but he gave Eric some cough medicine and me an antibiotic for my ear. We're feeling mostly better, but still have the sniffles.

Karen and the girls came over Wednesday morning before Eric got up (and before we went to the doctor). Karen was telling them that they were going to go home for a nap and they would be back for supper. Both girls asked if Uncle Eric would be awake by supper time. It was pretty cute! We saw them again at Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. It's always great to see them, even though it just reminds us how much of the twins growing up we're missing!

My camera batteries died Thanksgiving day and no one was in the mood to go to the store for more, so I don't have a lot of pictures, but here are a few. This is Regan in her "baby's first thanksgiving" onesie. She's pretty cute, even if she was drugged up!
Here are the three girls. Have you ever tried to get a 6 month old and twin 2-year olds to all look at the camera and smile at the same time!? Regan kept trying to roll over on the twins, so even though she looks like Elvis, this is as good as it gets! Lindsey is on the left and Leah is on the right.
And Regan and Daddy playing with the toys at Grammy's house. Most of the toys Nancy has are from Eric and Bill's childhood. It's pretty neat to watch our daughter play with toys that her dad used to play with!
Here she is taking a bath in Grammy's sink because she kept sliding all around in the big girl bathtub. She did pretty good, even though she kept trying to gnaw on counter!
And the biggest news currently is that on the very long trip home (have you ever driven 375 miles with a sick 6 month old!?) Eric and I decided that Regan is ready to start eating cereal. If you know anything about how paranoid of a mother I am, you know this is a major step for me to take! She did pretty good, although she mostly spits it back out, as is evidenced by her face! We're hoping all those old wives tales (wise tales, Marcia and Beth?) are true and that she'll sleep through the night now that her belly is full.

And just FYI, I found out today that Emmitt Smith has a daughter named Regan!! This child was meant to love the Cowboys!

Hudson comes and Emmitt wins!!

Sorry it's been so long since I last updated. Last week Regan and I went to visit my family in Kansas while Eric was gone at a convention and state marching contest. He had the camera, so there weren't any pictures to post. But now we're back and with lots of news!!

First off, the absolute most exciting part of our week was watching the Dancing with the Stars finale when Emmitt won!! This was Regan's reaction to my jumping around and screaming. She's makes the funniest faces.
The night before we came home (which would've been last Saturday) Regan started getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth. She's been working on perfecting that art this week and is getting to where she stays on her hands and knees quite awhile before she finally falls down. It's pretty comical to watch her try to figure out how to get to her toys.
The other exciting part of this week has been that Hudson has started coming over for 3 hours every day now that Aunt Kristen is back at work. We've been having a lot of fun with him, even though our week hasn't been completely accident free.

This picture was taken about 20 seconds before Regan whacked Hudson in the face with her toy. The next day, I was checking to see if Hudson's diaper was wet. I checked by doing the very same thing I do with Regan... I squeezed the diaper. Hudson, in no uncertain terms, let me know that checking a boy's diaper should be done differently than when checking a girl's diaper. Other than those two incidents, we've had a great first week!
Hudson likes to lay and look at things, so one day I put him under Regan's play gym so he could look at the toys. I sat Regan at the other end so she could play with the ball, and they played (or in Hudson's case, looked) like that for about 15 minutes. It was so cute!
One of the biggest adjustments to having Hudson has been that he is not a pacifier baby like Regan. He likes to suck on one, but he can't quite figure out the system, so in order to make him happy, you have to hold the pacifier in his mouth the whole time. (Luckily after a few minutes, he usually gives up!) Anyway, this picture is mostly for James and Kristen because I actually got Hudson to suck on his pacifier all by himself for about 5 minutes! I was so proud of myself. :)

Chief Regan

Here are the Halloween pictures... finally! Blogger was messing up and wouldn't let me post anything, so I hope this works. Regan was a little Indian for Halloween. She looked so cute! We went to our church's festival and stayed for about 15 minutes and then went over to see GiGi and Papa Sammie.
I thought this was a pretty good one of her and me. She's so good at smiling for the camera, but because it flashes so many times to get the red eye out, she's usually annoyed by the time the picture actually takes, so anything we get that resembles a smile we're pretty excited about!
The day before Halloweeen, Kristen and I took the babies to a pumpkin patch and took their pictures. It was a lot of fun and we got some pretty good ones too! Regan was only interested in eating the hay, so we had to take her pictures really fast.

Hudson was a little bear. Here's Chief Regan looking out over her tribe.
This is my favorite one, mostly because it shows her little rolls on her legs!! How stinking adorable is she!?!