Thankgiving and other "stuff"ing

Thanksgiving and the black Friday shopping afterwards was awesome this year! We stayed in Florida and celebrated with some of our close friends. Scott grilled the turkey into a masterpiece and we stuffed ourselves full. We had a great time hanging out together.

From winter 08/09

From winter 08/09

From winter 08/09

From winter 08/09

From winter 08/09

From winter 08/09

From winter 08/09

Aidan is having fun being one and is very active. He loves pulling dishes off shelves in the cabinets and climbing onto them!

From winter 08/09

Walking has worked it's way into his daily activities



And he loves to help!

From winter 08/09

We're gearing up for our trip to Wisconsin for Christmas and we can't wait to play in the snow with Aidan!

BOO!

Now that all the ghosts and goblins have gone back to their graves we are able to share with you the pumpkin smashing good time we had celebrating Aidan's 1st birthday!

From Fall 08

Custom M&Ms

From Fall 08

Aidan got an early gift from Scott, a rocking Blue Angel airplane that he won a bid on at our church's fall fundraiser, which was also a wine tasting. Aidan liked both the red and white wine (juice and milk of course!)

From Fall 08

Aidan enjoyed his sesame street Halloween video and danced along to the music that played.

From Fall 08

Aidan found his first present hiding underneath a blanket

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

This is what the birthday cake looked like before Aidan "destroyed" it

From Fall 08

Aidan is a tunnel dweller now that he has his own hideaway

From Fall 08

Relaxing with Grandpa Ruppel before the big party

From Fall 08

All sorts of visitors came, the first to show up was the wicked witch of the west and one of her flying monkies

From Fall 08

Then Dorothy stopped by and hung out with the scarecrow

From Fall 08

We all took a picture together with the cowardly lion and the tin man

From Fall 08

Dinner date with the lion

From Fall 08

Dorothy showing off (I think the cider was spiked)

From Fall 08

Maybe the witch isn't so wicked after all :)

From Fall 08

Tigger made a surprise appearance

From Fall 08

Aidan had some help from a pirate and little bo peep opening his presents

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

Then it was time to sing "Happy Birthday"

From Fall 08

CHOCOLATE CAKE!

From Fall 08

The party continued even after the scarecrow retired for the evening and everyone enjoyed the festivities.

On Sunday the Ruppel's gathered to watch the Packers play on tv, which rarely happens here in Florida. I think Aidan was the most excited he was all decked out for the game.

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

Congratulations President Obama

Last night the Ruppel clan stayed up to watch the election. It was historic. Someday I will get to tell my grandchildren that I watched - and took part - this country electing its first black president. Regardless of your political affiliations, it was a momentous occasion.

For those of you who didn't manage to stay up all night and hear what President-Elect Obama had to say, here is the video.

I'm Home

How's everyone doing? After Heather very nearly stood me up at base when my plane arrived (in all fairness it did land at about 1:30AM and she had problems with the alarm clock...) I did get home safe and sound. She brought Aidan along but he was mostly out of it with all the commotion and being awake in the middle of the night! I was mostly out of it too having flown for 15 hours...

The next day we got reacquainted. I was amazed at how big my boy has gotten!

From Fall 08

Later in the day we played outside. Aidan showed me how he can push his truck around now.

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

I've been given two weeks off since I got home so we've been doing all kinds of fun things. A couple days later we went to the park and had a picnic. Afterwards, we fed the ducks.

From Fall 08

This past weekend Heather and I went to Biloxi for a night while the neighbor watched Aidan. It was great to whisk Heather away and have some adult time away to get reunited. Unfortunately I took the directions down wrong and we were late leaving the house which resulted in us missing our massage appointment. Then we both didn't feel well after dinner. Finally, we lost our (temporary) winnings from the blackjack table on the craps table.

It just wasn't meant to be...

After picking Aidan up when we got home though, we went out and picked up our pumpkins for Halloween this year. Most of them were bigger than Aidan!

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

I like this one!

Last night we went to the neighbors and had some chili and carved Aidan's pumpkin. He wasn't really too keen on getting the "pumpkin guts" on his hands.

From Fall 08

So I've had a great time in my two weeks off. I go back to work on Wednesday. We've got a couple parties to go to this weekend and then the following weekend is Aidan's big first birthday!

It sure has been a crazy year!!

One final thing. I wanted to share a video of Aidan fighting with one of his teddy bears. Or, more accurately, it could be described as one of his teddy bears fighting Aidan. Either way, it's fun!

Aidan being cute

It's been absolutely gorgeous here, no humidity, low-mid 80s for a high and low 60s at night and in the morning, great breezes coming in too. I've been taking full advantage of this great weather by keeping the windows open and the fans on, no air conditioning. Since the windows have been open Aidan has been more curious about looking out them.

From Fall 08

From Fall 08

Aidan was looking for Bailey in this one, she was in the backyard and kept peeking in the window. :)

I had to get video of this particular action, I laughed so hard the first time he did it. Babies are smart, they mimic everything!

HOLY NED!

I had to post this pic. A friend of a friend took this out on Navarre Beach this past week as Ike was rolling south of here on its way to Texas. This pier was damadged during Ivan back in 04' and these are the waves crashing in on it. This is just a couple miles from my house and the beach that we frequent on hot days!

From Summer '08

Updates, updates, updates

So... what's been going on lately? Aidan and I have been busy since getting back from our trip in Wiscinsin. I held an open house for my Tastefully Simple business and made a spread bigger than some people do at Thanksgiving! It was much easier and faster than it looked though (that's what Tastefully Simple food is all about of course) and stirred up some more business for myself. Aidan has been sick for a couple weeks with a cold but it ended up also being a combination of teething because I noticed today that he has 2 TEETH on the bottom!! He's not been sleeping very well lately and he's been kind of restless and making all kinds of noises in his sleep.

I watched a little boy that's a friend of mine for a week who's having trouble with her nanny, he's been over before, he and Aidan had a lot of fun playing together last week. We've been outside alot and we hit up the park too. Aidan's been "cruising" and pushing toys while walking a lot more now but hasn't tried to take a step on his own, he's not quite that far yet.

From Summer '08

From Summer '08

From Summer '08

From Summer '08

From Summer '08

From Summer '08

From Summer '08

As for me I've got a part-time job! I'm so excited about it too. It's with the local county Child Care Services. I'm an Early Childhood Specialist and will be going into home child care centers to monitor their programs and make sure they are doing what they agreed to in their contract with the county. This organization refers parents to child care facilities that they have contracts with to uphold certain standards and supports and helps these providers maintain a quality learning environment. You can learn more about them here... http://owccs.org

Aidan is staying with my neighbor and friend Melissa, who runs a child care facility out of her home, while I'm at work. He has so much fun playing with and being around the other kids and I still get to stay home with him 2 days a week!

Now I'm preparing for October, big month for us! Scott's coming home and a Halloween/1st birthday party!!!