The Ruppel Family

20 October 2008

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

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

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!

27 September 2008

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

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!

16 September 2008

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

15 September 2008

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

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!!!

02 September 2008

We survived

Just so everyone knows Aidan and I have been safe and sound during Gustav's wrath. We only got some rain storms and wind, lots of tornado warnings all day yesterday though, but the week is looking better already! The hurricane was far enough west of us that only the occaisional outerband blew through our area. We are doing great otherwise, keeping busy, still job hunting, planning for Aidan's Birthday in October (we're having a Halloween party), and selling Tastefully Simple foods.

(www.tastefulltsimple.com/web/hruppel)

Scott is doing ok, getting really antsy now that he's gotten over the halfway point. He volunteered at the Baghdad hospital one day a week or two ago. Saw some gory stuff and he said it didn't bother his stomach much. I couldn't say the same if I did that!

Well, keep us in your prayers that Ike and whatever's behind it out in the tropics doesn't come our way! The hurricane season suddenly got busy!

-Heather

22 August 2008

Crazy week!

I took TONS of pictures while we were in Wisconsin and I don't know where to start so I'll just let you enjoy them and you can read the captions as you look :)

Aidan getting a ride on Grandpa Urban's tractor.

Aidan playing with Zoey at Grandma Ruppel's

Getting a push on the swing from Grandma

My In-Laws look like they're having fun on the merry-go-round but they were ready to puke!

Aidan with some of my many cousins, the girls loved him!

My Dad grillin away!

My uncle Pete making goofy faces

My uncle Camal looking for an excuse to take a nap!

My sister "The incredible shrinking woman!"

My mom and her girls!

My nephew Matthew

Aidan's Great-Grandpa and Grandma Urban

The best surprise of the weekend! My sister's boyfriend Jack proposed, guess who's the matron of honor?!

She cried, everybody was cheering. Jack was brave and proposed in front of about 100people.

Awww

This cake was totally awesome! Get the joke?

Everyone was sining "Happy Birthday" to the guests of honor. My mom is 50, my brother is 21, my nephew is 1, and my future brother-in-law is 30, pretty cool for all that in the same month!