Sometimes appearances do matter. For example:

Clearly our daughter has a very distinct personal style. I, for one, wouldn’t have it any other way.

Clearly I haven’t been keeping up my end of this blogging deal. Somehow life just got in the way. Again.

The good news is that we’ve been having lots of family and friend fun times! Take a look:

Tractor Rides!

Sharing

Opa/Ada Bonding Time

Ada is growing like a weed and we’re just trying to keep up.

I’m a big fan of this video thing. It means I don’t have to say much, but you all can enjoy an update of life as we know it.

Ada has decided that walking is her favorite thing to do. Mind you, she can’t do it on her own, but with the help of a trusty Crock Pot box, she’s on the move all the time!

Although we haven’t quite made it to the new year, we have been celebrating the holiday season pretty hard in our family. It started with the opening of stockings at home before heading up to Rockville.

Eerie LED goldfish

New socks!

New diapers!

Once we’d emptied the ol’ mantle decorations, we piled in the car and headed north(west). Ada spent most of her Christmas Eve eating wrapping paper and ignoring gifts. We’d suspected that might be the way things played out so no one had hurt feelings.

On Christmas morning Ada got to test out the new sled she got from Oma and Opa. As you can see, we didn’t exactly enjoy a white Christmas this year, but there were enough ice crystals to make a quick ride around the yard possible.

Sliding (with a little pull) down the hill

Loving the cold!

A true Minnesotan

The bright side was that the lack of snow made traveling a breeze. We were able to scoot back down to St. Paul at a reasonable hour to enjoy Christmas with the Nelsons. I made Ada sport a Christmas dress for the occasion. Or at least for the first fifteen minutes of the occasion. I got mom shamed for putting her in a garment which impeded her ability to move, so she quickly transitioned to tights and a sweatshirt.

Although the Christmas gatherings came to and end, we did get to hang out at Como Zoo with Andy and Heidi (who were in from Michigan). I failed to get any pictures of the little monster with our out-of-town pals, but you can tell from this face that she was enjoying the visit.

What a hardy little bugger!

We Ruprechts hope you and yours have had a lovely holiday season thus far, and that you continue bask in happiness and joy well into the new year. There is so much to celebrate!

I’ll just leave this here for you to enjoy. She’s a ham!

(This was in response to Daddy and Tivo dancing in the kitchen.)

It’s been a while, huh? I suppose that’s what I get for trying to change jobs (but, in reality, just working both jobs during the “transition period”) and raise a child and remain sane.

Lots has happened. Ada is now crawling all over the place and pulling herself up on everything she can see/reach. Her new favorite game is to stare people down and fake laugh at them until the target laughs back at her. It’s pretty darn funny!

The most important thing to have gone down in the past couple of weeks is that St. Nick came to visit. Ada was not exactly thrilled about the oranges in the shoes, but sure did get happy when she discovered a package of her favorite crackers!

Here’s just one more photo to make you smile. That goofy smile just HAS to make you happy!

Guess who just cut her first two teeth?

Just guess.

I bet you’re never going to get it.

Clue: It wasn’t Steve and it wasn’t me.

Also, on the same day she cut her first two teeth, Ada survived her largest round of shots yet at her 6-month check up. What a trooper! (It’s interesting to note that her measurements are those of a an average 12 month old, and developmentally she’s now doing everything on the 9- and 10-month checklists. Stop growing so quickly, kid!)

Saturday was Ada’s first Halloween. For quite some time, I really thought about going all out and dressing her up as a flapper… or Charlie Chaplin… or something else amazing. The holiday got closer and closer and I gave up, telling myself it was OK to downplay everything this year since Ada 1) will never remember it and 2) can’t even dream about enjoying the fruits of her trick-or-treating labor at this point.

The family opted for a casual day at Como Park. We still sort of dressed Ada up by zipping her into a blue bunny suit that we inherited from Steve’s side of the family. Of course, she’s a monster and was nearly too long to be comfortable, but didn’t complain about it at all.

Turns out that a really cold, rainy holiday in the off season is the time to hit up the zoo! There were barely any people there which was super great for getting some good, close-up views of the animals. We even saw the baby orangutan (which, we figure, it at approximately the same developmental state as Ada.)

Ada took her first ride on the carousel as well. Though a little shocked by the motion at first, she really warmed up to it by the end and was singing along with the organ tunes.

Silly us for dressing her in blue. All day long we were asked how old “he” is. One of these days I’ll learn the skill of always accessorizing her outfits with a bow to make it easier on everyone. Or not.

After the zoo, we went on a mad hunt for pumpkins at the last minute. (Steve really loves carving pumpkins.) It took three stops before we finally found a store that still had them in stock on Halloween day. Totally worth the time spent on our hunt because this is what we ended up with:

I will never be able to compete with Steve’s creativity or carving skills (Look at that T. Rex!), but my little jack-o-lantern face isn’t the worst creation of all time. Seems I have a lot of practicing to do in the off season, though.

Look at my little napping angels 🙂

And not the kind of tummy time in which we force our daughter to hang out on her stomach in an attempt to strengthen her core muscles. I’m talking the solid food type of tummy time!

Ada has started eating* real food. And she loves it!

*I’m sure eventually she will actually eat the food we give her. Right now there is a lot of opening the mouth and then pushing the goods right back out with the tongue.