MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This year I planned to send out my cards with lovely pictures and wonderful things about the girls and then....I couldn't find my address book! I had it recently, then I put it somewhere that would be out of the way and easy to find. Not so, because I have looked in all the easy places and it just isn't there. So, I have to send this instead. Know that you are all in our thoughts and prayers and we wish you a wonderful Christmas season and a great new year filled with happy memories and lots of fun times.

Wynter was 4 in october. She started pre-school and loves being a big kid and tells everyone that she is going to school. We have chosen a christian pre-school for her and it is great to hear her singing songs and reciting bible verses that I didn't teach her! She is learning to write, but having some difficulty due to her left handed status. She writes things backwards! She gets really frustrated when the letters don't come out just right. She has made some friends at school but still prefers her favorite friend Holly, whom she has been friends with since they were babies. We continue to see them at least once a week and the girls play really well together. She loves being the motherly type, making sure that everyone is okay and keeping everyone in line. She loves purple, princesses, fairies and wearing fancy dresses. She loves to clean the barn for grandma and even got into riding around the corral this summer!

Autumn turned 2 in July. She is a barrel of energy and emotions! I can't wait until she has hormones to add to her already great personality! :) She has perfected her pout and her long drawn out crying scream. Which can last a minimum of 15 minutes but has reached an hour! She so wants to be a big girl and do everything that the big kids do. She can play hide and seek and count to 10 and sing the alphabet with her sister. She couldn't decide what she liked better this summer, riding the horses or leading it around the corral while Wynter took a turn. She was so happy. she has also joined in the excitement of cleaning grandma's barn! Mom and Autumn have been spending lots more time together since wynter is in school. We usually hang out at home or head to the library. It has been fun getting to know her a little bit better and watching her personality grow every day. If she goes to a play class, sunday school or the gym she needs to have her sister or her "baby" with her or she will scream.

Blaine and Christine skated again this summer. Blaine did 4 full marathons and a half and christine did 3 full and a half. One of the highlight trips was going to Baxter and staying in the hotel with a water park. The kids had a great time. Our family joined the YMCA a few months ago. It has been a lot of fun. I go with a friend and her family and we get mommy time and play time with the kids in the pool or in the gym. The kids love either one. Blaine has going to be the dean of a new camp for college age kids that will run along side our Jr/Sr high camp at Koronis. Christine worked hard over the summer with three other women to try to find a home for our MOPs group. We were successful with a sponsorship from Willowbrook church. We now have close to 20 women that attend and are having a great time getting to know each other. We get to take a family vacation to Disney World again in February. The kids are looking forward to it so much. Wynter wants to dance with Tinkerbell and Autumn wants to ride on the tea cups this year!

We hope that you are all doing very well. We hope to spend time with you in the new year.

Take care.

The Ruggles

school!

Wynter has been in school for just over a month. She loves it! I was worried that she wasn't going to be able to adjust well, but she has had so much fun. We got to go to the apple orchard last week and then the pumpkin patch in the rain today. The apple orchard was much more fun! But the kids were all troupers. I didn't hear any of them complain.

Autumn has been sticking to her guns with the terrible twos! The last month or so she has fit if she has to stay somewhere by herself. MOPs was out, the Y didn't work, she even balked at sunday school! This has been really frustrating for me because she has never had a problem before. One time Wynter was with her and being the mom that she is, she offered to hold her hand and make sure she was okay! It worked. the only problem is that now Autumn thinks that Wynter is going to stay with her every where she goes and hold her hand to make her feel better! Hopefully, this stage will pass.

MOPS has started for us this year. We are short on volunteers, big on great women and lots of kids! We are all looking forward to a great year with mothers of preschoolers.

Enjoy fall everyone!

The girls decided that they wanted to ride this weekend. Mostly they just want to be around the horses. Autumn was the one to initially say she wanted to ride. We weren't sure we were going to get her off, she was so excited to be on. She was nice enough to let big sister give it a try as long as she could lead the horse around the corral.

We are headed into our busy season. Most families are busier in the summertime. We are much busier this time of year. Wynter will start pre-school on tuesday. She is very excited. She will go two mornings a week. I will be going to a bible study on Wednesday mornings with the girls in their own program, MOPs will be starting soon as well as an ECFE play class that we have been going to for the last two years! That should keep us going :)

Blaine and I will have our last in line race of the season this weekend in Duluth, Minnesota. It has been a season for racing and not so much a season for training. We have both done well in the races that we have been in and anticipate the same for this race as well. We just hope that the weather will hold. I had a great training day yesterday. I am going to have to invest in a GPS if I want to go back to Elm Creek. I got a little lost and ended up skating for 2 hours and around the entire park. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day and my legs never gave out going up and down the hills. Great practice for this weekend!

I hope that everyone had a great first week of school. Enjoy this wonderful weather.

horseback riding!

terrible twos!

We are now a week and a half away from the terrible twos! Why is it that for some reason my little angels little brain does not understand that. She is going to be very advanced because it seems she has started already! Almost hourly she has a screaming fit about something or another. She won't stay in her bed, she won't eat, she won't share, she won't wear pants, she won't wear shoes unless she knows for a fact that we are going somewhere. Then it is over and the world is fine again! Isn't that amazing how the little mind can work? I know that Wynter had the same trouble but really do we have to go through it again with the second child? Isn't the second child supposed to be the perfect one that can do no wrong(speaking from a second child of course!)?

I hope everyone had a great 4th. We spent the day at the Edina and Chanhassen parades. My mom is on the minnesota equestrienne team, they do a few parades throughout the summer. My husband is the pooper scooper so we brought the kids along to enjoy the fun. They have never seen so much candy! Who knew that parades were all about getting as much candy as one can fit into a bag. We were fortunate enough to have someone give us a bag with a program and a flag in it at the beginning of the parade so we just happened to have a bag for the bazillians of pounds of candy that the girls were thrown. Fun was had by all until 2 am when we had dueling vomiters. Ahh, the joy of children that are too young to make it to the toilet. When does that happen anyway? I am pretty sure it is from the sandwich we had for lunch because only the girls and I had problems and we ate the same thing. Bummer!

In talking to people I know lately they are not sure what to think of me that I am not planning a three day celebration with as many people as I can cram into my house for Autumn's 2nd birthday. I haven't even really thought about it. I mean she is only two. Aside from looking back at the pictures is she really going to have any idea that there wasn't a great big celebration? I know people who make such a huge deal out of birthdays and then they spend more money than they have every year to make it a bigger and better party. I don't even know what to get a two year old. She doesn't really care about any specific toy right now. The things she likes she is done with in two minues anyway. She saw a doll she loved at the thrift store and just had to bring it home (thankfully, there was no tantrum involved in that one) and when things are less than $2 at the thrift store I thought why not. She hasn't touched her since! So really, why do I want to have a big extravagant party for a kid who is in the midst of the terrible two's who will be too overstimulated and probably just cry and scream most of the day? Doesn't sound like a great plan. So, I will bake her a cake. Wynter will decorate it. We will have pasta, the only thing she readily eats these days without putting up a fight and let the grandparents figure out what to buy her for gifts! :)

have a great day.

camp

We had an amazing week at camp. We didn't have very many kids but they were amazing! For those of you who don't know our camp here is some background. The camp used to be called Summer Assembly, a camp for senior high youth. Both Blaine and I attended camp in paynsville, mn when the camp was huge. Now the numbers have dwindled for an unknown reason and the name has been changed to Ultimate Challenge camp but, Blaine and I continue to be on staff and pray every year that the camp will grow. We have an amazing staff that just dedicates a lot of their time, energy and money into this camp. This year Blaine was a co-dean and I was again the counselor in training coordinator. The camp had 33 kids, I had 10 CITs and we had 18 staff. If anyone is looking for a camp to send their junior/senior high youth or your college age student(for CIT) to, please let me know. We will send a group to their church and do a great presentation. We hope to double next year!

For the first time this year, the weather cooperated. Many years we have had thunderstorm warnings or worse. Shane Burton was our speaker and he did an amazing job again this year. He always has something that the kids can relate to. He had more than one teenager dedicate their lives to Christ and I believe 5 kids who rededicated their lives and were re-baptized. Go God.

Wynter and Autumn came with and had a blast. They got to play in the water all but one day. Only because the chiggers came out at the end of the week. Blaine and Autumn got them really bad all over their legs. They were pretty miserable. Aside from that, the girls did a great job and Wynter can't wait to go back again next year.

I am not sure how kids do it with no sleep all week long. One of the staff, college student said that he had gotten about 15 hours of sleep for the week! Okay, being a mom you don't get much sleep but these kids do this on purpose. Imagine that!

water park

We spent the weekend in Brainerd, Mn. Blaine and I had our first inline marathon to compete in for the season. This happens to be my favorite marathon. Rolling hills, not a lot of people to get in my way and I won a prize last year and this year! We both completed the race and were happy with our times. Both got medals for our age classes. If only the rest of my races could go that well!

We got to spend a lot of time at the water park as well. At first the girls weren't so sure if they wanted to play in the water. Then...look out. They were sliding and splashing and didn't want to get out. Wynter was running around trying to make friends with everyone. If you know my daughter this is not typical behavior for her. She tends to be pretty shy. Autumn really enjoyed sitting in the the tube and floating in the mini river they have. We even got to play after we raced. Helped with the sore muscles.

Now, I just have to deal with the crabbiness of the kids and their mom for a few days until we get back onto our normal schedule. None of us do well when the girls don't get good naps and mom misses her break in the middle of the day. They are already whining and it is only 8am! yikes. Wish me luck.