Jayden Baptized

"Man, it's been busy both at work and at home. Last weekend Jayden was baptized. We had Kim and my parents over along with my Grandparents and Kim's sister and brother's family. It was fun having everyone together. Saturday night we met them all in Ames for some Hickory Park. Yum. Can't seem to ever get enough of good old Hickory Park.

Jayden's growing all the time. One of these days I'll get some video of him on the site so you can watch him cooing and laughing. It's fun to see him finally interacting with us more. He's even started to go to bed on his own...yes, we still have to put him in the crib...he's not walking just yet. "

The Tigger Sleeps Tonight...

"This Halloween marks the first that I've actually experienced handing out treats to the kids in our neighborhood. Rick, one of my co-workers and neighbors, had said that in years past they've had around 150-175 kids so I thought Kim and I'd better be ready. So we purchased a ton of candy hoping that we'd have enough for the masses. We got to see lots of different costumes...3 different spider mans (didn't know there was more than one of them) Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz along with a Hershey's Kiss that was carrying Toto...3 different Tiggers and assortment of others. We think we had around 93 or so. After handing out treats we went up to Tony and Tasha Vorm's place and hung out with them a bit. We had to get some pictures with Jayden and Addisyn. Who knew that he would already have a girlfriend. haha. :)

We had Jayden all dressed up in his little Tigger outfit. He was oh so cute! (He's going to kill us when he's a senior and we show everyone his pictures haha). But, our little Tigger eventually wore himself out and needed to rest. He was mostly wore out from his visit to the doctor on Friday. He had his 2 month checkup (yeah, I know, already!!!) and got his first round of shots. He came through the shots OK and weighed in at 11 lbs. and 13 oz and grew a couple of inches or so."

Our Little Boy is Growing Up

Man time flies. It's hard to believe how much Jayden's grown in just 8 weeks of his life. We weighed him the other day and he's now at 12 pounds. The week before last he found his right hand. He holds it up and just stares at it not really knowing what to do with it. He's also starting to kick more when playing with his toys. His favorite thing now is to have us walk around with him facing forward so he can see what's going on around him. He's also started making more noises and even laughs from time to time. Kim laid him on the ottoman last week and put Arthur on the TV and Jayden just loved it until he got startled for some reason. Kim watched him jump and then the tears started flowing. Yesterday we put him on the counter and had a football game going. He now enjoys watching football so his training is going very well. :) More pictures of him can be seen under his gallery on week7.

We Broke Our Vows

Well, it finally happened. We new it probably would sooner or later. That vow that we took during our wedding ceremony just didn't take. Things have been leading up to it, but you just don't head the warning signs. Kim and I had both been searching for that one that's just right for us. And this last Saturday it happened. We went up to Ames for our romantic get away and after finding a hotel with a Jacuzzi in the room Kim thought we should tour the auto lots. The first lot we drove through was Willey's Ford dealership. We found a couple of "them" that we thought were in good shape so we decided to go for a test drive. The first one we test drove was white and after looking at the interior more thoroughly we found a place that had a cigarette burn on it. So that ended that one. But there was one next too it. So we came back up to Ames yesterday to take it for a spin. After some dealing and waiting for them to get it ready we drove it home yesterday. Yes as many of you know we took vows that stated we would never buy...cough...cough...a minivan (Careful, everyone around you can hear you laugh). Well, that changed when Jayden was born. I swear when we go on trips we pack two peoples worth of stuff just for one little guy. :) The Jaydenmobile, as Kim calls it, has all the gadgets and is in great shape. Kim's kind of upset as it makes her feel old. She said it's ok for me to feel old because I'm over 30, but not for her. So, we went from the Pontiac Grand AM GT to a Ford Windstar SE Minivan. In all actuality, they don't ride all that bad and you're up higher than a car too. (Oh, and we didn't actually have that vow during our wedding ceremony, but we had said we weren't ever going to buy one.)

Jayden Grow'n So Fast

I realize it's been a while since I last wrote, but time kind of gets away when you have a little one. I can only wait to see how time flies when we have another one. :) Jayden's been growing like a weed. He's starting to coo a lot more and smiles when he sees Kim or me. He makes such good facial expressions too. Kim's also been getting Jayden in to many different outfits. I may be partial because I'm Jayden's Dad, but doesn't he look cute? :) We've found that he likes to fall asleep when riding around in the car so we will always have that to fall back on if he starts to be fussy at night. He's been doing really well when it comes to being a good little boy. He fusses at night some, but that's to be expected. He is up to 5 oz of formula and probably weighs between 9 and 10 pounds by now. He has also grown out of some of his clothes already. :( And to top it all off, he's starting to find his hands.

2 Week Checkup

"Yesterday we took Jayden in for his 2 week checkup and everything looks okay. He gained his birth weight back and then some as he now weighs in at 8 lbs. He also grew an inch so he now is 20 1/2 inches long. We've been fortunate as he's been waking up 2 times a night (around 1:30 AM and again around 4-5) for his snack time. We've also found out his whiny time is between 8:00 and 9:30, give or take a an hour.

Sunday we had a Baby Shower for him with a lot of Kim's family there and some of her friends. Jayden like all his presents and can't wait to start playing with everything. He was pretty tired after it after being ""groped"" by all the ladies. LOL We took some more pictures and they can be found in the Week 2 gallery. One of the pictures that I took was his hand around my finger. Amazing is all I can say.

Saturday, Jayden was all dressed up in his Cyclone uniform so he could help support ISU as they attempted another success over Iowa. Unfortunately, his cheering didn't help with a win."

Face Lift

Well, I decided to give my site a face lift. Bear with me as I work out the bugs. The gallery shows some weird formatting, but I couldn't wait any longer to release it. Hopefully you like it...I don't care if you don't like it. :)

99+ Balloons

"Yesterday I went back to work after taking the week off to bond with Jayden and help Kim out. My co-workers decided to have some fun with my office cube so they decorated it with a ton of balloons. It was fun reading the balloons as some had stuff written on them.

Last night Jayden slept like a charm. Monday night he was ""master of the house"" and cried until 12:30 AM, Tuesday morning. He wasn't eating very well and we had no clue what was going on in his world. We made it through it though. I am definitely glad when he does decide to sleep when it's the right time to sleep (actually, he sleeps a lot as it is...what the life! :) )."

Five Days Old

Well, we've had little Jayden home for 3 1/2 days now and he's almost 5 days old. We've had to treat some jaundice with a bili-blanket. We had to take him to the Doctor on Wednesday and yesterday and his levels were back down so we didn't have to use the blanket last night. He's been sleeping rather well except for the start of last night we were trying to put him to bed and he just kept fussing and appeared to be hungry yet, but wouldn't eat. We switched to the formula that we got because the hospital supplied stock ran out. That may also have been a contributing factor to his unpleasantness at the time. Kim thought maybe we do need to try the pacifier, even though we don't want him hooked on it. It turns out that's all the little guy needed and he fell asleep. He slept until 4:30 this morning so we got up and fed him. Then after feeding he went to sleep while sucking on his pacifier.

Yesterday and the day before Kim and Grandma Wagner went shopping for some boy baby clothes at a couple of the consignment stores that we often frequent. They bought quite a few clothes some of which even had the price tag on. Kim had saved the cash that we got from our early summer garage sale specifically for baby Jayden. She had a ball. :)

Kim's doing very well considering what she went through. She's healing up and is continuing to be active. (Notice that I said continues...she never really became inactive even after giving birth.)

It's a boy!!!

Join with me in welcoming Jayden Lee Minnis into our world. After Mom went through a long excruciating 27 hours of labor (40 minutes of which were pushing), Jayden was born on August 29th at 3:51 PM. Jayden was a hefty 7 lbs 8 oz (which is quite big for how Kim looked) and was 19.5 inches long. Kim started labor at around 2 on Saturday when we were painting the picnic table. Kim knew it was happening, but she decided that we should go and get some ice cream...after all it might be our "last meal". So we went and had ice cream and came back to our place. Around 5:30 the contractions really picked up. The minutes between and lengths of contractions were such that we called the Doc. She informed us to go to the hospital to so they could check out Kim and the baby. We got to the hospital around 6 and they hooked her up to all the machines. Unfortunately, she was only dilated to 2 cm so they decided to send us home. We stayed at home till around 11:59:59 PM on Saturday. We called the doc up again because at this point the contractions were really coming on and Kim had the shakes bad.

So we got the hospital for the second time and this time they kept us as Kim had dilated to 3 cm. And that's pretty much were she stayed until around 8:00 AM, Sunday. Kim couldn't hardly take the pain any longer so she decided to get an epidural. They broke the water at around 8:30. Then I think it was around 9:30 they started administrating Pitosin to see if they could get the contractions to be more frequent and harder as Kim had still not dilated that much...probably around 4 cm at that point. The Pitosin was working so by 12:00 Kim was having major contractions (probably a minute apart) and she could feel her right leg and the contractions again so they had to up her epidural and gave her another shot of some other miracle drug. She was feeling more comfortable by 12:30 and had dilated to 6 cm. Then she dilated by 2 cm for each hour so by 3:15 she was fully dilated (10 cm) and the nurse gave her the go ahead to start pushing. Kim was a true sport and pushed like she was pissed. I'd coach her along and tell her to just get pissed and it apparently helped as by 3:40 or so, the Doctors and the ICU were on site ready to prep the Jayden as he came out. He had a bowl movement while inside Kim so they had to be sure to suck everything out of his lungs and stomach. After Kim had Jayden they moved him over to the warming bed to clean him off and check his vitals. He was having some difficulty breathing so they had him on oxygen for a little while, then gave him to Kim to hold. After about a minute Jayden started breathing hard again so they took him back to the oxygen. They took him back to the nursery for the rest of the time until 1:00 PM yesterday (the 30th). He had been on oxygen until 3:00 AM yesterday morning. We weren't sure if he was going to have to go to the ICU to get more diagnostics done. It was a very trying time and we were so elated when we finally got him back yesterday. We could visit him in the nursery, but it just wasn't the same.

About a half an hour ago we got to step into our home for the first time as Mom and Dad. It's pretty cool having Jayden here and to hear him cry a little bit...at least for now. I'm sure we'll have those nights that we would like him to not cry. :)

Thanks for all your visits and prayers along the way. It's been a true miracle of God to watch everything that's happened and the gift of life. I could see God had his hands right around Jayden as he was transitioning into breathing on his own. But, it was still hard to watch Jayden fighting to breath on his own.

As for all you guys out there who haven't experienced birth...Women are tough!!! They deserve every bouquet of flowers that you get them! :)

Visit the gallery to see Jayden's Photos.

Start The Clock

Start the countdown!!!

And We Wait

Well, we went to the doctor today for our weekly visit and we didn't get to stay in the hospital to have that baby. Kim was, to say the least, a little upset in the whole thing. She even had her bags packed just in case they decide to induce her. But, no luck. Kim had the non-stress test done to find out the stats on the baby and the results of that were in good order. The clinic also setup an ultrasound to make sure everything was still okay and from what we gathered, the insides look great and are normal. So, the doctor said that we can come back on Monday for another checkup and then if all goes as planned and we haven't had the baby by then we'll be in on Wednesday to get things actually started. Hopefully things will happen before Wednesday and we won't even have to worry about kick starting things.

Almost Here

Well, It's been a while since I've given a baby update. The counter at the top of the page indicates that the baby's supposed to be here already, but so far, noth'n. We visited the Doc yesterday and things are starting to take shape, if you will. It looked promising that things will start to happen here within the next week (Maybe even this weekend???). We've been doing a walk every night in hopes that things will happen faster, but I think the baby is being stubborn. :) Following the Doctor's orders, we went to the Fair on Sunday. But, that didn't seem to help any as Kim felt horrible on Monday and went home from work early. Kim's ready to have it. She's getting sick of parents at work coming in to pick up their kids and asking/telling her, "You still haven't had it yet?" Well, she wouldn't be there if she did now would she. At any rate, Kim's doing pretty well. She hasn't been on bed rest. She's been able to continue working. She hasn't thrown up once during pregnancy (but, felt like it at times). She's gained the right amount of weight. And, she really likes ice cream so I get to treat myself too. :)

Clueless Stew Hansen's Dodge

I usually don't like to complain about things but this is just something I have to get off my chest. Tuesday Kim and I went to test drive vehicles at Stew Hansen's Dodge City in West Des Moines. After our sales rep, Michael, finally let us drive the vehicles (it seemed like we were living that commercial where the sales rep didn't even let the potential buyers drive the vehicle), we test drove a Ford Escape and then a Dodge minivan (you know in preparations for that new little one that's due any time now). We thought we were interested in seeing what they would offer for our 2002 Dodge Dakota and how much they would move on the minivan. They first had to appraise the truck before they could give us any numbers. So, Mike finally makes it to us with some numbers. The minivan they didn't change any on price and the truck they valued at $2000 under the Kelly Blue Book trade in value. I about laughed when he told us the prices. So, I told him what I was thinking on prices. After a bit he came back and they thought they could offer $305 under the Kelly Blue Book trade in value and they didn't move on the price for the minivan. Kim was tired, hot, and hungry and I knew the way things were going with Mike that we weren't ever going to get anywhere so Kim and I left. I did receive a call yesterday (2 days later) and a letter in the mail from him. As far as I'm concerned it's too late. You lost the sale.

So, listen up Mike at Stew Hansen's here are a few tips in sales techniques to better improve your chances of me even coming to look at another vehicle at your dealership:

1. Give potential drivers the first opportunity to drive the vehicle. If they wanted someone else to drive they would have gotten a taxi.


2. Don't waste my time coming up with numbers that aren't realistic. A truck the same year with 15,000 miles less is worth more than a minivan. Oh, and the truck was actually worth more than the minivan new.


3. When a salesperson does drive please drive like you're driving your 80 year old mother around. There were a few times that I thought Kim was going to either upchuck her lunch on the back of Mike or back hand him to let him know he was driving like a mad man.

There I feel much better now. I've been to Stew Hansen's before this episode and they've done a great job. The usual sales rep was busy with another set of customers so I got pawned off to Mike. Mike's a good person from what I could tell, but was a little to greedy the day we visited (although, it probably wasn't his fault for the numbers that he came back with).

Still Waiting

Well, yesterday Kim and I went for our now weekly Doctor's visit. The Doc said everything was A-Okay and Kim could go ahead and have the baby any time as we're at full term. So we sit and wait. The Doc also thought it would be around 6 lbs or so when born. So, for those of you who are wagering on the stats, that little bit of info might increase your odds. Kim's certainly ready to have it and wants to get back to a somewhat normal life. Yeah, we'll have the baby coming up here, but she can't wait to be able to go bike and do stuff that she used to do before being pregnant. :)

Summer Fun

Okay, so it's been a while since I last wrote...which seems like the norm so far. Today Kim had her baby checkup and things are looking good. She gained the one pound that she lost two weeks ago so the Doctor was happy and didn't give her a hard time for losing weight. The Doctor was also pleased that all her numbers look good and the baby shows all signs of being healthy and energetic like his/her mom. :)

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning my Sister and her family were in town to visit since we aren't traveling very far from Ankeny. We all had a great time showing them around the Metro area, as well as, the Iowa State campus. We even managed to get up to Ledges State Park.

Last Friday we had .8" of rain and then had 1" of rain on Saturday so we had a little bit of urban flooding. The grass is really lush and green so I had to mow yesterday. I'd much rather mow then have it dry and brown.

Baby School

This weekend was pretty busy. Friday night Kim and I went and registered at Target for the Baby Registry. I like registering for stuff. :) Hard telling if we get much from the list, but it's still fun to make a wish list.

Saturday was filled with sitting in a class at our hospital learning all the various breathing techniques, focus procedures and other techniques to help in the labor process. It was quite informative. But, sitting there in a classroom on Saturday was not fun. I'm glad that I'm not pursuing any further education at this time as I'm not sure if I'd be able to sit through classes while on my "free" time. Learning on the job is much more fulfilling. Anyway, back to the baby school...during the class the "support partners" and the women split up and discussed what things we liked/disliked about pregnancy. It was cool to see that complete strangers had similar experiences with pregnancy.

Wolbrink Wedding

Man, what a busy time it has been. Last Friday (6-11-2004) Kim and I started our way towards Door County, WI to attend one of my friend's wedding (Dan & Rose Wolbrink). The wedding took place on Rock Island State Park which required about a 45 minute ride on the Washington Island, Island Clipper. We all weren't sure if we'd be having the wedding outdoors or if we would be indoors on the island, but the weather cooperated and the wedding was held outside. It was quite the adventure and I'm glad that Kim and I were included. There were quite a few people from the church that I attended while living in Mason City that I got to see while out there which was fun. Some of them I haven't seen for about 8 years.

The weather along the lake was quite different than here in warm muggy Iowa. It was around the 50's and 60's on the way out to the island and got warmer inland, but not like it would have been here. Kim and I stayed at Bailey's Harbor Yacht Club Resort which was a very nice place and I would highly recommend staying there if you ever went out that way. The thing that was the hardest on the trip was returning home going across Wisconsin on Highway 21. The roads were OK, but the slowing down for all these little towns left much to be desired. Luckily we didn't find any closed roads going out or returning. While traveling, areas of Wisconsin received heavy amounts of rain and caused a few road closures.

More pictures can be seen in the Wolbrink Wedding Gallery

Five Years

Man, time has been flying by. Monday (June 1) was my 5th year of service at Pioneer. It really doesn't seem like it's been that long. Here's a list of some things that have happened since I graduated and started working for Pioneer.

1. Pioneer was purchased by DuPont.


2. I survived an apartment fire in the building I was living in.


3. I have purchased two different houses (a townhouse and then a regular house).


4. I got married a year and about 2 months ago.


5. Kim and I are expecting a baby in August.


6. I've gained about 5 lbs since graduating.


7. I don't have as much hair on the top of my head.

Yesterday I went and picked up my birthday present from Kim. It's early, but I couldn't wait any longer. For her birthday I got her ISU license plates (KM4ISU). So she got me some for my b-day. Check them out.

Finally Finished Floor

Well, I'm finally done finishing the floor. I started out thinking I'd sand the whole floor which included removing all the old finish with a hand held orbital sander last Thursday. It looked as though it would take a week to finish at the rate I was going so I rented a finishing sander from Menards last Friday and had the floor sanded down by Saturday Morning. It's a time consuming process, but well worth it in the end. Here's what the floor looked like be fore (Old Floor 1) and (Old Floor 2) and here's what it looks like now (New Floor 1) and (New Floor 2). I one coat of finish on Saturday and put two down on Sunday. It's good to be done making a mess.