Busy as Can Be

Man, talk about a busy time. Where to start. I've been busy painting the house the past three weeks or so. Kim and I are both glad that it's almost done. It's been a challenge for Kim to take care of the kids while I'm out trying to get the painting done. We're almost done as we only have the back deck area to paint.

A lot has been going on with Josie too. Josie got baptized on May 27th with her Grandpa and Grandma's and Aunt Chris and Kacie watching along. She had surgery on a blocked tear duct on June 6th. It went very well and by the next day we could tell a difference already. It was nerve racking none-the-less, but everything turned out okay. Josie now has 3 teeth and is working on her fourth. They haven't been too difficult which is nice.

Yesterday Josie turned one. I took the day off of work so that I could be with her and Jayden and Kim. We went to the Jordan Creek area to get Josie's 1 year photos and then went and hung out at the Jordan Creek Mall for a bit. The kids played in the play area and Josie got to make a teddy bear. After coming home we went to Big Creek State Park to play in the water and beach.

We've had fun building a sandbox for the kids. I think Josie was more interested in it at first, but now, they both seem to like it. It helps when Jayden's friends come over and play in it too.

 Oh, and we reverted back to a minivan. We were so cramped in our Pontiac Vibe so we traded for a Chrysler Town & Country.

So, all in all we've had a very busy month. Hopefully the summer will get a little quieter, which I'm sure it will once the house is done being painted.

Informatica World 2007

Wow, almost a month since the last update! Last week I was in Florida for almost a week to attend the Informatica World 2007 conference. I learned a lot and had a good time hanging out with Broox and Kevi. Broox was down there for and RFID conference so the timing was perfect. The weather was perfect too. It would have been fun if Kim would have gone with too, but that will have to wait till the next trip.

Back at the home ranch...the kids are doing pretty well. Josie is working on getting some teeth now so Sunday night was a tiring night as she didn't want to sleep much. It amazes me how growing teeth can be so painful. Josie's also crawling all over the place including going up any and all stairs she can find. Of course she can't come back down yet, so we have to run up and get her.

Jayden has been keeping his end of the deal up being an almost 3 year old; the almost daily melt down and his big brother attitude. He is as curious as ever and loves to "do things on his own". In his words, "I will do it!".

Kim was very busy taking care of the kids last week, as well as, organizing a garage sale (Jayden's pile and Josie's Pile). It went over pretty well and we got rid of quite a bit of stuff. It amazes me how much stuff one accumulates having kids.

It's good to be back in the groove now, but the Florida trip was fun. See more pictures in the Informatica Set

Crawling, American Idol, and Easter

What a busy month. This month has started out with Josie learning to crawl. She loves try and get into the entertainment center now and gets mad when we tell her she can't. She's also started to pull herself to stand next to furniture and even climbed her first step today. She loves watching Jayden and I'm sure is learning a great deal from him. It's been exciting to see her advancing.

Jayden's been learning his ABCs and numbers, as well as, preparing for the next American Idol. One day last week he was standing on the stairs and singing away. Then he said I sing like American Idol. haha. Speaking of which, American Idol and Ford have done an excellent job marketing. Everytime Jayden sees a Ford symbol he now associates it with American Idol. Sad isnt' it. :)

Yesterday we had fun watching the kids with their Easter stuff. The night before we told Jayden that the Easter bunny was coming and we needed to make sure things were picked up. In no time, he was running around cleaning up his toys and putting away shoes to make sure the place was clean for the Easter bunny. Talk about motivation!

Kim's been doing the best she can to not get too bored during this last spell of cold weather. I think she has everything ready for the garage sale that will be the first Friday of May (and maybe Saturday). So be sure to mark your calendars and come out and buy some good stuff. haha.

Work for me has been very busy. But, that keeps the time flying by. I keep thinking someday I'll get caught up, but I don't know about it now.

Check out Jayen and Josie's Easter Videos: , Video 1, Video 2, Video 3

Blizzard 1 and 2

Blizzards 1 and 2...

Well, we survived the blizzards 1 and 2. We didn't even lose power over the whole deal (first blizzard), but some of our friends and family did. Our trees that were really low to the ground after the ice storm even came out of it without a trace of damage. My parents were without power for about 40 hours because of the ice buildup and breaking of the electrical poles. Luckily both my Grandparents and my Parents have generators.

The second blizzard was something to see too. We got out of work early on Thursday and then on Friday Pioneer was closed. I'm sure glad I didn't have to go anywhere as the roads were full of snow and visibility was very poor. We did manage to make it up to Ames Saturday evening for some Hickory Park with Dave and Laura Ekhart and Tasha and Tony Vorm and all the kids (6 of them). Traffic wasn't too bad, but you could definitely see the aftermath of the storm.

A look back...

In some ways I'm glad that we got as much snow as we did as it, to me, makes things seem like normal. Growing up I can remember huge drifts being as tall as the honey suckle trees in our grove on the farm. In fact the drifts would be so hard, the cattle could even walk on them. The gravel road next to our place would also have been packed with snow. I can remember sitting at the top of the snow and roll huge chunks of snow down the bank after the road grader opened the road. My brother and I would always watch in anticipation, as someone came down the road, to see if they'd run over the snow chunks. Doing chores was the worst part about getting huge storms as you'd have to trudge through a ton of snow carrying straw bales to bed the pigs and calves. You'd also have to scoop out all the troughs so you could feed the animals. It was hard work, but we survived and have the memories, good and bad. I think chores also took longer just because we'd play around more just to enjoy the vast landscape the wind and snow created. You can't have all the snow without making a fort.

In other news...

Jayden and Josie have been growing quite a bit. Jayden's I think has been trying to grow emotionally as he's truly showing his 2 year old attitudes. He's having at least one melt-down a day and is a "joy" to take shopping. He's still a relatively good boy, but has his moments. We had to upgrade his play shoes to size 7 1/2 now so he's growing despite his weird interests in food (he'd choose a salad over a hot dog any day).

Josie on the other hand, even though she hasn't had a single tooth come in yet, will eat anything you put in front of her. She's beginning to question baby food and would rather have "real food" (small cut-up pieces of green beans, carrots or fruit). She's really getting a personality now and always has a big smile on her face, well, at least when she's not mad or crying. She hasn't crawled yet, but is really close. She does tend to migrate in reverse instead of going forward when trying to crawl.

Last weekend we walked for Amber in the JDRF in the Des Moines Sky walk system. I should say, Josie slept and Kim, Jayden and I walked. Jayden had fun in the inflatable games and I'm glad JDRF chose to get the games instead of forking over big bucks for a breakfast.

My Grandpa Minnis had knee surgery this last Tuesday. Everything went really well. But, I guess today/last night he'd been whacked out on meds or something as he pulled all his IVs out last night and then had my Grandma stop the machine that bends his knee every so often. Hopefully he straightens up so he doesn't get into more trouble. :)

Sick Kids

Let's see...where to start. We've been pretty busy despite the coldness outside. Kim's with Josie at the Doctor's office as I write this. Jayden fell asleep on the couch while watching Sesame Street. It all started last Wednesday. Jayden came down with a fever and then it turned into coughing. We called the doctor's office and they said to bring him in on Friday if his fever didn't go down. It did go away on Friday, but then it came back yesterday. His coughing has been getting somewhat better, but he still looks like he's going to cough a lung up when he coughs. So, I think Josie got the same thing as Jayden. I'll find out when Kim gets back. She coughs like a dog and has a high fever (103.3). Nothing like having Josie rip your heart out when she can hardly breath. :( Luckily she could get an appointment this morning. Jayden goes in for his appointment at 1:00 today as he's still running a fever. That's one of the annoying things of having sick kids on the weekend. You can't visit the doctor's office.

Aside from the kids being sick, we painted our living room a couple of weeks ago. We were sick of the poorly painted yellow that the old owners had. Funny it took us about 4 years to get it painted. :)

Update: Well, it appears that Josie has croup and Jayden has ear infection. At least Jayden already had it once so now we know what to do with Josie. Josie seems to be doing better after they gave her a steroid shot. Jayden's at least eating some cereal now.

Getting the Hang of Christmas

Sorry to all of my viewers for not updating for more than a month. It's been a busy time of year, between getting Christmas presents purchased and a project at work, I haven't had a lot of time to get this updated.

Last weekend we had Christmas on the Wagner side. We all had a good time and watched the normal movie, "Christmas Vacation". We all got some good presents and more presents.
Yesterday Kim and the kids hung out with Emily and Mady. The kids exchanged gifts and apparently Jayden wanted to keep opening gifts...even though there weren't anymore. So, I think Jayden is getting the hang of Christmas or at least the gift part. haha.

Josie has been growing a bit...not as fast as Jayden did at her age, but still growing. She had her 6 month checkup yesterday and was a whole 12 pounds. She's starting to sit up on her own now. She'll sit for about a minute then fall over.

Don't forget to good and if you need help tracking Santa be sure to visit the Santa Tracking Site.

Merry Christmas!

Mini Projects

Finally, we're done painting the front of the house. I, with the help of Tony and Martin, got both windows replaced. What a relief to have the job done. The windows work really well in sealing the cold out and keeping the sun from baking the bedrooms. I still have to do the trim work on the inside, but at least I don't have to worry about getting another warm day to get the job done. The staging is all put a way so I don't have to look at it any more. Sad to think that the staging was up in some form in front of our house since July.

Jayden has been busy being a big brother. He does pretty good with Josie, but at his age, just doesn't grasp being gentle. :) He's also showing his being 2 a bit more. He knows what he wants and can have the occasional meltdown if he doesn't get his way. He LOVES the new Car's movie that just came out on DVD. He sat through the whole thing watching it when we got it and now wants to watch it all the time. I think Thomas the Tank Engine is getting jealous as he's starting to fade in the background. But, he still loves trains so Thomas shouldn't feel too bad.

Josie's been having fun in her bouncy seat. She just loves it. She's also started to roll over on her own from her stomach to her back. It's amazing to see how much different she is from Jayden. She's way ahead of Jayden. She likes to try different foods and usually drinks her whole 6 oz. of milk within 15 minutes. She also has found her voice and likes to "talk". I hope it's not a sign of the future when she gets a cell phone. :)

Kim has been keeping herself busy (most of the time...but she gets bored staying at home) being Mom. She does a great job keeping everything ship-shape in spite of Jayden's use of the living room as the play area. At least Jayden likes to organize his cars. He usually has them all lined up all straight and tidy. Kim's also getting everything ready (shopping) for Christmas which helps keep her mind occupied. She continues to read lots of books. I think she reads one a week. Too bad I didn't have more time to read. Oh well, maybe when I retire.

About three weeks ago I was driving our Focus in a parking lot and heard a weird noise coming from the front. Hmm. Brakes? Sure enough, the brakes were getting bad. I only heard the noise about 2 times and didn't think they were that bad, but as you can see from the picture, they were almost metal against metal. So, Zach found me a good place to order them online and because he'd just replaced his brakes in his Focus, helped change my brakes this week. What a difference that can make. They are a lot better and shouldn't make my wheels dirty as I ordered the ceramic pads. w00t!

Jjjaaaaaaayyyydddeeennnn

The title of this entry reflects one of Jayden's books. We changed the name of the child the book was talking about to Jayden and go through the whole thing about why Jayyydddeeen, likes mud and mud likes him. It's been fun. He giggles all the time. Jayden has been getting smarter about lots of things. It's amazing how much he's been picking up. If you're not careful, he'll repeat stuff you don't want him to repeat. :) He now knows how to get out of his room and apparently yesterday morning when I opened the garage door, Jayden heard it and went down and watched me leave. Kim was sleeping yet, so when Kim came down, Jayden was playing with his cars. Yesterday he also found a screw in the computer desk drawers and went to another drawer where he knew a screw driver was and started playing with that. So, he knows about nuts and bolts and tools.

Josie's also been growing a lot too. She's starting to coo and is fascinated by her voice. She also has found her hands. She's been "eating" them like mad lately (No, she wasn't eating popcorn as seen in the picture :) ). We're not sure if it's just that she found them or if she's already getting teeth. She has a runny nose today so hopefully she isn't getting too sick. She loves to sit up and watch everything that's going on. It makes feeding her fun sometimes as she turns her head where ever Jayden is or to watch TV. Yes, I'm afraid she's already glued to the TV.

We went up to visit Tasha and Tony up in Nevada on Saturday to see their new little girl, Mataya. It's so cool to see them finally get another one adopted. They've been waiting for a long time. Notice how much bigger Josie is. She's already that much bigger. :)

Last night we carved Jayden's Pumpkin. Jayden thought it was fun this year and wasn't sad like he was last year. Wow, looking back on the pics, I can't believe how much Jayden has grown.

Kim also had fun trying to clean out the pumpkin as seen in the video below. hehe. :)

New Digs

So you probably...
didn't even realize that you are reading this blog from a different location than you usually do. I pulled up roots and moved from shieldhost to a new host, Site5. How do you like the new location? haha. You may notice the page load faster as I think the servers have more umph than shieldhost did.

I'm glad...
I made the move as it will give me an opportunity to get more for the money. Most notably, I'll again have SSH access (Shieldhost turned it off saying, "It isn't secure."). FTP is about as open as you can get and is the only alternative they gave for accessing your files online. For those of you who aren't computer savvy or know what I'm even talking about, it's about equivalent to sending a pay check in the mail without the envelope. Whereas, SSH everything is encrypted (Sending the check through Paypal). In addition to the whole SSH access, Shieldhost has been lagging on support (see Cedric's article). It takes them a while to get back to you if you have problems. I am fortunate that I didn't have the problems that Cedric did, but I did have some issues with Shieldhost (but, they are cheap...that's one point that I'll give them).

Some other features...
of Site5 include the ability to setup source control with either cvs or subversion. I've been working on some free lance web projects and having source control on the web server is something I've wanted for quite a while. I'm used to having source control at work and it would be a nice to have feature. Additionally, I am also pleased that they support RubyOnRails. I'm very new to it, but from what demos and documentation I've seen, I think it will speed up my web development and maybe organize things even further. I currently develop mostly PHP sites(outside of my real job which consists of Java, .Net, and a few other languages/environments). For PHP I'm using an open source framework called CodeIgniter which is based on the MVC approach, as is RubyOnRails.

Now for the good stuff...
Here's the kicker part of the whole Site5 deal. I can get a MultiSite account (Yes, more than just a domain pointer). You can have up to 6 domains on the first MultiSite plan and they all have an independent "control panel". You can add users to each site and they won't be able to see the other sites that you have on the main account. You can also maintain all sites from the main account. All this for $8.25 a month if paid annually, or $6.21 a month if paid in 2 year increments. This is all through their promotion and after the time you pay for (1 year or 2 years), the price goes up, but you can always switch to the shared account. More details can be found at their MultiSite Webhosting Specials page.

I know...
this sounds like an advertisement, but I've done my research in hosts and Site5 has to be the best one that I've found. They are truly setup to succeed and in turn help you succeed. They have a ton of support listed through-out their FAQ pages as well as their knowledge base and forums.

What Can Go Wrong, Might Go Wrong

Well, when it rains it pours. It all started Friday evening. We were getting something out of the freezer in the fridge and noticed that not everything was frozen like it should have been. So, Saturday I made the phone call to a service place to see if they could come out and look at it...nope, wouldn't be able to look at it till Monday. Okay, so Monday came along and the repair guy replaced the fan in the back and said it should be good to go in a couple of hours. Two hours later the temperature still remained a cozy 65 degrees. Well, Kim and her parents and I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at what new refrigerators cost and find one we liked. So we went looking. I called the repair guy this morning to see if they would take the electric motor back that he put on cause I didn't want to put anymore money into it...nope, anything electrical they don't take returns. (Anyone want to buy and electric motor? Here I come E-Bay). I also had the repair guy come back out to see if he had any other ideas. He said that the compressor was out too and that it would be about $500 to replace. So, Kim and I finally found a few refrigerators today at Lowe's (they have a large select) and after about an hour and a half (the kids were very good during our search) found one we liked that they had in stock. Yay, we get a new fridge tomorrow. Case in point...you are better off replacing a refrigerator over repairing it. Sad to see how much of a throw away society we've become. I'd rather fix what I have, but it is definitely not economic to do so.

Oh, but it's not over
Saturday Kim's Mom came to town so we could go pickup the windows we ordered two weeks ago at Lowe's. We decided to also get a storm door while we were at it. "I need a 36x81 storm door like this one." I told the helpful Lowe's window guy. Took the thing home and was going to install it with the help of Tony...Opened the box and wouldn't you know I got the only 32x81 door that they had. For some reason the Lowe's guy gave me the wrong one. So, we took all the child seats out of the Vibe loaded the door up (Yeah, it can actually haul an 8' article) and exchanged it. I'm kind of glad though as the windows that we got were designed for a "drop-in" replacement instead of a regular replacement. The replacement windows that I should have gotten have a flange around the entire window which is what I needed. So, this Saturday Tony and I will make another trip to Lowe's to return these windows and order some other ones that will work.

It gets better
The highlight to all of this door not fitting, wrong windows, fridge done-n-gone broken, and Jayden doing a face plant is that Kim is on Jury duty for the week. That left me to stay home and take care of the kids yesterday and this morning. She'll have an updated entry of her own to explain how wonderful our judicial system really is.

It's okay now
I guess through all that has happened this week I'm just glad that everyone is mostly healthy (Josie had a cold Sunday and Yesterday, but is feeling better today) and no more things are breaking (hopefully). Thank goodness for Lowe's interest free for a year get out of jail card. haha

Painting with No Kids

This last weekend was a little different than most (finally, something different than usual) :). Kim and I took the kids and met up with their Grandpa and Grandma Wagner on Friday evening so that G'pa and G'ma could watch them for us. We then had the whole weekend to paint and clean. What a difference it makes in getting things done when you don't have a 2 year old at your legs or a 2 month old to hold on to. :) We managed to get all that we could get painted without having to move the staging on Saturday. Thanks to Kim's Mom and Dad for taking care of the kids and thanks to my Mom and Dad for coming down Labor Day weekend to help paint and watch the kids.

Sunday, we decided it was time to clean the carpets so we rented a Rug Doctor from Wal-mart. Man, what a difference it made. Looking at the dirty water wasn't a pleasant feeling as it was much less than clean! I'm almost ashamed we let the kids lay/play on it. haha

It was nice to be able to be just a couple again for a short time. Kim and I went to Jordan Creek Mall to do some walking around and I ended up getting a ton of shirts for cheap at Dillard's on Saturday. First time I've actually even gone in the store. Unfortunately, Kim didn't find anything that she liked. :( Then we went to Merle Hay Mall on Sunday.

The Big 2

Well, it finally happened. Jayden turned 2 on Tuesday. Boy how time has flown. He thinks he's such a big boy now! Over the weekend we had Jayden's birthday party. He had a good time and was wore out by the days end. He was spoiled rotten with toys, toys and more toys. Because Jayden is always so excited about play kitchens, we decided to get him one of his own. Along with it, he received a lot of play food and accessories. He loves it to pieces and is ready to cook you up a meal when you come over. He doesn't know yet that metal can't go in the microwave! I think he takes after his dad because his mom is no Betty Crocker.

We decided to have something different for his birthday party this weekend. Most parents would probably get a clown or go some place cool, but we decided to have some fun with Pop and candy. You can watch the Mentos and Diet Coke video on YouTube. I think Jayden had more fun with that than he would have with a clown. haha (Or maybe it's his parents and family that had more fun). Here are some pictures as well of the Mentos & Diet Coke fun.

On Jayden's B-day, we took him to the Blank Park Zoo (Pictures). Although, it's not quite like the Omaha Zoo, we still had a good time. He got to feed the goats and watch his dad get attacked by them. Probably his favorite thing was riding the train. He LOVES trains right now. Especially Thomas the Tank Engine.

We took the plunge and got Jayden and Josie's pictures taken last Friday. It was a challenge but we managed to get a few cute poses. Some of you will be receiving copies in the mail, but you can look at them on line soon. We've started the fun process of painting the outside of the house. We are leaving it white but changing the trim to a reddish/burgundy/cranberry color. Right now it's a little bright. We hope it darkens a bit when we put another coat on. We are at least getting the front done, and then we'll worry about the rest next spring/summer.

Josie is growing like a weed and changes everyday I swear. Jayden has started to pester her a bit more, but really could care less about her. Hopefully someday he'll stick up for her!

Hot Hot Hot!

Man, has it been hot. This weekend we decided to go to Creston to visit Kim's family. They were all camping out at Green Valley State Park. It was hot as anywhere else in the state. We were able to go to Kim's parents place to sleep at night so that made it a little more bearable. Thankfully there was a slight breeze on Sunday to help us out. It's hard to imagine what it would have been like 50+ years ago without any air conditioning.

Josie's growing everyday and eats non-stop. I don't remember Jayden ever eating that much, but I'm sure he did. Depending on the light you can see more blondish tint to Josie's hair. She seems to be more active than Jayden was as she likes to lift her head when you rest her on your shoulder and she also enjoys tummy time more. Who knows maybe we'll have a crawler at 9 months instead of the 18 with Jayden. :)

Jayden's loving life and we're enjoying watching him. Yes, he does on the occasion have a "terrible two" moment, but for the most part he's (we're) handling it pretty well. He's starting to get clearer on saying certain words. His favorite is probably peeezzzz (please). Hopefully he'll continue to be well mannered. hehe

Black and White

Well, here I am again. The good thing with wordpress is that you get to change whatever you want to make your site look different. You'll also notice another change to the gallery link. It now pulls my flickr pictures and creates the albums from my site. It makes use of a pretty cool wordpress plug-in called falbum and the nifty flickr api. The reasons I'm using the plug-in are two fold. One, to see how search results change. I like flickr, but search results don't always show the true meaning of the picture in google. The next reason is because Pioneer's filtering software blocks all of flickr so I wanted a work around.

I've also been doing a kind of social experiment at work. We use a multitude of chat clients and such and decided to try and live without the main one used by our "little" group, namely, IRC. I decided to do it in part because sometimes the conversations get a little heated. Communication in a chat program is entirely different than that of person-to-person. You don't really get the true feeling of a conversation (missing body language and the vibe that you get from talking with someone in person). It's understandable why parents are worried about their kids being bullied from online sources. So, without the IRC client going, it's been rather quiet. It's hard to believe how much a person can get tied to modern technology (although IRC has been around for quite a while). Yeah, I could just go 5 steps and talk to the rest of my co-workers, but seems like social experiences are different these days. People don't talk one-on-one like they used to, or at least it seems that way. Without IRC, I can be working and not even talk to my co-workers all day. I may have to go back and join the IRC chat. I feel alienated from the rest of the gang.

Anyway, enjoy the new look and hopefully you won't find too many things broken.

Back to Work

Well, it's sure been nice having off a week after Josie was born, but I had to go back to work today. Jayden was pretty sad about the whole thing. In fact, he even had to call his Dad at work to say hi and tell me that he missed me. Or, at least I think that's what he was talking about. haha.

Josie is getting along nicely in her big new world. She actually is sleeping through most of the night and gets up around 4:30-5:00 in the morning to get her bottle. I sure hope she continues to do that as it's better for her Mom and Dad. :) It's amazing to see how fast they grow. After a week, she's already starting to fill out in her face.

Pleased to meet you, Josie Marie

Josie Marie Minnis was born on June 21, 2006 at 6:05 PM after nine hours of labor. She was 6 lbs. 8oz and 19 1/2 inches long. Her birth was quite a different experience than with Jayden as she didn't have any issues with meconium. Kim also had an easier time with Josie. She only had to push two times (one time was only to see if she was ready). This morning we changed Josie's first diaper. Man, talk about a load. haha. We had to change everything. :) Kim and I tried to sleep last night, but the bed she had and the "chair" bed that I had were not the same as a real bed. Hopefully we can get some naps today and sleep tonight. Both Mom and Josie are doing great and are hopefully sleeping right now. I'm going to sleep now. What a wonderful birthday it has been (except for spending it in the hospital)! :)

Pictures can be seen in the photo set, Birth and Prebirth.

Can't Sit Still

Let's see. Where to begin? Life has been busy. Kim's Mom, Pat, had surgery on her shoulder as a result of someone not cleaning up spilled water in the hall at the hospital she works at. We went down over the weekend (May 25-27th) to visit Kim's Mom and Dad and make sure that Pat wasn't doing anything she shouldn't. :) Then we headed back home to have some fun for the rest of Memorial weekend. We took Jayden out to Big Creek State Park so he could play in the sand and water. We took Jayden to the splash park when it was in the upper 80s a week ago or so and he didn't seem to like the water much. Instead, he liked to play in the grass and follow the fence around. Not sure what that's all about.

In spite of Jayden graduating to his "big boy chair" and gaining another 2 pounds (not much, but at least he's holding steady), he's managed to gain his terrible twos attitude a bit early. This past weekend we went up to Hope and Mike's wedding in Emmetsburg, IA. The wedding was short and sweet, but Jayden thought he should make a big deal out of it and wasn't the quiet little boy he usually is. So, I spent half of the wedding in the atrium of the church with Jayden. Next we went to the reception for about a half an hour. Jayden proceeded to want to run around. Kim and I decided we'd just leave early and head back to Rockwell City to visit with her brothers. I guess the lesson in all this is that I don't think we will be able to take Jayden to another wedding anytime soon. I don't blame him any, he's almost 2 and he had been riding in the car for about 2.5 hours.

Kim did okay on the long trip, but I think she's paying for it now. She (and I) can't wait to have the baby! We're not all that excited about the birthing process or the sleepless nights, but more for the comfort of Kim and getting back to normal.

So, yeah, that's almost all that's happened within the last month.

Lucky in the Wal-mart Parking Lot

Haha, catchy title huh? Last week after shopping at our Ankeny Wal-mart we were driving up the parking lot to leave and I saw some green stuff on the road so I pulled up by it and had Kim get it. Sure enough it was a dollar. Wow, we thought this is cool Kim will be able to get a dewski. Well, we continued up the lane and we couldn't believe it. We found another 4 dollars. haha. It was probably a funny thing to see us running around the parking lot picking up money. But, hey, I'm sure you'd do the same if you had the opportunity. Saturday night we went to Wal-mart again to get some food for when Kim's brother came to town. While there Kim was pushing the shopping cart and on a "blind" intersection (most intersections are blind corners in Wal-mart) this man in his 60s comes powering down the aisle. Kim stopped to see if anyone was coming and he almost ran into her. He proceeded to stare Kim down and if he could shoot flames from his eyes she would have been toast. We were all saying something to the extent of "What's your problem" to the guy. Needless to say we made it out alive. I really do hate shopping at Wal-mart. I always feel pissed off whenever I go there. I told Kim they should take your heart rate before and after visiting. I'm sure mine would indicate a heart attach coming on. Stupid cheap.

With this small fortune that we found at Wal-mart, we went to some garage sales with Kim's parents this weekend. I managed to find a computer for a dollar. It's not much of a computer but I thought I'd play around with it. Jayden was all excited he got to ride in Grandma's Avalanche. We'd ask him if he wanted to ride in the car, but he'd shake his head and say in his little voice, "No."

Baby number two is making Kim's life miserable. It seems that it's already started to drop some as Kim was feeling less then great over the weekend. Hopefully it stays in the oven at least another 2-4 weeks so it's not born too early.

Oh yeah, and I still have a job and haven't been "re-assigned". Hopefully it'll continue that way. We'll all find out more after another meeting this morning.

The Next Stage

Okay, so it's been a month since you've last heard from me. Yeah, it's been pretty busy. A lot of time has been spent chasing after Jayden. I'm not complaining though as it's so nice to have him mobile now. He likes to help out with about anything if you let him. We put together his dresser that we got at IKEA a while back and he was right in there trying to help out. We (thanks Grandma Wagner for your help) repainted the "guest" room, which is now his, and moved his new twin bed into it. He had no problem transitioning into his twin bed and so far (knock on wood) hasn't even fallen out of it. The first week that we moved him in he was busy trying to take all the stuffed animals from his old room to his new one.

Works been going good. I've been good and busy, but it's been hard to concentrate and do the whole "work smarter, not harder" because of some events that might be happening next week. I had a whole bit written about it, but decided to not include it in fear of getting in trouble for it. So, you'll have to wait till after next week to see what might or might not have happened.

Mustache Party

This weekend has been pretty quiet. It's been a while since we've just stayed around Ankeny and did very little. Friday I had off from work. It appears that Pioneer is becoming more of government than a business as we get the third Friday off in March now instead of Good Friday. Not sure what that's all about. Oh well, at least they still give us time off.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff. I think it was the week of February 6th, 2006 that I started to grow a goatee to get ready for Broox's mustache party that he had on March 17th. Lucky for me that my hair is leaving the top of my head so I could win the entry for longest/most hair for a mustache. Here's a picture of me starting out. I think it's with maybe a week's worth of growing. Here's a picture with my full goatee and finally, a picture with the mustache and "handle bars". haha. The party was a blast and I'm glad that I got to go. Saturday I had to shave it off. Not because Kim wanted me (she hated the facial hair), but because it was annoying to have. The initial itching was done, but I just hated it being around my mouth. It was weird shaving it off as I felt like I was naked. Even just shaving off the middle of the goatee made my chin feel cold, but now that it's all gone, I really feel the difference. I can actually feel the wind hitting my chin. haha. Oh yeah. And the Gillette Fusion that I won at the party works awesome!

Here's the full set of pictures for the mustache party. Thanks for the good time Broox!