Kevin Minnis

Well, we’re back from our trek up north. We took off Wednesday night for up north to visit my Parents. They took care of Jayden for us while we went up for a little vacation time in Minneapolis, MN. On our way we stopped at Cabela’s to see what they had for camping supplies…needless-to-say they were out of what we were looking for. Then we stopped at the Medford Outlet Center.

While in Minneapolis we stayed at the Marriott’s Fairfield Inn which was directly across from the Mall of America (MOA). We did our power shopping on Friday. I wish I wore a pedometer as I’m sure we probably walked about 20 miles, or at least it seemed like it. We covered all floors about 2-3 times. After the power-shopping we went back to Ikea (which is conveniently across from the MOA) to pick up some more items that we didn’t pick up on our trip there on Thursday night.

As for shopping goes, I found quite a few things to wear from various stores in the MOA, but Kim wasn’t as fortunate. So on our way back we stopped at Kohls in Burnsville and finally at the Burnsville Mall. Kim found a ton of clothes she liked at Kohls and a few more in the Mall. The best thing about the whole trip was that clothes are tax free in Minnesota.

We had a wonderful time up north even though it was the coldest time of the spring season to visit. It was in the 30s the mornings we were up there. We hope Jayden didn’t wear out Grandpa and Grandma too much. (He’s working on his 4th tooth so he was a little cranky for them on Friday.)

Ah, yes. Jayden’s doing more everyday. During our stay up North while at my Grandparents, Jayden flipped from his stomach to his back 4 times. Last week he had his 4 month shots and survived rather well. He only cried a little bit after he got his shots. We’ve started to “train” him how to sleep. I know it sounds weird, you’d think a baby would already know how to get to sleep on his own. He’s now for the most part doing rather well as he only cries for about 10 minutes and then falls asleep on his own.

We got him a Johnny Jumper for him to get started using his legs. He’s liking it more now and likes to jump up and down. Santa got him a Little Tykes Car for Christmas and we’ve already got him practicing for race day. More Christmas pictures will be added later, but for now you can see what Jayden got that Pioneer Hi-Bred will be proud of.

We now have a bird feeder and “Squirrel Sitter” in our back yard and the squirrels so far have managed to rule both. We haven’t seen a single bird eat out of the bird feeder and the squirrels manage to go through an ear of corn a day (at least). So far we’ve seen 4 of them at a time. I did have the bird feeder hanging from a bracket on a tree, but went out and bought a pole thinking that there’s no way a squirrel would climb a 1/2 inch thick pipe. Well, I was wrong, so now I’m going to have to go and get one of those contraptions that keeps them from doing their acrobatic movements up the pole.

I’ve decided to use a different photo gallery to display pictures. This one provides an easier upload interface and more customizations. Hopefully you won’t find too many bugs from previous image links.

Merry Christmas to you all. Santa made an appearance today. Check him out in the Santa gallery. He doesn’t appear too cheerful, but it was getting near his morning nap time. Hope you were good this year and Santa brought you lots of gifts.

Where to begin…I haven’t written for so long I don’t know where to start. Jayden’s growing like you wouldn’t believe. He now is holding his toys and of course drops them so you have to pick them up. Fortunately, he doesn’t realize he’s dropping them yet. He’s up to 7 oz of milk and gets pissed if you don’t give him his milk right away when he’s hungry. Last weekend he stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Wagner so Kim and I could go on a retreat with our small group from Church. He was a good boy and only puked up once on his clothes for Aunt Chris. Jayden’s doing more than cooing now as he tends to screech when he tries to talk. He’s also sleeping through the night and almost falls asleep on his own. Some nights he falls asleep with out crying, but other nights he cries for 15 minutes or so. Oh, and our little man also sits up pretty well with our help and likes to look around quite a bit. But, he rejects the notion of tummy time as he hates to lay on his stomach.

“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. ”