Kevin Minnis

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.

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.

We got pounded with about 2 inches of rain yesterday in about a half an hour. Man, talk about crazy. We drove around to see what else we could find, but didn’t really come across any life threatening events. So that was uneventful.

Wood floors can be expensive to refinish. I’m in the process of getting everything around to refinish our Great Room” and dining area. Let’s just say that by the time it’s done we could have gone to some exotic island. Okay, so maybe not that expensive, but it’s still takes a few Benjamins to get the job done.

Kim had another baby-2-be checkup on Monday. Everything’s looking and sounding “A-OK”. She gained an additional 6 ponds in a month and a week so she’s right on schedule.

Well, it’s been a very busy and fun weekend. Friday I took the day off to do some odds and ends around the house and built and sealed a picnic table. Friday night Kim’s parents, niece and nephew came up to stay the night and then we all went to a bunch of garage sales around Ankeny on Saturday. We found a lot more baby clothes. Then in the afternoon I got 2 more sides of the deck sealed. This morning I applied a weed and feed mix for the lawn before we headed off to church. It was cool going to church today as I met one of my classmates from the ISU Iowa State Singers. Then this afternoon we drove to Creston to surprise Kim’s Mom for Mother’s Day. All of her brothers and sister were there. Her Mom and Dad were pleased and surprised to see us all there…mission accomplished.

I usually find watching the weather fun. There’s a certain rush to it, but I’m not in favor of bad storms doing damage. Last night at around 11:30 Kim and I woke up to huge wind/rain sounds. After surveying the situation we found it was actually hail hitting the side of the house with a bunch of wind. Here’s a picture of the hail on the deck. We also found a small spot that was leaking on the ceiling where the kitchen/great room roof meets the rest of the house. Any normal rain it doesn’t leak but with winds at around 50-60 mph the water made its way through. At least we didn’t have as bad of storms as people in other states.