The NellNell Experience Blog

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?

2011-12-05T00:03:00.001-08:00

It's been a long time since I've updated this blog, what with Facebook and Twitter and so forth. But here I am, and here I go.

At the Woodland Park Zoo w/ Poppy

McKenna has started full time Kindergarten and is getting along quite well. After our first parent-teacher conference it is official that she is very bright, very friendly, and a "true humanitarian". She is reading short sentences and writing small words very well. We'll have to watch her boy situation very closely as she grows up as she always seems to have some new boy writing notes to her or her obsessing over somebody new. It should be fun.
Lilah has started preschool 2 days a week and is also progressing along quickly. She is making many friends and is very inquisitive, always asking what the words to songs mean or why the person on the radio said this or that. She likes to play with her sister and you can see her figuring out how to do things exactly how McKenna does them, although she ends up putting her own spin on most things.
McKenna and Lilah are both back in swimming lessons. Lilah is still learning the basics of floating, and paddling and breathing, while McKenna is actually swimming short distances all by herself. I'm looking forward to this summer when I will put up an above ground pool I bought from someone off craigslist. It's 18' round by 52" deep, so they can actually practice swimming and have a lot of fun hopefully.

This past month has been the month of sickness for the NellNell clan. We keep passing a really bad cold/flu back and forth that always seems to spin off into something else for the next person. Right now Lilah is getting over a double ear infection and bronchitis while McKenna now has a very bad head cold (again). Jaime is now getting back her sinus infection for the 2nd time this month. I am, at the moment, feeling pretty good. Although I'm a bit tired being that it is midnight on a Sunday work night. :)
So that being said I better sign off for now. Until next time.....

Oh yeah....go see The (new) Muppet Show in theaters now!

A day at the beach.

2011-08-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

Free Redbox Rental!

2011-03-09T22:19:00.000-08:00

I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us, isn't that right?

2011-03-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

It seems as if it's been awhile since we've properly updated our blog. Things are progressing very quickly it seems in the Beadnell household. Jaime and I just attended Kindergarten orientation for McKenna a few days ago. She'll be going to Canyon Creek Elementary, which as we found out, has the largest population of any elementary school in the district. Which means that the full time class that we'd like to get McKenna into will require a luck of the draw in a lottery system that they hold after everybody registers. We just watched "Waiting for Superman" so we know the outlook is cloudy. ;) She is very ready and excited to go in any case.
McKenna has also just started to fundraise for a TrikeAThon to benefit St Jude Children's Research Hospital. She's only been doing it for 2 days and so far many people have generously donated $385.00. Her original goal was $150, while her class goal is still set at $1500. As you can see, she has already shattered her individual goal, and we hope the class does better than than their goal for this exceptional cause. If you have donated, thank you very much. If you haven't and you'd like to monetarily you can go to her St Jude webpage. If you'd like to help other than monetarily, you could post the link (www.mytrikeathon.org/mgb) and a short blurb about the cause on your Facebook, Twitter, or Blog.

Lilah is doing great, she is wearing "big girl panties" now throughout the day and is extremely proud of herself. She's turned into a real prankster and comedian as well. She knows that McKenna doesn't like mustard, so every time Jaime or I are making sandwhiches, she'll open the fridge and grab the mustard bottle and hand it to us and say, "McKenna want's a bunch of this on in her lunch!". The other night while I was putting her to bed, (I usually dance with her in the dark and sing her a little song before I leave) she turned to me, put one finger on my lips mid song and said, "Shhhh, you really shouldn't sing that. Try the ABC song" and then started to giggle. She is learning her alphabet and numbers from her sister, and they both play together for hours with their dolls or making pretend. It usually consists of McKenna telling Lilah what to do and say and then Lilah going along with it for a bit and then turning trying to turn the tide.

Jaime is as busy as ever in her job. She is also busy around the house and managed to plant 60 new primroses the day before it snowed for 2 days straight. (The same day I mowed the lawn thinking that the bad weather was done). We finally ushered her into the smart phone digital age with an Android LG Optimus V from Virgin Mobile. I have nothing but good things to say about Virgin Mobile (it runs on the Sprint Network), the plan for unlimited data and unlimted text and 300 minutes is only $25 with NO contracts. The same plan on Verizon would run about $80 (which is what I have through work). If you are looking for an inexpensive high quality cell phone and carrier, I would certainly recommend Virgin Mobile.

I've been busy racking up the ebooks on my Kindle during my lunch breaks at work. And fiddling with my own Android HTC Incredible.

That sums up all I can think of for the time being. I've just posted some more pictures on our website.

Until next time, Stay Classy!

McKenna's TrikeAThon to help raise money for St Jude Children's Research Hospital

2011-03-02T23:23:00.000-08:00

McKenna is participating in a Trike-a-Thon at her preschool to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Her personal goal is $150 and her school's goal is $1500. If you'd like to help out, you can donate any amount you'd like at the link below or http://bit.ly/gdjzRj. St Jude is the only pediatric cancer research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance and no child is denied treatment because of a family's inability to pay. It's a great cause and a fun time for the kids involved. Thank you!

New Android Mobile Blogger App!

2011-02-23T15:47:00.001-08:00

I just downloaded the new Blogger App. I am now a Twitter/Facebook/Blogger app geek. Did I mention how very cool my Droid Incredible is? I'm not sure how I got along without it before.
This concludes my test, I hope all is well with you and yours.

McKenna's Droid Drawing

2011-02-12T12:21:00.001-08:00

A friend thought you would be interested in this station

2010-12-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

A friend wants to share some music with you.

"Muse Radio"

Pandora is a free music service that helps you
listen to and discover new music.

copyright 2008, Pandora Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
2101 Webster Street - Suite 1650 - Oakland CA - 94612
This is a one-time email sent from A friend, a Pandora listener.
Privacy Policy

2010 Holiday Card

2010-12-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

"American Woman" Rendition w/ Backup by Lilah (Take 2)

2010-10-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

"We be nice to them, if they be nice to us." -Gollum (LOTR)

2010-09-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

Shop Addition, Just Add Siding

The seasons they are a changing. We put away the little kiddie pool for the year, although now we'll probably have a few more nice weekends the kids will bug me about. The garden is doing well, some of the crops are done with for the year (strawberries, dill, and radish). We are still getting quite a bit of cucumber and zucchini , and the carrots are growing, albeit a lot slower than what the seed packets said. We hope to have a few pumpkins ready in time for Halloween, although right now they are just teeny tiny. If all goes well I'll even have the siding up on my shop in time for the weeks on weeks of rain that winter usually brings with.

Lilah Catches a Fish

We went camping at the KOA in Lynden a few weeks back. It was a lot of fun. The kids really liked the pool there and the paddle boats. We even caught 3 fish out of the little lake. Although we caught more "mermaid hair" (seaweed) than anything else. It rained all of Saturday and most of the morning of Sunday, so on Sunday morning we went Bellingham and saw Despicable Me. When we got back to camp it was sunny all through Monday, the extent of our visit.

McKenna Catches Some Mermaid Hair

Jeni, Rich, Jaime and I took McKenna and Lilah to the Monroe (Evergreen) Fair. McKenna is tall enough that she was able to ride most of the kiddie rides all by herself or with any random friend that she happened to talk to while standing in line. Lilah is finally tall enough to ride most of the rides with an adult-and in some cases with McKenna-, and I really enjoyed riding along with her/them.

At the Fair

McKenna just finished up her Story Drama Classes from the Seattle Children's Theater which she really enjoyed. She wasn't quite sure about it at first, but really took to it toward the end of the 8 week classes. Next up is her 2nd year of preschool which starts on Wednesday. We were trying to get her into early enrollment for Kindergarten (she missed the age cut off by a few months), but for a number of reasons it didn't work out. So now she'll be one of the oldest in her classes at school instead of the youngest, which is just fine. McKenna also got her hair cut into a little bob. She looks so grown up, it really makes her look like a different person.

McKenna's New Haircut

Lilah is talking up a storm now. She loves to pretend play about anything and everything. When I'm reading a book to her she'll pluck the strawberries out of the pages and eat them, or pull a butterfly from the pages and give it a little kiss. She's getting very close to being potty trained too. She stopped smearing her poop on the walls (hopefully that is over anyway). We've resorted to bribing her with M&M's for going #2 on the toilet, but it seems to work pretty good and she get very excited when it happens. We've even roped McKenna into helping her remember to go.
I've been uploading quite a bit of video to YouTube with my new Droid Incredible, you might want to check some of it out.
I'm going to be doing a 3.5 mile obstacle course called The Warrior Dash near Portland this weekend. It should be pretty sweet, and I've been training for it almost every week by watching WipeOut on TV, so I should do pretty well! :) I bought a pair spy sunglasses with a camera to record the entire thing and hopefully will cut a short video of it after the race. So stay tuned for that :)
Recently read books for me include Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter, The Passage, The Stupidest Angel, and Fluke. Next up is the 3rd and last book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay.

Well, until next time. Keep the fire going....

"My Karma ran over your Dogma."

2010-07-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

We finally got the rear patio cover finished. It only took a year to finish up, as we basically demo'd it last year right before starting the house re-roof project. A special thanks to Jeff (as usual) for helping me out with a lot of it. It will be nice to be able to use that area in the rain again, especially because the kids will be able to ride their bikes and play outside even when the weather is less than perfect. After it was finished I got to thinking, wouldn't it be cool if we could of done it with solar panels?! There is always next time :)

We also finished our garden project and have quite a few plants already poking up, some should be ready to eat in a few months probably. Yum, Yum! The actual bed frame was fairly easy. We made it out of the cherry landscape timbers, as we've done throughout the yard in various applications. It took 2 cu.yards, or 2 trucks full of soil to fill it up. I think the hardest part was digging and leveling it out before building it. That job consisted of about 50 wheelbarrows we dumped in the ravine across the road.

Still on the schedule for this summer is the shop addition, which has also been over a year in the making (the floor was finished last summer) and the sideway shingles for the gable ends of the house.

An uninsured driver hit Jaime and the girls head on while they were driving in the SantaFe about a month ago. It could of been much worse that it was, and we were all really lucky actually. Physically both of the girls were fine, just a little scared, and Jaime had a little bit of whiplash which she's been going to physical therapy and massage treatments for. They ended up totaling our vehicle (they stopped tallying up the damage when it hit $8000). Our insurance company, Progressive, was extremely helpful and very fair. We ended up settling the car part, check in hand, 2 weeks after the accident and the medical part, check in hand, 4 weeks after. Since the SantaFe was already paid off, we basically took the money from the insurance pay out and paid off our other car (the Sonata). And then after doing quite a bit of research and test driving about 8 vehicles, we ended up getting another SantaFe. It's a 2008 Limited Touring Package (our other one was a 2002). It's got 7 seats (the old one had 4) and a DVD entertainment system for the kids which they love. It's glorious. Although Jaime won't let me drive it much, she says she's the one that got hit so she should be able to drive the new car. Not sure how that works, but what are you going to do?

I got a new cell phone, which in my opinion is the cat's meow. It's the HTC Droid Incredible (from Verizon) and it ROCKS! It's my first venture into the smart phone arena and I'm not sure how I did anything before. I got a great deal on the phone and the data plan through work (they pay for all but $30 or so of it). It's got an awesome 8mp camera (most of the photos shown on this month blog is from the phone), and a super-fast processor. It's so much easier posting pictures and videos of the girls to the web or updating Facebook and such. It really is a work of art.

I was asked to be the officiant at a wedding for some friends from work which was a little scary but certainly fun. Thanks to the power of the internet, I've been an ordained minister since 2002, but have not had any reason to actually be one until now. Everything went well and the wedding turned out quite nice. It was at Deception Pass outside on the beach which was beautiful. It did rain pretty much the entire day before and the most of the morning, but ended up breaking about an hour before they did the ceremony and for about a 2-3 hour window where we got some pictures and such after. I was very honored to be asked and happy that it turned out.

McKenna starts drama school next Saturday at the Seattle Children's Theatre. We enrolled her in Saturday classes for about 2-1/2 months. I think she'll really get a kick out of it and I can't wait to see her interact with all of the other kids and teachers. While either Jaime or I stay with McKenna, the other one will spend some fun time with Lilah at the Science Center or the Children's Museum or something like that.

We've got a family camping trip planned for August which we are all looking forward to. We've reserved a family friendly KOA site so we'll have a lot of different things to keep us busy. It'll be Lilah's first time actually camping, although we've set up the tents in the backyard a few times so she could get used to it. I'll post about it after it happens.

Until next time, I hope this finds you well.

2010-05-12T22:46:00.001-07:00

"It is not MY fault that I never learned to accept responsibility!"

2010-05-02T00:47:00.000-07:00

At the moment, nobody in the Beadnell household is sick. This is quite a feat. We've been busy doing everyday life type of stuff. Jaime has been working a little overtime at her work, and although I'm not back up to the hours I once was at mine, we've been getting a little busier which will hopefully continue.
Since it's been staying lighter outside for longer we've been starting to get some things done around the house that we've been putting off through the winter. We planted 2 new hybrid fruit trees in the front yard. 1 is a 5 species apple tree and the other is a 4 species plum tree. Hopefully in a few years (before the apocalypse) they'll actually bear some fruit so we'll be a little more self sustaining. (I'm kidding, sort of....) I'll finally (hopefully) be finishing the back covered porch that I took down during the re-roof last year and the shop addition.
Jaime has been diligently researching her ancestry once again and updating her genealogy. She's also starting oil painting and we've got a few of her pieces hanging on our walls already.
McKenna and Lilah are still going to Rosey's daycare and are still loving it. There have been a few of their friends who have left which is sad, but it is getting them ready for what life is really like I guess. Friends come and go, move away, graduate, etc. McKenna is also still really enjoying preschool 2 times a week. She brings home her own piece of artwork every week and is getting really good at writing her alphabet and a few words.
We hope this finds you well, until next time...

ReConnecting

2010-02-07T00:38:00.000-08:00

We decided to have a small family outing this year for Lilah's 2nd birthday instead of a big party. Great Wolf Resort in Grand Mounds (near Olympia) fit the bill just fine. We stayed over a Monday night and since it wasn't very busy, they upgraded our basic Family Suite room into a ginormous 2 separate bedroom w/ huge living room (50" LCD), 2 bathroom Grizzly Bear Suite. McKenna is finally tall enough to to ride down the smaller adult slides with somebody, so that was fun because Jaime and I actually got to do some waterslides as well. The girls especially had a wonderful time and can't stop talking about it....again (we went once before about 6 months ago or so and it seems like McKenna just recently stopped asking when we were going back, now it starts all over again!) McKenna is enjoying preschool and learning more and more everyday. She has also been to a few friends birthday parties, one at a kids Little Gym and another at an inflatable Jump house.

I've been staying up way too late recently playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 on XBox LIVE and Facebooking (is that a word yet?). If you happen to play COD MW2 on the 360, look me up gamertag "MABEADNELL". I recently rediscovered my old photo box and have been going down memory lane. I befriended a few people on Facebook that I haven't talked to in 20+ years from my Riverside JrHigh & Elementary School days in Billings, Montana. I posted some old pictures of those days and all of a sudden those few friends turn into 40 or so! It is so good to hear from old friends and see what they've been up to. It's hard to believe that so much time has passed seemingly so quickly.

Well, it's much too late once again and I'm of to bed...until next time.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T22:23:00.000-08:00

Another great, short, long, sad, fun, exciting, etc year down! We've had many ups and downs but we pulled through no worse for the wear. You can always look back through our previous posts to catch up if need be :)
We had a wonderful Christmas with both sides of our family. Christmas Eve was spent at our house with Jaime's Mom, Dad and sister and my Mom opening up family presents and stockings (that Santa so graciously dropped off the night before on his test run for the big night). Christmas morning the girls woke up and and we had breakfast and then opened up gifts from Santa. Then after naps we went to Marysville and had a nice dinner with my side of the family at my side of the family, Shawn & Karen's house. We played some games and opened up some more gifts. My brother Jim was up from Arizona, as well as his son Evan from Montana, and his other son Nick who is currently stationed over at Bangor. We had a lot of fun and we were all, especially McKenna and Lilah, very spoiled with all of the gifts.
On the 2nd Jim, Shawn, and I went go-karting at Champs in Mukilteo and then to Sherlock Holmes, and then to eat. It was a fun brothers outing and I'm so happy we can do it from time to time.
Jaime got me an XBox 360 for Christmas and I've been staying up WAY to late playing until all hours of the morning. The only times I really get to play is when everybody else is asleep, which is actually right now..so...until next time..... :)

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-05T14:39:00.000-08:00

New pictures have been posted at our website .
Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Work Work and MORE Work

2009-10-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

These past few months has been very busy around the house for the Beadnell crew. We started off with an extension to my shop. So far I've just got the generator pit in and the floor on. The walls and roof will have to wait until Winter or maybe even summer.

Next up was a complete re-roof for the house. Thanks to Jeff, Connor, Shawn, Tyler, Nicholas, & Terry for all of their hard work. We tore off all of the old 3tab comp shingles, added gable bump out to the front, added some 2x4 outlookers to all of the overhangs, put an additional layer of plywood on then put the new architectural comp shingles on. (Did I mention it was in the high 90's during all of this?)

And then we decided to paint the house. The new colors (picked out by Jaime) really go well together and it is a nice change from the blah gray it was. The new front porch got T&G pine on the soffit and stained shingles on the gable. We just got gutters put on to match the red trim.

I'm now in the process of rebuilding the rear patio cover. We tore it down for the re-roofing project because it was a bit undersized for the snow we got the last season and a few of the rafters snapped with the weight, also it was attached to the fascia and was a little lower than i preferred. So now it's getting 2x6 rafters (instead of 2x4) on top of 4x6 beams (instead of 2-2x4). It should be a much better design in the long run.

To save some money we decided to ditch the expensive digital cable TV (of which we only watched the local channels anyway) and get an antenna. Now we receive FREE HD local channels, yes free high definition. We do miss the DVR, but we have a DVD recorder so we don't miss the must see shows (which we've slimmed down to House, Shark Tank, Glee, ANTM, Fringe, Flash Forward,Vampire Diaries, and coming soon LOST & V).

In other news, the girls are growing up faster than ever. I'll be posting more pics on our website the first of the month (as always).

Well, It's been a long time since I last posted. It seems time is harder to come by and Facebook seems to be a little easier to do. If you haven't signed up for Facebook, you should check it out.

I've been reading quite a bit on my lunch hour at work. Some of my favorites recently are The Road, Cell, World War Z, The Gone Away World, The Lost Symbol, Deception Point.

I hope this finds you well, until next time....

The good, the bad and the sad

2009-08-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

This has been a long month in the Beadnell house. Some wonderful things happened, and some very very sad things. The great news is, the roof is finished and it looks amazing. Mark and friends got together and really did an amazing job getting the work done in two weekends and we couldn't be more pleased with it! Also in the good news department, I finally had my sinus surgery at the end of July and little by little every day I seem to get a bit better. I have had a couple of days this month without a headache (which is HUGE news because I have had a constant sinus headache since February). The girls are doing really well, McKenna is beginning Nursery School on September 8th and is getting very excited to start. We have an open house this Thursday and it's all she can talk about....I have a feeling Ms McKenna is going to give Teacher Patty a run for her money! Lilah is still Momma's little cuddle machine and is getting sweeter and more snugly each and every day (I thought the opposite was supposed to happen?!) . Oh what a lucky mom I am.
So now the sad news....
A very close friend of our little family passed away on August 9Th. Ashkan was a brilliant person and an absolute wonderful friend who will be very difficult to live without. Mark & I had the privilege and honor of working alongside Ashkan for 5 years at Plywood Supply, and I had the honor of spending time with him outside work, shopping, hanging out at the park with the girls and painting pottery. He was McKenna's first "boyfriend" and when she was about two yrs old she had the most adorable crush on him....following him all over the place and competing for his attention when I would bring her into work. He had a magnetic personality and anyone who had the opportunity to befriend him knew great things were in store for him in the future. The world is so much less colorful without him in it.....R.I.P Ashkan 1987-2009 love you forever!
Jaime

If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat

2009-07-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

What a glorious day! Okay, so I will recap the rest of this lovely Independance Day weekend shortly, but first things first....Lilah went potty in the potty chair today! There was no fight involved....I asked if she wanted to sit on the big girl potty chair, she nodded yes and proceeded to the facilities (aka Marks throne). We took her diaper off, I sat her on the toilet, she sang herself a encouraging tune and presto peepee!
Harps began playing, angels sang the whole shebang.

So....what else happened this weekend?

Friday the NellNells stuck around the house and painted the storage shed. It went pretty quickly and I am happy to announce that this weekend our storage shed now looks like a million bucks. I hope our neighbors enjoy the colors sauteed mushroom and warm mahogany. Saturday we hung out with family to celebrate the 4th of July holiday. Jeni and Poppy Rich came over for lunch and afterwards we went on to Shawn and Karens house in Marysville for a delicious dinner. Then, home again, where we put the girls to bed entirely too late.

One last thing before I forget, about an hour after Lilah peed in the toilet she again let it flow...right after bathtime, but this time instead of using the facilities she peed on Marks lap.....am I a great potty trainer or what!?

All in all, a really nice weekend .

J

Happy Fathers Day!

2009-06-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

What a lovely weekend we had! On Saturday the girls, Aunt Jeni & I had a blast, walking around the mall and window shopping. We visted the girls favorite shops and McKenna even managed to charm her Aunt into buying her a princess goblet. (Aunt Jeni = a Sucker for a pretty toddler face).
Sunday (today)we had a ton of fun spending Fathers Day with Lilah & McKenna & of course Mark! We went down to Picnic Point in Edmonds and enjoyed a overcast day at the beach. The girls had a ton of fun playing in the sand, Lilah seemed to enjoy the beach the most...sand was in every crevase by the time we left. Shortly after the Beadnell clan returned home we all took a nap. Oh what a glorious moment in history, the girls were sleeping at the same time. And REALLY sleeping. Not trashing their rooms in the dark and pretending to sleep.
After the fabulous mid day nap, my dad aka "Poppy Rich" and Aunt Jeni came over to finish the Fathers Day celebration with a dinner. The girls ran around basking in the attention of the extra people within our house and were so excited to give Poppy the gift they hand picked for him. They bought him a white betta fish and lovingly named him "Leotard Bobby" (McKenna chose the name Leotard, Lilah chose the name Bobby). All in all, we had a nice day. Hopefully, Mark enjoyed himself. He is, after all the best dad the girls could ever ask for and the best husband ever.
I hope everyone else had as great of a weekend that we had. Happy Fathers Day to all you Fathers out there reading this blog...
Goodnight. Jaime

Stuff to do, people to see and drugs lots of drugs

2009-06-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

The past month has been very busy in our home. We have begun a few new home projects that have made things a bit hectic, and in our usual fashion...we have started them all at the same time. Our current projects include: painting our old shed and building a new shed. 4 weekends ago we began the re-painting of the shed with a coat of white primer after a thorough pressure washing. We of course, have done nothing to the shed since priming it, but I hope to get at least one coat of paint on it this weekend....the reason we haven't painted it yet you ask? Well, we had to start a new project of course! Why finish a project all the way through when you can compound the stress caused by said projects by beginning more? So the weekend after we primed, Mark had his sidekick, Jeffrey over and they began the daunting task of building the basement foundation for a second shed. It's going to be pretty cool when it's finished, but Mark and Jeff were definetly feeling the pain after the Memorial Day weekend was over. Hauling the cinder blocks and pouring cement was tough on their old/frail man bodies (it's funny and not funny all at the same time). Now, seeing as how we have two large projects in the works you would think that last weekend was emersed in completing them right?
In any other family yes, but here...not quite. Last weekend we had a multi family garage sale instead of fulfilling those tasks. Mark & I sold sooo much stuff it was crazy! Though it doesn't seem like it made much more room in our tiny rambler I am sure it did, and it feels good to remove some clutter. This weekend we are attending a birthday party for my cousins daughter Leah who turns one and hopefully after that comes painting.
So looking beyond the home repair, things are going great in our house. The girls are as precocious and wonderful as ever. Lilah is a little ham and says "cheese" now when you ask her to smile (seems she's always expecting us to take her picture, I wonder why?) And McKenna is quickly becoming a sneekier and smarter version of her parents...always getting her way by using her superior mind control techniques against us. I am doing......okay. I am getting quite use to having a sinus infection now and am on my 4th round of antibiotics which still doesn't seem to be working ugh! Hopefully that soon will be resolved when I meet with a specialist. That's all I have for now. It's 10 o'clock and officially 1/2 hr after bedtime. Love you all and hope this summer is treating you well, and always remember...if you need something to do...we have a couple of projects with your name on it. ~Jaime

My little critters

2009-02-23T19:58:00.000-08:00

So I have been thinking a bit lately about the Australian wildfires and the Koala Bear that was saved by a firefighter http://newsok.com/koala-saved-from-wildfire/article/3344993 (if you haven't read the article or youtube'd the video, you HAVE to it's so sweet). Well, as with all news I hear or see, it got me to thinking about my children, McKenna specifically.

It struck me at how much that adorable little koala bear reminder me of my McKenna. Big, beautiful eyes, round adorable little face, and this cuddly little body that you just want to wrap in hugs all day long. When I got to thinking about the similarities between McKenna and the koala bear, I realized that they also had quite a bit in common personality wise as well. A koala may look cute and fuzzy, but like McKenna, it could potentially bite your head off if you get up in it's business...it enjoys it's fierce independence and wants to eat the same thing day after day after day....

Well, the Koala/McKenna comparison was so much fun to think about, that (of course) it got me to thinking about Lilah and which animal she emulated. Oh how I wrestled with the many possibilities. She coos like a pigeon, and she will poop anywhere and everywhere..but she is sweet and never annoying...hmmmm.
I tossed around plenty of critters in my mind that almost fit the bill, and then KAPOW! My completely ridiculous epiphany hit...she is like a puppy! A puppy makes funny adorable faces, makes strange noises from each direction of their bodies regardless of awake or asleep, will eat anything on their plate or yours, and is lovey and faithful no matter how their day is going...that IS Lilah!!!

To sum up, I have way too much empty space in my brain to fill with thoughts such as written above.

At least my children are not PC's.

~Jaime

Birthday Love & Learnin'

2009-02-06T17:17:00.000-08:00

Our littlest bean is 1 year old! Thank you to all who celebrated and spoiled my little Lilah with your warm wishes and extravagant gifts on her birthday, January 25Th! We had a lot of fun seeing everyone and packing the home with everyone who loves Lilah. I was amazed at how many people actually attended (around 40) since the night before we saw some snow in and around Bothell.
We celebrated the special day with Winnie the Pooh decorations, I think Lilah loved the Pooh Bear balloons best of all, and although we had a few snafus before the party began (IE: Mark picking up someone else's balloons at the party store, "I thought it was weird you ordered little slugger balloons!" and the stinkin' cat sitting on the box of cupcakes), I don't think we could have asked for things to go more smoothly. :)
Now we are anticipating spring so we can put together the awesome teeter totter Lilah got. It says 7 kids can fit on it, which means if I evenly distribute my weight, I can go on by myself right?

Other good news is that Lilah's vocab has expanded a little more. She says Papa for Grandpa Rich, and bye bye now (in addition to mama and dada). McKenna is getting really good at counting and is beginning to understand the concept of addition. She can count items in sequence up to 13 with no trouble at all. Also, McKenna got to participate in her first day at nursery school last week at Jack & Jill's Nursery School. She really seemed to enjoy herself and is excited to start going there in fall. We plan on enrolling her for September classes every Tues & Thurs.

That's it for now. Thank you again everybody for being so great to our girls. We are so thankful for our family and friends and hope that you continue to fare well in these tough economic times.

Love Jaime

Jaime got run over by a reindeer

2009-01-14T20:38:00.000-08:00

So today for the first time ever I really felt like the hands of time were giving me the finger.

I went into a Walgreen's to pick up some prescriptions, waited in line, everything seemed to be business as usual....
When it was my turn, I walked up to the counter and said in my most straight forward tone, "Prescription pick up for Beadnell." The Pharmacy Tech smiled and nodded in acknowledgment, she turned to the cubby holes that so neatly organize the medications alphabetically for all the sickies and druggies in the general Bothell vicinity. "Beadnell...Beadnell...Beadnell," she chanted under her breath, "Beadnelllll..." her voice trailed off and you could clearly see the light bulb flash above her head "Ah yes, Beadnell," she said. She turned away from the small, well aligned prescription cubes and reached under the sterile counter. Grunting, she bent down and strained herself backwards to pull a brown paper bag out from the shelf beneath her. "Jaime Beadnell right?"
"Uh, yeah," came my reply.
"Here's YOUR prescription, I assume you have taken ALL of these prescriptions before?"
That's about the time when I felt those hands of time slap me across the face, and I am pretty sure Father Time was laughing from somewhere down one of the other aisles. My prescription was so huge they had to store it in a special area beyond the cubbies? When did I become THAT person?
I don't even know what else to say about this.....or maybe I do, but I forgot already because I am suffering from age related memory loss. In any case I am feeling really old today and that makes me feel sick so I need to go take some pills...
.....now if I could only remember where I left them......?
Jaime

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do...

2008-12-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

She's walking, she's walking, she's walking!!!!! Our beautiful little angel has been walking for a little over a week now and is getting mighty good at it. Lilah is pretty proud of herself when she gets onto her feet and displays her cowgirl/bowlegged walking stance, she's falling down plenty but it hasn't seemed to phase her at all. I have to say watching her make tracks is my favorite Christmas gift by far....it's the gift that keeps on giving. :)

I am beginning to recover from pneumonia now, it's been a tough road but I think the antibiotics are starting to work. The toughest obstacle is trying to sleep through coughing which is a task in itself.....

Christmas turned out nice, Mark picked up my sister, my mom and dad from their homes so they could spend Christmas Day with us. We had tacos for lunch and opened some pretty spectacular gifts. I'd say the day turned out pretty perfect, and even the snow fall, which I usually scoff at, was a nice touch for Christmas Day. I can't remember the last white Christmas before this one. The girls were in a great mood the whole day and McKenna had a BLAST opening gifts. It turns out, it doesn't matter what you get for a toddler as long as it needs to be unwrapped, it makes them happy.

Thank you to everyone who made this Christmas so special for our family. We love you all!!!!

P.S. Mark got me a set of pans, an iron, and a hand mixer.....do you think I should take that as a hint?! ~Jaime

Electric Mayhem

2008-12-22T14:22:00.000-08:00

So the December saga continues in The Beadnell Homestead. It's been a winter wonderland in Bothell, snowing more than...well, more than I think I have ever seen in this ne

ck of the woods before. I know there is a whole world of snow connoisseurs out there who would love our foot or more of snow, I however, am not one of those people. I find the snow to be completely miserable. I enjoy seeing i

t on postcards or on the tops of mountains hundreds of miles away, but that is pretty much the extent of my snow appreciation. So, needless to say I cannot wait for this snowy junk to melt...give me the rain any day over this. To add to my frozen misery, I have been really under the weather (no pun intended) since late last week. Mark has been taking char

ge of all the household duties with the babies and has been really great, though I can tell he's wearing a bit thin himself. Today I finally got into a walk in clinic (they were closed due to snow before....grrrrr) and I found out what I was hoping wasn't true. I have a massive pneumonia in my left lung. I could scream, but I may cough up a lung so I will spare you the details. I am hoping that the medicine I was given will make me feel better before Christmas arrives, and after that I will be counting down the days for this month to end!

Cough, Pflegm, Cough

Jaime

Crazy Days & Lazy Days

2008-12-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

This has been a LONG month so far for the Nellnell house. It started off with my sister, Jeni getting a tonsillectomy. You would think it would have been a relatively easy surgical procedure, but it was harder on her than expected and it landed her back in the hospital a few days after it was done from additional complications. The day she had to go back to the hospital, (Dec 4Th) for an overnight stay was also the day of my moms double mastectomy and unexpectedly also the day my Grandma Marie passed away. AHHH! I wasn't quite sure how to react to it all...and to be honest I really don't know how I reacted. The whole day was such a blur and so sad.
I am happy to report that since the worse day ever, things have gotten better for both my mom & sister. Both are recovering well from their ordeals and learning to do their everyday tasks again with their missing bits and pieces. Mom is set to start chemo again, likely within a week or two and we are certain that she will pull through it all with flying colors.
My family on my dads side is taking things one step at a time. The passing of my Grandmother Marie has been very difficult for my dad, well really for all of us, but especially on her children.
My Grandma passed peacefully in her sleep with her daughter, Kristi by her side after a long battle with cancer. She was the toughest lady you would ever meet and it was a absolute blessing to be a part of her life. Her funeral/wake was beautiful and was made extra special by a tribute DVD that Mark put together commemorating the highlights of her life. What a lucky lady I am to have such a talented hubby! In true Grandma Marie form she managed to get all of her family together again and helped us all bury any hatchets there may have been between family members. It was her last gift to all of us.
Now that the craziest day is behind us I must say, it was wonderful having an uneventful Sunday this weekend, hopefully our boring and uneventful days will continue through the rest of this year. Thank you all for your well wishes and support! I don't know how we would have made it through all of this without you all! Love Jaime

"Just because your paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you."

2008-11-24T21:41:00.000-08:00

So, we're very happy that Obama won. I was kinda surprised that he won by such a large amount though. Glad, but surprised.

Now if we can just get the 50 some days done with so this lame duck government can step aside and a fresh new one can start to try something different to hopefully get things going again, eh? On the economic front, things have finally hit the building industry hard in the Pacific Northwest. My company is off over 50% in sales from last year, they've laid off a handful of people and are cutting everything they can think of to save money. My hours have been cut by about 5.5hrs per week, and the company is closing down from Christmas Eve through the day after New Years; about a week and a half total wthout pay. Needless to say that hurts a bit in the pocketbook. Jaime and I are both currently looking for a part time job, the first one to get a half way decent one (assuming they're any left to get) is going to take it.

Jaime's new job is still going well. They haven't been affected too much yet, although they have stopped hiring anybody as a precaution. She still like it alot and is excited that she always is busy with things to do.

A few weeks back we went to the park to get some shots of the kids. These are some of the better ones. Hopefully more to come soon if we can get a good weekend day. It seems we go to work in the dark and come home in the dark during the week.

Well until next time. Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Mark, Jaime, McKenna & Lilah

McKenna says Thank You (and WordUp)!

2008-11-10T22:15:00.000-08:00

McKenna turned 3 on Nov 3rd and we had a wonderful and busy week celebrating it with her. Since everyone had to work on Mon the 3rd, we had a small celebration at hom with some cupcakes and ice cream after dinner and a couple of presents to open. McKenna & Lilah's daycare had a party for her on Friday the 7th, with cupcakes & lots of presents. Needless to say she made out like a bandit.

On Sat the 8th, after swimming lessons, we had a nice birthday party with family and some of McKenna's friends. She again made out like a bandi and she had a very fun time. The theme of the party was WordGirl, who is McKenna's favorite SuperHero and a cartoon we DVR daily for her. If you haven't seen it, you should YouTube or ITune a few shows, it's actually pretty good. We had a WordGirl standup with the face cut out so everyone could take pictures as WordGirl. Jaime put together some WordGirl themed refreshements.

McKenna really loved playing with everyone and spending time with everyone and all of the presents she received. She got lots of stuff, including some dolls, a handful of dress up dresses, books, and a hand made WordGirl costume, amoung other things.

Thank you everyone for the time you spent celebrating with us and for the gifts and well wishes.

Check out more pics at our website.

Until next time,

WordUp!

Mark, Jaime, McKenna & Lilah

The countdown is on....who will it be

2008-10-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

Only a few days left until we elect a new President and the air is tense. Who will America choose? On one hand, you can choose a candidate who is fresh, has new ideas and a passion to bring something different to our country. On the other hand, we have a candidate who has lived thru many eras, Mesozoic, Neolithic etc etc who has alot of great ideas that have been around a long time that work really well.....like creating a wheel, using stone tablets to write and that sort of thing. It really makes this decision of who to choose a very difficult one. One can only hope that the people who live in and love this country make a decision that they can live with. I for one am voting for a candidate who has not been given the recognition deserved for all the accomplishments made and promises kept. A candidate that continues to impress day after day with award winning charm and wit. Someone who I could see being friends with, someone I could confide in, someone who deserves to win. I am proud to announce my vote for our next President, Hillary Clinton.

What?!

What do you mean she's not running anymore?

Crap!

WORD UP!

2008-10-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

Good Friday Morning! I am off to work in a few minutes at my new job with Verathon in the finance department. I have been there nearly one month now and am finally getting the hang of things. It's hard to be away from my beans, but exciting to begin a new adventure and be around adults again...I forgot what it was like! It's nice going back to work for a company that seems to care so much about the health and welfare of their employees too. The girls have been doing very well at daycare, McKenna getting right back into the groove that she was in when she went there before Lilah was born, and Lilah...well she is a mommy and daddys girl and is having a hard time at pick up and drop off, but other than that she seems to be fairing well. All in all, I think it will be good for the whole fam that I am working full time, it's going to be great for the girls social development to be in daycare and it's nice to "get a break" from home stuff for me. In other news, my mom is getting very close to her finally surgery to remove the cancer from her body and she has been feeling much better lately. She's got very cool Jamie Lee Curtis hairdo and has been in good spirits lately. My dad is doing well to. He should be getting some additional prosthesis for his foot and is getting around a little better with each passing day. Things are looking up for everyone in these parts. Hooray for that!

Well, I suppose I should go to work to push some paper. Hope everyone is well. Have a Happy Halloween!

Love,

Jaime

If you don't stop and smell the roses once in awhile...

2008-10-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

Jaime started work at her new job on Monday. She now works for a global medical equipment manufacturer based out of Bothell. She's working full time now during the day so we had to put McKenna & Lilah in daycare. Luckily, McKenna's last daycare had 2 openings so we were able to send them both to someone we know and trust, and that McKenna really loved before. They went for 3 days and both seemed to do really well.

Jaime, Jeni, McKenna, Lilah and I went to the Puyullap Fair a few weeks back. It was really fun, especially after we started going on the rides. McKenna loved any and all of the rides, especially the fast and jerky ones. We must of went on the super slide a dozen times. We've been to the zoo a few times this month and Papa, Jaime, McKenna, & Lilah went to the Pacific Science center a week or so ago as well.

Our front yard is looking really nice. There are still a few spots where no grass has come in, probably because I burned it using too much fertilizer. So we're overseeding those areas and hope to have grass in the whole yard by the time it starts to get cold and turn to crap again.

We've also started in on the reface of our fireplace, which if I do say so myself is looking awesome.

It doesn't seem like there are many hours in the day lately. Besides work, we've only got about 2-1/2 hours Mon-Fri for family time, and although the weekends are mostly wide open, there are usually projects that take up good chunks of time. That and the daylight hours are waning.

I don't usually rant much on here, but can I just say, WTF (excuse my abbreviations) on Sarah Palin? Did you see any of the interviews she did with Couric or Gibson ? Although she wasn't as much of a train wreck as I was thinking/hoping she would be in the debate, she didn't actually answer any questions she was asked. What is this country coming to if a person who is so clearly not ready to be a leader of our country can get on a presidential ticket and then still have a chance to win. I don't think half of the country even has a brain of there own. Please, for my childrens sake :) , vote Obama/Biden 2008, anyways...I digress...

Well, sleep is also in short supply lately, so I best be off to it. Until next time.

What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do. -Victor Hugo

2008-09-08T22:16:00.000-07:00

Today Mark, the girls and I went to the Puyallup fair with Aunt Jeni to celebrate my 29th birthday. We sure had a lot of fun taking McKenna on all the rides she could muster and eating bad for you concession foods. It couldn't have been a more beautiful day to wrap up the last birthday of my 20's and for that I am very thankful. It has been a busy few weeks around the house as we are trying to wrap up summer and summer projects. Mark finished the front yard remodeling on Sunday with the addition of a lovely little enclosure around the Japanese maple my dad got me for my birthday. He also added some drainage/river rock around the outside of our gate which really makes the area pop. It's pretty awesome. Now we are hoping to work on the fireplace in the house next, we got some rock tile last Christmas to accent the pellet stove area and are planning on having it installed before the cold of Old man winter arrives. That is just a small project on the list of before winter projects we have been thinking about for the last few months (bathroom remodel and more insulation are also potential works in progress), but we will see what and when any of these things will actually come to fruition. It's so sad that the summer is almost over...where did it all go anyways? Well, it's late so I am gonna jet, thank you all for your Happy Birthday wishes. Love, Jaime

The chances of bread falling butter side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet

2008-08-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

What a lovely summer it has been so far! Being able to stay at home during the day with my girls has been such an adventure, and it has kept me busier than I ever have been. Lilah has been crawling now since mid July and she is getting stronger and more capable of getting into trouble with each day that flies by. She makes a b-line for the cat food dishes now and is utterly fascinated with the toilet so I have been more wary about baby proofing. It's strange that in the short time since McKenna was a little baby until now how much I seem to have forgotten about what it's like to have an infant around. Being a mom of a newborn is like reading your favorite book over and over again and finding a wonderful secret hidden amongst the paragraphs that changes the whole story with each turn of the page....I can't seem to get enough.
McKenna is really starting to get the hang of using the potty chair now (T/G!) She has been a real trooper and fights us a lot less when we ask her to use it. We still have a long way to go before we can put her in big girl underpants, but at least we are on the right track now....seemed like we would never get to this point. <--We have learned a valuable lesson from potty training that I think will carry through to the time our girls are adults....when all else fails, use bribery! She has had enough gummy worm rewards to stretch the globe.
The front yard grass is growing in now, along with a wide variety of exotic weeds...most of which never grew on our previous layer of sod. What exactly is wrong with that picture? I am pretty sure our neighbors are sprinkling weed seed down while we sleep...that is the ONLY logical explanation. Other than the weeds the yard looks great and it finally looks as though there may be an end to the grueling front yard work in sight. Just in time for another one of our house projects. :)
Well, I suppose I should go for now. Hope all is well for all those who are reading this. Have a lovely rest of the summer!

Love,
Jaime

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. -Dr Seuss

2008-08-05T22:33:00.000-07:00

Lilah is just over 6 months old now, she is sitting upright by herself (and only falling over occasionally) and she is also crawling forward. She started crawling backward around 5 months. She has also started on some jar food and enjoys bananas, pears & carrots so far. We’ve tried Cheerios, but Lilah really doesn’t know what to think about them yet and pushes them back out of her mouth with her tongue every time, all the while glaring at you.

McKenna has been doing much better with her potty training. She now goes #1 almost every time in the toilet, she’s got a little more to work on with the #2 however. Thank goodness we haven’t transitioned into actual panties yet! We’re trying to bribe her with trips to the Pacific Science Center if she goes poop in the potty chair, so far it hasn’t worked. She has been playing almost every other day with her friend Andrea (5) from across the street. It usually go goes something like this…McKenna whines to play with Andrea, we ask Andrea to come over, she comes over, after about 2.2 minute of playing together they go off in different sections of the yard and play by themselves, after about an hour I tell them we to walk Andrea home because we have to eat, we walk Andrea home, we go inside to fix dinner, McKenna whines to play with Andrea some more. It seems like they have a lot of fun, and considering the age difference at their age (over 2 years), they seem to enjoy each other’s company. It certainly is nice to have a friend so near that McKenna likes, and vice versa. Andrea’s dad, Mike, sometimes comes over as well and it’s nice to hear some other views from somebody who has been through a lot of when we are going through,(He’s got 5 girls ages 5-17).

On other fronts we’ve finally got some grass growing in the front yard that we re-landscaped. It’s looking pretty good, certainly better than before, and when all of the grass comes in it should be stupendous. J It seems through the front yard project, we’ve met nearly everyone in the neighborhood on once occasion or another as they’ve stopped by to say hello and comment on the yard.

Work is going ok. Jaime was going in for a full day on Monday as well as the nights 5-9, but she had to stop the Mondays because of childcare issues. The lumber/house building market in general has really slowed down in this area, it doesn’t look good for bonuses this year. We are finally catching up to the rest of the nation in that regard I guess. Things always seem to slow down during an election year, but it’s been especially slow with all of the things happening in the mortgage & oil crisis(s), and the job market. Hopefully the housing market will get kick started again soon, and we’ll be back to full swing.

Well, until next time, we hope this finds you happy and healthy.

Happy 4th, belated.

2008-07-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy weekend for the nellnell clan. For the 4th of July we went down to Ocean Shores and stayed at the Quinalt Beach Resort & Casino. We got there about 2pm on Friday and checked into the room, which was actually quite nice. It had an ocean view and a nice view of the sandy beach. The weather was overcast, very windy, and drizzely but it was still pretty packed around town and the beach, which is usual for the 4th. After checking into the room we all walked down to the beach to play in the sand and water. It was pretty windy so that didn't last very long, and we decided to go back to the "tel" and go to "swimmin lessons" at the pool. All 4 of us went swimming and at the end of it we were pretty pruned. After swimming we got something to eat at a local "resraunt" and then back to the tel room to watch the fireworks from our room. It was still a little light outside so McKenna and I walked down to the beach again while Jaime and Lilah stayed in the room so Lilah could eat. McKenna and I watched some of the fireworks from the beach and collected fireworks sticks and rocks for about a 1/2 hour or so. On our way back up to the room we saw a mommy deer and her fawn running across the grass trying to get away from all of the noise. Some nice guy also gave McKenna 3 sanddollars to take home. We watched the fireworks for a little while and then went to bed. I snuck down to the casino, or rather, Jaime let me go down to the casino for a 1/2 hour or so and managed to come back about $73 richer :)

For the rest of the weekend we did a bunch of yardwork and played in the backyard. It seems lately that yardwork is all we've been doing. In case you're behind on what's been going on we've completely redone the front yard and still have quite a bit to do.

In other fronts Lilah might have a tooth popping through and she has found her tongue and can't stop sticking it out at anyone and then smiling profusely until you do it back at her. It's so precious.

Well, we will try to keep you updated on everything else thats going on soon and will be posting some new pictures of the yard and such soon. June's pictures are already posted on nellnell.com, so check them out if you haven't already. I've also uploaded our wedding pics and pics from our Paris vacation if you haven't seen those yet, you should check them out.

Until then, take care...

Jafar's a bad guy he picks his nose.

2008-05-12T18:45:00.000-07:00

So things couldn't get better in our house. Lilah is growing like a little weed and seems to get happier and more vocal everyday. McKenna is throwing SOOOOO much less temper tantrums (T/G!) and I am getting more sleep. Time really does seem to become more fleeting when you have children. I honestly don't know how I have enough time in the day to get anything done, but somehow things have been working themselves out.
We had a really great Mothers Day weekend. We took the girls to Tacoma and stayed in a hotel over night so we could go to the Point Defiance Zoo, Tacoma Childrens Musuem and take the girls swimming. I had my doubts about how things would play out since we were all sleeping in the same room but everyone behaved quite well. It was Lilahs first time in a swimming pool and she sure soaked it up. I have never seen a baby that little enjoy herself so much, she was cooing and smiling the whole time. McKenna enjoyed swimming too (as usual) and didn't want to leave the "Tel" room, as she calls it, when Sunday hit.
The fun didn't end on Sunday though because Mark took today (Monday) off and we got to spend time with his sister Sue who came to visit from Utah for the week. We were so happy to get to spend time with her and McKenna was especially taken with her Aunt Sue showing her all over the house and outside, it's wonderful to get to see Sue and we hope that she gets to come visit more often.
The last news I have for now is a congrats to friends Casey & Todd Schoepflin. Their foster-to-adopt baby arrived in their home Thursday of last week, I have yet to meet the little angel, but saw pictures and she is a beautiful little baby. We wish you guys the best and love you mucho.
Jaime

“It’s astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll.”

2008-05-08T21:20:00.000-07:00

“Time, Time, Time, see what’s become of me.”

Busy is how I would sum up our life recently. It seems even more now that there aren’t enough hours in the day to complete all of the tasks we have to do. But we’re getting along, and enjoying life as it happens.

For all intents and purposes, we finally got the back deck finished and it looks great! (I still have to go back and screw all of the boards down the rest of the way). We used Trex Contours and inlaid some porcelain tile for a fire pit area. A heartfelt thanks to Shawn, Jeff, Connor and Gary for all of the help throughout the process.

Jaime has gone back to working nights now. Jaime comes in to work at 5pm with the kids (most of the time they are napping during the car ride). I come out of work and she goes in. I take the kids home, sometimes stopping at the park to play if they are awake and it’s nice outside, change diapers, feed them, play with them, change them again, get their pajamas on, and put them to bed. All in 3-4 hours! I can’t imagine being a single parent. I really enjoy spending the alone time with my girls and getting to see Lilah develop a little personality of her own. She smiles at everything now and is starting to giggle, although her giggles usually turn into a coughing fit (she hasn’t quite got that whole breathing and swallowing together thing down yet.) McKenna has really taken to Lilah and always asks to help out by feeding her or changing her diapers. McKenna is very protective of Lilah and is a really great big sister. We are very fortunate to have 2 wonderful, beautiful kids.

Since Lilah’s birth about 3-1/2 months ago we purchased a new camera (Nikon D40x) which rocks! Jaime and I have been going nuts taking so many pictures that it’s now a chore to go through them and weed out the not so good ones. We take on average about 1,100 pictures per month. Good thing it’s digital and we don’t have to pay to process!

Among other reasons, and since I’ve not had much time to work on the website at home, we also purchased a new laptop computer. I figured that I would be able to update the website and go through all of the pictures, and edit our family videos during my lunch hour at work. I might even be able to drum up some more website development work for some extra $$$ (That’s a good excuse, right?) This computer rocks! It’s so much faster than the 5 year old desktop we have. And although I thought I was going to have a lot of problems with Microsoft’s Vista, it has worked flawlessly for me so far. I think I might prefer it over XP now, although I’ve read and heard that you have to have a fast computer to reliably run it. I recently finished uninstalling all of the needless programs that come with the computer, and installing the ones I need. I’m well on my way to a complete website overhaul so look for that in the coming weeks.

Well, that’s it for now. I hope all is well with you and yours. Stay tuned for more information.

She's 2 months old!

2008-03-31T19:25:00.000-07:00

Things are going great in chez Beadnell. Lilah is 9 weeks old and is getting bigger and more fun with each passing day. She smiles alot now and coos happily when Mark & I tickle her. McKenna is really great with Lilah and gives her kisses and hugs when she cries, I have to say though, McKenna has become more work ten Lilah lately. She is in her terrible twos now and is as obstinant and cranky as a child can possibly be. She no longer takes naps and she gets into everything you tell her not to. She also has a ton of little sayings know that help get her point across "Don't touch that," "I said no mommy," "Are you mocking me?" etc.
She thinks she's the boss.....well she is the boss, but don't tell her that.
The girls both have colds (Lilahs first) so we have been stuck indoors and staying near home the past few days and I am starting to go a bit stir crazy, but other than that I'd say we have been pretty lucky lately. No unexpected stuff has happen to ruin our little role we have going on. Hopefully I will be able to blog again soon!
Until then,
Jaime

Update from 2 blogs ago

2008-02-25T17:10:00.000-08:00

Hi again all.....it seems I was a bit mistaken 2 blogs ago when I said McKenna perfected the alphabet. It seems the letter L is not her only hang up. Upon more careful examination of her verbiage it has been determined there may be another bit of the alphabet that confuses her....don't believe me....well, take a look for yourself.
*****Below is a written re-inactment of McKennas alphabet song, you may sing along if you desire*****
A B C D E F G H I J K I DON'T WANT TO PEE Q R S T U V W X Y AND Z NOW I KNOW MY A B C'S NEXT TIME WON'T YOU SING WITH ME.

Until next time,
Jaime

Sleep deprivation, Babies and dancing pigs

2008-02-25T16:25:00.001-08:00

It's been one month since Lilah has joined our household and I am proud to announce that even through my lack of sleep, inadequate diet, and lack of contact with the outside world, I have not mistakenly blown up the house, accidentally shipped my children to Adu Dhabi or begun drooling and crying incessantly. That's right, I have thus far survived.
I think Lilah is sleeping better through the night now, but as with most things at this point in my sleep deprived life, I could be wrong....maybe I am just getting use to being in hyper drive 24/7. When I do sleep, my dreams are so vivid I could swear they are real....(if they ARE real, please let my dancing cloned pig Leroy know he missed ballet lessons if you see him), and none of my dreams ever seem to get an appropriate ending as they are disturbed by a beautiful little cry that sends me careening straight back into reality.
I really shouldn't complain anymore though because I do have an exceptionally beautiful new baby girl in addition to my already perfect little posse. She is growing so fast that I am almost ready to retire some of her newborn attire and she is already out of the newborn diapers and sailing through the next size up like she won't be wearing those long either. Today I took her to the aquarium with McKenna and Grandpa Rich for the first time and last week we went to the zoo. She seemed completely disinterested both times, but was a bit more interested at the aquarium (I think she could see the colors at the tropical exhibit) every time we passed a bright fish her eyes would get really huge. McKenna was great at the aquarium too....she is really into Nemo so naturally that tank was her favorite. It's not as hard as I thought it would be taking both girls places to visit. As long as I keep in perpetual motion, Lilah remains calm and as long as I keep McKenna constantly busy tantrums don't ensue. The only place I am utterly petrified to take both girls at this point is the grocery store so naturally that won't be happening for my large shopping visits for quite some time. Between McKenna pulling things off shelves and Lilah screaming every time the cart stopped I do believe I would leave the store bald and with a few more nervous ticks then I already have. Well, I suppose that's all for now. Both of my beans are asleep and I have a moment to relax before hyper-drive kicks in again (or I am asleep having a wonderful dream about sleeping babies...in which case PLEASE don't wake me)
Until next time,
Jaime

Bean 1 and Bean 2 updates

2008-02-09T17:18:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!
Things have been moving along swimmingly in the Beadnell House. I am getting use to the lack of sleep although it is getting a little bit better every week. I have somehow been able to get Lilah on the every three hour meal schedule which has helped quite a bit in the slumber arena. She is officially two weeks old and getting smarter and more beautiful every day. We took her in for her first official check up at 11 days old and (you better sit down for this) she weighed in at 9lbs 1 oz! No typo, really....she almost gained a full pound just 11 days after birth (she weighed 8lbs 4 oz when she was born). And her height, weight and head size are all in proportion right now at 75% percentile each. What can I say, Mark & I breed perfection. Two perfect children, two lucky parents! <-Maybe I should go into the animal breeding business next, if this kind of luck carries over into different animal species as well I could be raising derby winners and best in show with no work at all.... :) Of course, that would only happen if Mark would let me buy a couple of dogs and horses to test out my theory hmmmm I let you know how that one develops.

I have some great news about bean #1 too. McKenna is now an alphabet aficinado. She has been reciting the alphabet like a champ the past few days and only gets caught up on the letter "L" which has always given her some trouble. She is such a great big sister and is so loving towards Lilah that I am finding the bigget problem in the home front is getting some Lilah time to myself. McKennas new favorite thing is laaying in the crib and pretend sleeping with Lilah. She gives her the biggest wetest smooches you have ever seen and bear hugs so big I have to ask her to be more gentle because I am afraid they may be too much for little Lilah. I am so happy that this last week has been an easy transition for McKenna, being that it was her first week staying home with mommy and Lilah and not attending daycare. I thought things would be bumpy at first, but she seems to be enjoying the time home and loves to fawn over her new sister. Well, Lilah is beginning to get grumpy at me and I hear McKenna stirring from her nap on the monitor so I had better be off.
Until next time,
Jaime

"Just checking my eyelids for leaks"

2008-02-02T01:26:00.000-08:00

So it's 1:30 in the morning and I'm really trying to update the website and post some nice pictures of Lilah on there for you all to see, only it's going much slower than I'd like and there are sooooo many other things we are doing around the house that have taked precedence. Some pictures should be up by the end of this weekend. Shawn and Karen have posted some on their website. As I write this, Lilah is right beside me sleeping (and snoring) away in her little bouncy chair and McKenna and Jaime are sleeping away in the back room. The sleep issue has not been good lately, as anyone with a new baby can tell you. Lilah has been sleeping most of the day and has been up every hour or two at night for feedings and just to say hello...or as she puts it "Waaaaa". She seems to sleep better with noise and lights around. I'm hoping by keeping Lilah back in the man room with me, Jaime can actually get some much needed rest for herself (at least until Lilah deems it necessary to feast again.
McKenna is doing great, she is really good at being a big sister. She's very protective and when Lilah is crying she quickly runs over and strokes her hair and yells "it's OK, shhhhh, it's OK...". She just finished up her last day of day care on Thursday, which she will miss a lot, but it will be great bonding time with Mommy and little sister for her.
I finally got Lilah's room finished today and it mostly put back together again. Jaime still has to decorate with some wall hanging and etc, but the paint and trim are all done. I still have 3 doors to paint and some misc door trim to put up around the house over the new doors that we purchased and installed about 5 or 6 months ago.
We were frantically trying to get as much stuff done around the house as possible before Lilah's arrival, but it seems we were way to ambitious as a lot of that stuff is still on the To Do List. We did get the man room reorganized and all of the swords re-hung on one wall and touched up all of the paint around the house. I got Lasik surgery on my eyes and am recovering very nicely. I've been back for 2 follow up appointment so far and am seeing a little better than 20-15. (20-20 is what most people would call great visions, and 20-15 is better than that!).
Well, I best be waking up Jaime now, somebody wants to snack.
Thank you all for the emails, cards, and presents this past week. It's really nice to know we have so many people that care so much.

"Run Doctor Run" -Jaime

2008-01-25T21:12:00.000-08:00

A Play by Play

Wednesday 23rd-6:28 PM, Start regular contractions

Thursday 24th-4:30 AM, Contractions are 6-8 minutes apart and steady, called hospital because Jaime thought she'd like to go in, they said to wait until they are 3-5 minutes apart and steady.
5:00 PM, At Jaime's last regularly scheduled OBGYN appointment Dr Welcome says she's 2-1/2 cm & strips the membranes to try to speed along the birth.
Friday 25th-12:35 AM, Called hospital and told them we were on the way, contractions 4-6 minutes apart and stronger.
1:00 AM, Checked into Triage at Providence Hospital. Still 2-1/2 cm & 5-7 minutes apart. They say we aren't in active labor yet and to go for a walk for an hour around the hospital and come back to reevaluate.
3:05 AM, Almost 3 cm, still 5-7 minutes apart. The baby's heartbeat is a little irregular during contractions and they admit us for closer monitoring.
5:05 AM, Dr Wong says he wants to induce labor because of the irregular heart patterns and will give Jaime some pitocin and break her water soon. He says good to go for an epidural whenever it's wanted
5:35 AM, Started pitocin
6:00 AM, Dr Wong said Jaime is 4-1/2 cm. Contractions are now 2-4 minutes. Epidural has been ordered as was an internal heart monitor for the baby.
6:25 AM, the anesthesiologist came to administer the epidural
7:07 AM, Epi seems to have worked on the first try (unlike w/ McKenna)
7:10 AM, Dr Welcome stops by to say hello on her way past
7:20 AM, Catheter installed, 5 cm
9:00 AM, the water broke all by itself (some of it). 6 cm, 90% effaced. Stopped pitocin for awhile.
9:15 AM, Dr Anderson came in and ruptered some more of the water sack, inserted a monitor tube to more accurately track and monitor the contractions with the baby's heart beat. Said they were watching for possible premature placenta seperation or an umbilical cord obstruction. Nothing to worry about yet.
11:10 AM, 6-1/2-7 cm, not alot of change. Contractions are spaced farther apart now. Started pitocen up again.
12:15 PM, Strong urge to push. 9 cm, 100% effaced
12:25 PM, "Run Doctor Run" Jaime says to the nurse who just told her the doctor was on the way so they could start the delivery.
12:30 PM, The baby is upside down, (still head down but the incorrect way). Dr Anderson is successful in turning the baby to the correct position the during some of the next contractions.
12:36 PM, It's a head, fully stocked with long black hair. The umbilical cord is wrapped loosely around the baby's head as well as on arm is coming out with the head (Almost like she's waving to us) The doctor is able to slip the cord off with no problems.
12:38 PM, Welcome to the world Lilah Delaney Beadnell! 8 lbs 4 ounces, 19" long, 13-1/2" head. Lots of tests and the typical new stuff ensues, Scores 9's in her APGAR.
5:05 PM, We all are able to sleep, and/or rest for about 2 hours together. This little family unit (minus one) is Very Tired!

Can't wait to see McKenna and introduce her to her beautiful new baby sister :)
More to come and pictures too after we get home and settled in, keep checking back! You might try LIGHTTHIEF.NET for some immediate pictures!

6 days left and counting

2008-01-16T17:41:00.000-08:00

So we only have a week left until our little dumpling is born and let me tell you...IT IS NOT SOON ENOUGH! The best thing about being pregnant is the birth when you are NOT pregnant anymore. <-For those of you women who do not have children and are thinking about it....don't let anyone tell you different!

We are getting ready at a crazy pace in this house, but the problem is that we have sooo many projects going on at once that nothing is quite there yet. I made a quilt and 2 baby size decorator pillows for the baby and we just re-did the man room lotr wall and touched up all the living room paint and manroom paint on the walls. We still are working on the nursery (which Mark has about 3/4 of the way finished) as well as about 100 other projects. I am pretty sure Mark and I were out of our minds when we decided to take on all of these tasks. At least McKenna's room is complete and even has an awesome Wizard of Oz Mural up in it, courtesy of Karen & Shawn at Christmas time (thanks guys) and we have all of the baby clothes, swings, etc for the new arrival cleaned and ready to go when she arrives. McKenna is gearing up for becoming a big sister and is already very loving to the baby she calls "Dubbum" in my tummy, I can't wait to see how things go when the house has a teensy baby in it again, along with our little headstrong toddler who has proudly entered into her terrible twos and is doing a smashing job letting everyone know who is boss. I have to say that it can be a little embarrassing in the stores when a tantrum hits, but even those fits of rage are worn so well on McKenna that I can't help but love them :) I hope we can catch alot of them on camera so I can play them for her friends in her highschool years haha!

Well, I guess that's it for now. I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and New Year Celebration.
Until next time when I am hopefully 15lbs lighter,
Jaime

"A little shake, and bake," Ricky Bobby

2007-10-05T23:35:00.000-07:00

Hello,
We are EXTREMELY busy lately! In true Nellnell style we have about 500 house projects going at once. Ahhh, where to begin right?! Tomorrow Mark and his brother, Shawn, are going to Kent to pick up the new pellet stove we special ordered to replace our out of date,no longer working one. While they install it, Shawn's wife Karen and I are going to try and put a dent in painting McKenna's soon to be new bedroom. Later in the afternoon, I hope to go outside and sand down some of the bed frame I am working on while Mark works on installation of the pellet stove, replacing a headlight in the car, fixing the drip in man room-bathroom sink etc. etc. And it doesn't end there! :)
It's exhilarating to know that someday there will be an end in sight, I am pretty sure it won't happen until our new bundle of love arrives in January. Next week marks my 25Th week of pregnancy which is the first week of my third trimester! Yippee! And to all those concerned, I am using low to no VOC paints in a well ventilated area so it is safe (and I don't want to hear about it from you) I picked out paint colors today at Lowe's for the nursery which we are remodeling right after McKenna's room is complete. The colors are called slate (an organic green/grey) and paradise nut (a grayish mauve-pink) it should look pretty spectacular with the white crown up.
I am so ready to have everything wrapped up and be able to sit down and watch a TV show or read a book again, but I have a feeling it will be years and years before that happens. <- To be honest I will probably be too tired come January to want either of those things anyways. Well, tootaloo for now. Thank you for listening to a very pregnant, very tired, lady with a back-ache blabber on.
Until next time,
Jaime

"You are not obligated to complete the task, but you are not free to withdraw from it"-Rabbi Tarfon

2007-09-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Sorry it has been so long since we've blogged but it has been CRAZY in these parts! We are busy with the remodel of McKenna's future room. Mark has taken out all the sheet rock and insulation and replaced it with new warm more energy efficient materials and now is busy mudding the new sheet rock so we can paint, and I just refinished a dresser and am working on the bedframe so McKenna will have pretty, coordinating furniture in her room. It's alot more work than anticipated thats for sure.

My mom, after 25+ years in her apartment finally moved out and is trying out new things which has been a bit of an ordeal unto itself. Right now she is staying at my dads house until things resort themselves out, and my dad finally got his license and CDL back (which he did not have because of the January accident he got in) he is getting closer to being able to work, but still has not been fit for his final prosthesis so, we are not sure when that will be.

On the great news front, some dear friends of ours, Jeff and Sarah Thompson has their very first child born September 11th 2007. His name is Dean Kenneth Thompson and was 7lbs 10oz when he was born. He is adorable, and so teensy. McKenna was 1lb 5oz heavier than he was when she was born so to me he almost looks like a precious moments doll to me. He has perfect little hands and the cutest face.....I can barely remember when McKenna was a newborn.....ahhh memories.

I guess the last of the news I have for now is that we are getting ready for the holiday season little by little and hopefully it won't kick us too hard when it gets here. I am about 1/3 of the way completed with my Christmas gift shopping and have addressed (but not filled out) my Christmas cards. Friday, McKenna and I went to the portrait studio to have her 2 year-Christmas pics taken and that was a hoot. Halloween, McKennas 2 year birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas all seem to inundate us at the same time so if you don't hear from us again for a while don't be too alarmed. I would however recommend you watch the Times or PI papers in your area to see if any headlines read "Bothell woman gone mad took over shopping center exclaiming 'Will not leave until January and it's all over'," I can't guaranty it won't happen. If it does, well, I hope I found you something nice.

Until next time,

Jaime

What's up Buddha

2007-07-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Fifth of July! Independence Day was a lot of fun in chez Beadnell! We had a same group of family and friends over to celebrate and have lunch with us which was exhilarating fun McKenna! This was her first week at a new daycare facility and she seems to be enjoying it thoroughly! T.G! Rosie, the lady that watches her now says McKenna acts like she owns the place (which is not anything new...she thinks she owns everything and everyone). I am pretty sure it was harder for me to take her there then for her to go.

She's saying phrases and repeating a lot of what we say in the house now so we are much more careful about what she hears....her current favorites are "Righteous" "What's up Buddha" "How mommy doing?" "Daddy's awesome""Here go daddy" etc etc. It's getting easier to understand what she says, but harder to keep up with what words are new to her and what she has been saying awhile because everything seems so natural to her. Oh, my little girl is growing up so fast.... I started my Christmas shopping and am off to a smashing start. I have already got ideas of what I want to get people, so I feel pretty secure that this will be a great holiday season (that is to say, it will be 6 months from now) Oh, and the other new news from the home front is that we are is the beginning's of yet another remodel. We are going to redo the insulation, painting and sheet rock in the guest room/office and make it McKenna's room soon enough. To prepare ourselves we bought a wardrobe for our bedroom so all my craft stuff can be put away nicely and we are putting the office desk area in our already overcrowded man room, we should be able to make it work I am going to do a Wizard of Oz themed paint job in McKennas new bedroom and plan on enlisting family help in the next few months....so those of you who live near may not want to answer your telephones when I call :)

I suppose that's it for now. Hope all of you had a super 4Th of July and can stand this terrible heat wave.

With Love,

Jaime

Something witty this way comes

2007-06-10T21:27:00.000-07:00

"Applesauce Awesome"

"yeah way"

"went wee wee wee wee"

"Bye Bye pee pee"

"NICE"

"Go Outside"

So McKenna has got quite the vocabulary lately. Every day brings something new and hilarious to hear. I've put the backyard swingset fort thing pretty much all together, now we just have to finish up the roof to go on it. Jaime and I are having issues on the best method to attach the duck canvas to the PVC covered wagon roof thing I made.

We are going to try camping with Matt and Gretchen next weekend fairly close to home just north of Marysville. We bought McKenna a mini sleeping bag and set up a tent in the backyard , so she could get used to the idea. She really seems to like it. We'll see how it turns out, it should be fun.

Work has been fairly busy. I went to a concrete forming panel conference in Shelton/Tacoma earlier last week which was pretty good. I stayed in a really nice resort (The Alderbrook) in Union, WA. There were about 40 people from all over the US there, someone was even from Panama.

Jaime had a fun time in Las Vegas with KD. While they were away McKenna had a fever of 104 degrees, was throwing up and had really bad diahrea all weekend long. It was really scary being alone with her for the 3 or 4 days, but at the same it was really nice to be able to spend some quality time with her. The whole time she was sick all she wanted to do was cuddle and be near me. We laid on the couch and read or slept on the bed with cartoons on all day long.

McKenna will be switching daycare providers in July. Jaime's friend Casey who has been watching her told us a few months back that they are going to be looking at fostering to adopt amoung other things and would be able to watch McKenna anymore. We were very sad because McKenna loves it with Jade, who is a few months younger, and Casey and because we trust Casey so much. We were lucky enough to find an opening at a home daycare facility very near work that came highly recommended by Jaime's boss who has taken her 3 sons there for the last 9 or so years. We took McKenna over for a meet and greet and she seemed to get along great. Hopefully that will work out ok as well.

The next projects around the house are going to be reinsulating and cleaning up the crawlspace, and also reinsulating and resheetrocking the office room (similar to what we did with the Master Bedroom a few months ago)

Well, best be off to bed.

Until next time.....

"I'm gonna call my dada"

2007-04-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

She is officially the smartest 17th month old on the planet! Joy and I were sitting with McKenna and playing the week before last and my little angel blurted out "I'm gonna call my dada," while playing with the phone. The week before that when I took her to her childcare she said "I love you mommy" when I was walking out the door. Yes, I know, you are asking yourself..."How on earth did Mark & Jaime make such a perfect child?" The answer my friends is quite simple, PURE LUCK! Things are going to be a little less hectic around here from here on out (at least I think they are). We officially moved my dad back into his own home, with a lot of hard construction work put forth by Mark, Shawn and Jeffrey to make it more handicap accessible (thank you guys). Dad had his operation on 4/12/07 and it went smoothly. In the end, he opted to have all the toes on his right foot amputated instead of two toes and the meta-tarcel of his first toe, the surgeons thought it would mean less recovery time and an easier transition to walking again. He is in good spirits and I am sure he will not let this defeat him (no pun intended).

I am getting ready to go on a Las vegas vacation with my good friend KD next week and I am both excited and sad at the same time. It is going to be very hard on me to be away from McKenna and Mark for 3 nights, I think the longest I have ever been away from McKenna is 12 hours and that may be stretching it. It will be good to get this away time though, it has been a tough year so far and I think this will be a good way for me to relieve some tension at the slots :) Well, I suppose I should go. I here my little bumble bee buzzing about in her crib. Until next time, J

"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher"

2007-03-03T20:04:00.000-08:00

My have we been busy at Chez Beadnell! McKenna is 16 months old now, and is quite certainly the most talkative, socialite in her age group. We went and got some pictures taken at JCPenneys yesterday (much to her dismay) and today went and visited her cousin Jayden who had her 12th birthday party today....so I get to have a bit of quiet time while she and Mark take their respective nap time. :)

As Mark wrote in his last blog we have been a full household the last month in a half. My dad was in a pretty serious accident and is awaiting foot amputation at our home for the next few weeks. Mark went on a work trip to Las Vegas last week and Grandma Joy (Doy as McKenna calls her) came to help out while he was gone. While she was here we went to a lovely dinner at a little cafe down the street, she made brownies and even cleaned all my handwash only pans (I was in suds free heaven). I am pretty sure I would have gone bald with stress if she had not helped, so needless to say it was a "joy" to have her around. We got a new little delight in our home two weeks ago, his official name is "Nubbins" he is a precocious 5 month old kitten who I wish I could say has the voice of an angel, but sounds more like a tsunami alarm going off. He keeps me up at night, but he is so loveable and cuddly during the day that it makes up for it. McKenna has quite a bond with Nubbins already and they often enjoy playing with the same things... which sends McKenna into a rant of "NoNo KeeKee NoNo" over and over again, but again all in good fun. And the other exciting news on the home front is we got a new used car! <- ?! We bought a 2006 Hyundai Sonata GLS for a great deal and have been sportin' it all around town like a couple of yahoos. It's alot of fun to drive and much better on gas then our 12 mile to the gallon ford f-150 so in the long run we will have saved money buying it (right) it has electronic stability control and so many airbags I think we will actually float away if we ever do get in an accident so I think it may be safer then our Hyuandai Santa Fe. Consumer reports rated it really well too so we are feeling pretty great about our purchase. I suppose that's all I have for now. Sometime in the next hour I need to try to wrangle a toddler and husband awake from slumber land so I had better prepare myself. Until next time, J

We're Back! "HIIIIII!"

2007-02-18T21:37:00.000-08:00

So we've been very busy the last few months. Well, sometimes very busy and other times not really feeling like doing anything that involved thinking or moving.
We had a great Christmas this year. Spent Christmas Eve at our house with Jaime's family and Christmas afternoon with my family up in Marysville. Along with the many wonderful gifts we exchanged we had lots of laughs and smiles to go with them.
Unfortunately, after Christmas the Beadnell household didn't fair very well for a month or so. McKenna, Jaime and I all ended up going going to the emergency room at seperate times throughout the end of December and January for different illnesses. Jaime was first with a stomach flu that didn't stop for 6 or 7 hours. She ended up getting an IV to supplement all of the fluids she had lost and to help her get back on track. I caught the same thing a few days later and also got a few bags of fluids via IV in the ER. We took McKenna into Children's Hospital ER with a really bad case of Croup. It's very scary watching your baby gasp for breath and not really being able to do anything about it. I don't think there was a day in January when one of the 3 of us weren't home sick with something. We all have sniffles and coughs still.
Jaime's dad Rich hasn't had a good run of luck either. He drives a dump truck for a demolition company and as he was preparing the back of the truck for dumping of his load, the back gate popped open and about 150 pounds of of concrete fell directly on his right foot and smashed pretty much every bone in it. He stayed at Harborview's trauma center for a few weeks and then he came to stay with us until they figure out how much of his foot they are going to have to amputate. All things considered, it could of been much worse. His spirits seem to be good and he is getting great care from Jaime who changes the dressings and has been taking time off of work to take him to most of his appointments and such. Pictures of his foot can be found HERE, but beware if you have a meek stomach.
On happier notes, McKenna is growing up faster each and every day. She grew quite a bit since her last doctor's visit at 12 months and went from the 45th percentile for height to the 96th percentile for height. She is still in the midrange for her weight. McKenna has about a 30 word vocabulary now and knows many parts of her body and points to things and says what they are regularly. One of her favorite things to do when we are out and about is to look people right in the eye and yell, "HIIIII!", and wait for a response. If she doesn't get a response back, she usually scrunches up her face and trys again until she does.
We also updated our master bedroom by ripping off all of the sheetrock on the exterior walls, reinsulating, resheetrocking, painting and putting up crown molding and base board. Jeff was so kind to help me with a lot of it, as a friend from work Connor stopped by to help with some of the crown as well. Props go out to my peeps! :)
We have a new addition to our home as well. Jaime got a new kitten for Valentine's Day. Its a grey/white/black/brown tabby like cat with tiger like stripes. We're still trying to figure out his name, although Jaime seems to like Nubbins. Monster and Coda seem to be getting used to him, Coda more than Monster so far.
Well, that's about all for now. Hopefully we'll be updating a bit more than we have in the last few months. Please check out our website for updated pictures of McKenna. Drop us a line if you feel so inclined! Love you...

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" GW Bush

2006-12-02T14:54:00.000-08:00

So Monday is a big day for us in casa de Beadnell. I have officially thrown in the towel and disbanded the NellNell Daycare and am joining the masses of human robots in a regular working environment. My good friend from junior HS, Casey Schoepflin, will be resuming my daily motherly duties with my little angel while I slave away at the computer 9 hours a day. I am happy that someone I love and trust so much will be taking care of McKenna during the day, but also very sad that I won't be with her all of the time anymore. McKenna is growing so quickly I am afraid I will be missing out on everything with her. It should actually be interesting the first week to see how we manage without each other, I have only been away from her for one full day before so I don't quite know yet what I should expect. Last week she started saying "pity' (for pretty, and "duck" to add to her ever growing vocabulary. And she is starting to follow in her daddies footsteps and is trying to scale every piece of furniture in the house. I do believe he will make a rock climber of her yet.
We are almost completely ready for Christmas to be here and put up lights inside this past week. I have also finished wrapping all of the Christmas gifts finally (with nary a paper cut) so things are starting to feel much less hectic. I can't wait to see McKenna's face at Christmas time and hope she is more interested in unwrapping gifts then she was on her birthday.
Until then,
Jaime

Santa, Screams, and Quentin Tarenturkey.

2006-11-23T14:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, Jaime and Jeni are in the kitchen furiously getting ready for our feast tonight. It's going to be a bit smaller than in previous years, although it looks like we'll have just as much food. Jaime's Dad, Mom, Uncle, and Sister are expected to attend as well as Jaime, myself, and of course McKenna (KD will hopefully coming over later on in the evening for dessert and jelly bean poker).

Jaime took McKenna to see Santa in the mall yesterday and the picture to the right is the outcome. It has to be one of the best Santa pictures ever :)
The votes for our first annual "Name the Turkey We're Going to Eat for Thanksgiving" goes to Quentin Tarenturkey. With honorable mentions going to Gandalf the Gravy and Lucille Butterball. Check in next year for a chance to cast your vote!
We've been pretty busy lately getting ready for the Holidays and such. Jaime has got most of her Christmas shopping done.
We're closing down the daycare and Jaime is going back to work for more hours. She'll work from about 10-7 M-Th and from 5-8 on F. Our friend Casey is going to watch McKenna so hopefully everything will work out alright. Casey's little girl Jade is a little younger than McKenna so they'll have a lot of fun together.

Well, until next time...

The skinny on our little tub

2006-11-02T07:35:00.000-08:00

It's official! McKenna is 1 year old!!!!! What a wonderful year it has been and my, it has gone by fast. Mark I and could not be more proud or happy to be the parents of McKenna. It seems like everyday she is learning something new and it is just as exciting to watch as I am sure it is for her to accomplish it. Below is a recap of the past year so you may share in the crowning glory that is McKenna's first year.

November 2nd, 2005 was McKenna's due date
....16 hours of Labor later and.....
November 3rd at 3:00pm she was born (she didn't want to show up to the party too early)
November 4th was her first car ride (The slowest Mark has ever driven)
November 9th-First time grocery shopping (my little bargain hunter)
November 24th -Thanksgiving (Grandpa Rich won McKenna when we bet her in poker)
December 18th-First (non-gas related) smile
December 22nd - Grandpa Rich babysat for the first time
January 2nd - Aunt Dani babysat
January 3rd - 2 months old, McKenna's doctor gives her an A++ (not that I am bragging)
January 10th - Jaimes first day back to work
January 26th - McKenna's first laugh
February 9th - McKenna gets sick for the first time (from daycare)
February 28th - McKenna gets sick again (from daycare) coincidently this is also McKenna's last day in daycare
February 28th - Kristen Zackrone babysits McKenna for the first time
March 1st - Jaime starts working nights at Plywood Supply so she can spend days with McKenna
April 1st - McKenna eats solid food (rice cereal) for the first time
April 5th - McKenna's first attempt at crawling (she scoots)
April 8th - McKenna eats canned baby food for the first time (mango) and LOVES it!
April 14th - McKenna's best buddy Ada is born today
April 23rd - 1st trip to Aquarium with me, Mark & KD
April 27th - Shakes a rattle, pats ground if she can't reach a toy to get your attention
May 9th - McKenna eats cherios for the first time
May 13th - First trip to the zoo with Me, Mark, Jeni, Brian, & Grandpa Rich
May 15th - First tooth pops through
May 18th - Real crawling starts
May 22nd - First picnic (went to Bothell Landing with Mark & I)
May 27th - McKenna's first time eating out (Tony Romas) for uncle Shawns birthday
June 3rd - McKenna sits straight up for the first time & uses a sippy cup
June 9th - McKenna pulls herself up to standing position
June 18th - She gives kisses for the first time
July 17th - Start watching Mckenna's friend Ada during the day
August 8th - She says "Ada" and has been saying mama & dada for about 2 months now
August 10th - Top tooth pops through and she learns to crouch
August 24th - McKenna walks! (see our home page )
September 2nd - First Fair with Grandma Joy, me & Mark (Evergreen State)
September 20th - First plane ride! She screamed her head off.
October 15th - begins to say "whadat?" and points to things
October 28th - McKenna's costume party
October 29th - McKenna says "hi"
November 3rd - McKenna turns 1!!!!!!

Thank you to everyone who has babysat or just come over to visit this year!! BIG huge thanks to Marks mom Joy who has been there at the drop of a hat to take on any extra task that needs to get done. This has been a wonderful, exciting & exhasting year. Looking forward to the next.
Jaime

Happy Birthday McKenna!

2006-10-30T08:13:00.000-08:00

Wow, has time quickly passed us by. McKenna is nearing 1 year old (November 3rd) and to celebrate we had a Birthday/Halloween costume party for her on Saturday. All in all about 30-40 people showed up mostly with costumes. If they didn't wear one, we made them put something on out of a grab bag of dress up stuff. McKenna didn't know what to think of everyone at first, some costumes startled her and some she was fascinated with, but eventually she was McKenna as usual and walking around with everybody making new friends. She received so many wonderful clothes and toys that we had to expand her toy box to 3 bins (instead of 1-1/2), and I don't think we'll have to buy any more clothes until she's 2 years old! :)
Thank you everyone who participated for your generosity and caring. There will be lots of pictures posted very soon on our nellnell site so check back often.

I hope this message finds you and yours well.
Keep in touch!
~Mark

Watch out for the shower boogie!!!!!

2006-09-27T07:08:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally went on our trip to Fargo North Dakota to see my friend Chasitie Bekkerus get married. The wedding was in a really beautiful lutheran church with stained glass windows and pipe organs...the whole 9. Chasities daughters Hannah & Gracie were the flower girls for the wedding and both of them fell asleep up at the wedding altar during the service. It was pretty cute! Everyone will be glad to know also that I did not trip down the aisle, not even on the practice runs which is quite an accomplishment for me. The actual trip to Fargo itself was mostly to get prepared for the wedding and so we didn't do much sight seeing while we were there. I did get to see the ramada Inn that was in the movie Fargo, that was about it until we went to Minnesota. After the wedding we went to a small town called Roger (I think) in Minnesota were a tornado touched down in a newer housing development, it was pretty sad to see all of the houses ripped to shreds and it made me really sad not only for those people but for the people who lost so much in Hurricane Katrina, I just can't imagine that what I saw in Roger is probably a million times worse in New Orleans. Very sad.

We also went to the Mall of America the night before we left to come home...I don't know what I thought I was going to see there, but for some reason I thought it was going to be....I don't know, maybe more fun or something. It could have just been the crowds of people and the 45 minute lines for the restaurants that got me down, but I don't think I would go there again. I guess I had wanted to see it for so long that I was disappointed when I saw it was just a mall with some rides in the middle. Overall, the company was the best part of the trip. It was wonderful to see Chasitie again, and great to finally meet her girls and husband Matt. I also enjoyed finally meeting her grandparents who are just as amazing as Chasitie told me they were. I think that it will be a few years before we take another plane ride with McKenna as she screamed for about an hour on the way to Fargo, so we will have alot of time to plan our next vacation. To all my dear friends who are reading this, do not get married unless it is in Washington state for the next year or so :)
Love you all,
Jaime

Well, the little guy was kinda funny-lookin'

2006-08-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

It's Wed morning right now and like last blog McKenna is still sleeping and Ada is quietly drifting to sleep in the bouncy chair. We have been super busy lately and have seldom had time to even sit down. Mark started installing the bamboo floor my dad bought for our Christmas gift in 05. The bathroom that he is installing it in looks pretty smashing. I feel like I could put some pins up and go bowling in there! :) You wouldn't know it's Marks first time installing hardwoods either, it's perfect!
Another fun thing that has happened is that McKenna has her 4th tooth growing finally! She officially has two top and two bottom teeth and is proudly munching and biting on everything in sight. She's getting a little bit better with her kisses and actually attempts not to use her teeth, but likes to utilize her new food disposal units everywhere else. She's officially grown through another stage of clothing as well which makes me so sad. I can't believe how fast everything is being outgrown! Soon I will have to yield to the inevitable and actually go shopping for her (I guess there is a plus to everything :)
She's in for another first next month which Mark and I are gearing up for....Her first airplane ride! Actually, I am not looking forward to bringing her on a plane. As much as I would like to imagine McKenna is able to sit still for 3-1/2 hours, I know that thought is much like the dream of winning the lottery, impossible. We are taking a trip to Fargo (yes as in North Dakota) to take part in my best friend Chasities wedding. Should be interesting to say the least. I am a little weary of people in Fargo I am not sure why, maybe because Steve Bushemi played such a creepy role in the movie Fargo, but you can be sure I will be on my toes the entire trip and if any of Chasities wedding party want to hold McKenna they will have to pass a complete FBI profile, DNA and warrant search.
That's all folks!
Until next write,
Jaime

Hakuna Matata

2006-08-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

Right now McKenna is asleep in her bed and Ada our new friend is asleep in the bouncy chair beneath my feet. It is turning out to be alot of fun around here 4 days a week when Ada comes to visit. McKenna has officially said her third word....It's Ada! The first two of course were Dada and Mama. She is getting very good at waving byebye now and claps when she thinks something is great! She gives the biggest kisses ever and gets a HUGE grin on her face likes she has just done you the biggest favor in the world by sharing her slobber! I can't believe she will be turning one year old in a few months....seems like she is doing something new every day now. It makes me so happy and sad at the same time. Well, like I said a moment ago her first birthday is arriving very soon and we are preparing ourselves for the biggest celebration this house has ever seen. We are planning on throwing a costume party on October 28th in McKenna's honor and already have our costumes at the ready. It's going to be a smorgasbord of delights!
The daycare is going well too! I think Ada is finally getting use to the crazy Beadnell ways and before you know it we will have her taking part in all of our bad habits (j/k Amy & Tyler). She is a little sweetheart and has moments when you just want to snuggle her and never stop! She is starting to giggle alot and it is so rewarding to get one out of her that she often gets annoyed with you when you just won't stop trying :) Well, before she wakes I'd better go. Until next time, J

Last night, I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and thought to myself, "Where the heck is the ceiling?"

2006-07-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

So we're licensed! Jaime received the daycare license in the mail toward the end of June and we already have a little one signed up (a newborn, so McKenna will have a friend!) starting mid July. We're very excited to finally start after a long time in the planning stages.

I finally finished up the storage bench project in the kitchen i've been putting on the back burner now for a few months. It turned out pretty good. Jaime made some nice cushions for the top and it's actually pretty comfortable to sit on.

We got my mom all moved over (whew!) and she is settling in slowly but surely to her new place in the basement of Shawn & Karen's. We already had the biggest UHaul the made, filled it to the brim and ended up renting a trailer to make everything fit for the trip over from Moses Lake. My sister Sue (along with Jared and LaVar) came over yesterday from Utah and they will be renting a UHaul to take back some stuff that mom gave them, so that should put a pretty good dent in everything currently in storage in Shawn's garage and back deck. The basement remodel project turned out really well, and I think she really liked what we did.

If you haven't visited our main website lately, we got some more "professional" pictures of McKenna done and I've been posting monthly pictures of her as well.

Mom was kind enough to babysit for us while we finally were able to take our Hot Air Balloon flight. It was pretty amazing, very peaceful and relaxing. I got to help with the blowing up and taking down of the balloon as well, so it was very interesting. We took lots of pictures as well..

And just yesterday we had a BBQ for some family and friends at our house. It was pretty fun, with LOTS of food and people. The BBQ we got from mom got lots of use, as did the old BBQ we already had. The weather was favorable with a little cloud cover for most of the day. The neighborhood kids have been making huge homemade firecrackers for the past few days and it seemed that they didn't stop setting them off until about 11 or 12 last night. McKenna slept pretty well through it, all things considered.

Well, best be off for now....Hope all is well. Drop us a line if you have a chance.

You're in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.”

2006-06-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

Lot's of new goings on to report in the house of Nell Nell.
Here's a recap of the events:
May 15th McKenna's first tooth started to pop thorough followed about 2 weeks later by her second.
May 18th our little champ started crawling around and hasn't slowed down since. We have been frantically scanning our house for things that need to be baby proofed, but somehow no matter how much baby proofing you do there is still something she can get into that you didn't think of. McKenna has been following us around like a hungry bear cub for the last week and it has become increasingly difficult to get alone time in (I thought it was suppose to be easier as they got older?!) She is getting to a stage where she can't stand being alone and tries desperately to crawl up your legs if you've been away too long.
May 27th was her first time eating out at a restaurant (Tony Romas) for uncle Shawn's 105th (teehee) birthday. She did pretty well as long as she got plenty of the bread and lemonade to nibble on. And both Mark and I had a lot of fun simply because we got to go out and do an adult thing which has become few and far between.
June 3rd She sat up straight for the first time, and drank out of a sippy cup (well, some of it made it into her mouth at least).

Mark and I have been staying busy around here too. I have been staining the back deck like a mad woman when time allows, and it as been turning out very nice. Much better looking than before anyways. Mark has been going up to Shawn's house on weekends to get ready for Joy's big move to this side of the mountains (Marks mom is moving up for those of you who don't know). We are very excited to have Joy here and are eagerly awaiting her arrival. She sold her home in the dust bowl that is Moses Lake and is finally going to breath some of the wonderful smoggy air we have layering our Western Washington cities. Things for the daycare are going slowly, but it doesn't mean we have not made progress. We have been approved for the license, but are in limbo right now awaiting the county to do the paperwork. And last but not least, Mark and I have a date coming up! We are going on a hot air balloon ride next weekend, we will keep you posted on how it went. Hopefully this time the company we are going with won't cancel. They are filled with hot air if you ask me! McKenna is telling me it's time to go so I am outtie. Until next blog,
J

"The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power" -Daniel Webster

2006-05-05T07:48:00.000-07:00

So....things are progressing on the daycare....we have a walk through on the 15th to find out what else we have to do to get our license to actually start. I've been non-stop working after work on either stuff at home, the remodel for mom, and helping Jeff set some interior doors at his place. Lately, there hasn't been enough time in the day to get everything done.

McKenna is really growing up fast. She's eating some baby food now as you can see, and likes it most of the time. She's 26 weeks already, man how time flies. I made a $5 dollar bet with Jaime when she told me she knew what McKenna's first word was going to be....."I said ok I'll bet you", she said "It's going to be repetitive." Now I'm waiting to lose $5.

The truck is running awesome (knock on wood) and Jaime and I have the whole switching off between our work schedules down pat. It's so much nicer with two vehicles.

Well, until next time.
Hope all is well and Peace Out!

"There is no one alive that is youer than you" Dr Seuss

2006-04-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

Today McKenna ate the last tidbits of a jar of apple baby food. It's a big event for her as she has never actually finished a jar that I started before....it took her so long to eat the baby food before that I had to throw out whatever was left. This time it only took a week to finish one :)
Now she is officially 25 weeks old and growing so fast I can barely keep up. She now knows that rattles are supposed to be shaken, and is growing ever fonder of things that create noise. She also learned that if she taps on the floor and stares at the object of her desire long enough mommy will get it for her....seems she acquired more of her fathers traits than I originally thought.:)
Things in the homefront are going well, Mark made an awesome fence around the man shed outside so the little beans I will be watching when the childcare thing starts won't get hurt. The playground is almost done and is quite a hoot to play with, and we just bought a pressure washer which may be my favorite toy ever. There is nothing quite as magical as blowing dirt off the sidewalk. We have two weeks until our home inspector comes out to make sure we are child friendly so we have been busy little bees.
Another fun event that took place is our aquarium trip last weekend with KD. Mckenna actually stayed awake the whole time and seemed to have a good time. She sure loves fish!
Well, sounds like she is hungry so I better be off...before I go one last thought....
I entered McKenna into a cutest baby competition online and she didn't win! What's wrong with those judges??????

“Laughter is like changing a baby's diaper. It doesn't permanently solve any problems, but it makes things more acceptable for a while.”

2006-04-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was McKenna's official 24 week birthday! We celebrated by giving her zucchini gerber baby food for the first time (she ate only 2 or 3 bites so the jury's still out). Another big (very bad) thing that happened yesterday was that she climbed over the pillows I had stacked around her for her nap and almost fell off the bed. Yikes! So it looks like I need to start teaching her that she should take naps in her crib (which she HATES)
Mark & I will be spending this weekend continuing the process of becoming a legal and safe home for daycare services which I am really looking forward to as he and I scarcely get to spend quality time together anymore...go figure huh. But with all that has been going on here in relation to the daycare I know we are on the right track because the swingset is now McKenna's very favorite place. She is so giggly and happy when she is swinging, the higher the better!

The good news on the homefront is that some good friends of ours just had babies of their own. Amy & Tyler Banken just celebrated the birth of their first daughter Ada MacKenzie Banken on Friday April 14th. And Pete & Kristin Carlson celebrated the birth of their 2nd child Pete Jr shortly after on Wed April 19th (whom I will affectionately call Re-Pete) so little McKenna is going to have alot of good friends around her age!!!!!Mark & I have not yet seen Pete Jr, but we went to visit little Ada in the hospital and she is ADORABLE!!!! She was almost 3lbs lighter than McKenna when she was born so it was a little scary to hold her, but since I am a baby magnet now I couldn't resist!

I suppose that's all I have for now, I hope to get a chance to write again next week to tell everyone how this weekends adventure to the aquarium goes...it will be another first for McKenna.

Until then,
Jaime

Early Visit from the Easter Bunny

2006-04-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

So Jaime had the idea of taking some early Easter pictures of McKenna and they turned out great! I'm just the proudest Daddy in the world :)

Shawn and I did some backyard remodeling/landscaping this past weekend which turned out fairly well. If you don't count the 6" deep ruts I put into the lawn because of the tractor I rented. The firepit is now gone and we have about 20' by 20' more of pea graveled play space for the Day Care and McKenna. We got new swings for the swingset and I have all of the wood to build the slide area. Now I just need time to install. Hopefully it will be all ready for the Grand Opening of NellNell Daycare in a few months. Jaime turned in the paperwork so we are just waiting for a home inspection. We took the last of the CPR classes and Jaime is in the process of taking the 20 hour STARS training and when she finishes then I will start.

I finally got the truck back from the shop (it took them 2 weeks just to look at it). It drives great now and was a lot less expensive than I'd planned for so we got some new tires as well since the others were completely bald. Hopefully it will continue to run well since it comes in extrememly handy. Jaime has been driving it home from work at night, which makes it a lot easier on McKenna and me because we don't have to make the trek in to pick her up anymore right around bed time.

Best be off for now! Have a great Easter!

Sleep, Juice & Crazy Rats

2006-03-22T22:51:00.000-08:00

McKenna is officially 20 weeks old as of tomorrow, man how time flies, seems like just yesterday I was grounding her for life for the grief she caused me during childbirth! She has officially rolled over, although she is not yet an ambi-turner (that is to say she cannot turn both left and right only right at this point) and she had her very first taste of juice two weeks ago which was an experiance in itself. Her facial expressions were adorable when she figured out it wasn't milk! Right now I am working nights at Plywood Supply which has turned out to be wonderful. I love how fast I can get my work done without interruptions....it is a bit scary at times thought to be the only person in a giant lumber company working, I am definetly interrupting the rat parties at night time....I have a feeling the are going to surround me and nibble on my legs until the are only little nubbins one of these nights.
The best news I have to report is that I have had nearly 3 whole nights of 6 hours of sleep! McKenna has been sleeping until 5-5:30 am the last few days....and I am in heaven. It was really strange the first night to get that much sleep, I found myself wandering into her room like 5 times to make sure she was still ok. Hopefully she will keep up the lenghtly sleep times and I can reteach myself what a "nights rest" should be like.
Well, I am getting word from Mark that it's time to attempt another nights rest so until later.
J

"Truly wonderful the mind of a child is." -Yoda

2006-03-13T09:53:00.001-08:00

It's amazing how much little stuff you have to do to start a home based daycare! Jaime and I attended the required orientation last week (an 8 hour class). Although we thought we had most everything done in order to get licensed, it turns out we still have quite a bit left to do. It's all good though because it'll make our house safer for McKenna and any other kids we might have in the future no matter what happens with the daycare.

I've almost got my router fence built in my shop. I took a few hours on Sunday while Jaime and McKenna were taking a nap and got quite a bit done on it. I haven't had any time what so ever to do anything in the shop lately. I still have 2 projects in the works left to finish (McKenna'sToybox/bookcase and the Dining Bench/storage).

McKenna is a little a little over 4 months old now! Crazy, huh? Time flies. McKenna is in the 90th percentile for her height now at 26-1/2" and 13 lbs +/-. Yeah, She's advanced.
We've all been pretty sick lately still. A long lingering cold left over from the flu we had (and caught from McKenna's daycare) in February.

Jaime is enjoying working only a few hours at night (not to say she doesn't work at home during the day, but she actually gets paid at night). She gets a lot done and doesn't have to deal with many interuptions. I'm enjoying my one on one time with McKenna during that period also. We play and dance and rest and I'm able to feed her every night as well. We're still trying to work out the car scenario, it's a hassle putting McKenna in and out of the car seat and running to and from work every couple of hours to drop off or pickup people. I drive to work in the morning at 6:30am, come home from lunch at 11:30 and Jaime & McKenna drive me back to work at 12:15 and go back home. Jaime returns with McKenna at 5pm to swap and I drive back home w/ McKenna and return to pick Jaime up at 8pm. It's quite a bit of driving in a short amount of time and really adds up on the mileage. We used to go through a tank of gas every 1-1/2 to 2 weeks, now it's one every 4 days or so, although we only live about 10 miles from work. I need to get my truck into the shop to get it more reliable, or get a second car I guess!

Well, I hope all is well with you and yours!
Until next time.....

"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it." -George W. Bush

2006-02-17T23:36:00.000-08:00

So the past month has been fairly busy for us. Jaime and I have decided that she will stay home full time with McKenna starting in March! It was a tough decision and took some finagling with finances and schedules but it'll work out great for all of us I think. Jaime might continue to help out at Plywood Supply a few hours a night after I get off to watch McKenna, which would be beneficial for both parties involved. We'll see how that goes.
We are in the process of getting a daycare license so Jaime can watch a few kids during the day so McKenna can make some friends and we can make a little money as well. We've started to childproof our home which is actually kind of fun. I'm making a wrap around bench in the dining area so we can have some more storage and seating, and we've already moved the furniture around so the living room and dining room are child friendly. We'll be moving the guest bed from the nursery into the office and we're getting a few more smaller cribs or mats (depending on the ages we watch) that will go in the nursery. We have signed up for first aid, adult CPR (we already took the child CPR), an 8 hour training/informational class, and a few others. I still have to take a 8 hour AIDS class and we have to take a 20 hour STARS training program as well. It's amazing how much is required to be licensed as a daycare from the State of Washington! I'll also be adding a linked NellNell Daycare Website to our main NellNell.com site for the parents and kids, so you can check that out in the near future as well.
McKenna started her first days in a local daycare on the first full week of February while Jaime puts in her last month of work. Wouldn't you know it, the very first week she was there she got sick with a fever and a raw throat and such. We took her to the doctor who prescribed some amoxicillan and assured us it was now or later, but it still makes me mad. And to top it off, McKenna then passed her sickness on to Jaime and I, who both got it pretty bad and had to stay home from work for a few days each because of it. Doh!
Well, that's not all but it's late and I best be off to bed. If you haven't checked out the new McKenna pictures on our main site please check them out when you have a moment. McKenna is starting to smile and giggle quite a bit now, and it's quite contagious (almost like her daycare virus)!
Hope all is well with you and yours,
Until next time...

Oh, PS, as promised here are a few pics of the new man room changes.

Jealous Yet?

"Or what? Are you going to hit me with your Jesus stick?"

2006-01-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been quite awhile since my last post. I've been pretty busy around the house installing some new things we received around the holiday season and building some things to organize some things we purchased during the holidays. We've changed the "Man Room" around a bit, We stacked and turned the washer/dryer to make more room for seating in front of the TV and with the help of Jeff, I built a cabinet/shelfing system to house the washer dryer and cut down on the noise a bit. It looks pretty good, I'll post some pics in the near future when I have a moment. Jeff and I also installed a new bathroom fan in the main bathroom. We got a little confused on the wiring, so I ended up hiring an electrician friend to come out and finish it up. Jeff helped me run a new icemaker water line under the house so we now have an icemaker and water dispenser in the kitchen on our fridge. Next up for household projects is installing the bamboo hardwood flooring in the 2nd bathroom and entry doorways Jaime bought with her Christmas money. I've never done that before, so it should be fun, what could possibly go wrong??! ;)
McKenna is growning up fast. She's 2-1/2 months old already. She's starting to smile and giggle when you make funny faces or tickle her and she is trying to talk a little bit as well. It all comes out as "GGGOOOGGGDDDDRRRR!". Yeah, she's advanced. :-0 I've started sleeping back in our main bedroom again as she is almost sleeping through the night. Jaime feeds her at 9pm before we go to bed and then again at 5am or so.
Jaime went back to work for a few days at the beginning of the month and is kinda of hit and miss until our daycare starts up in February. We're still trying to figure out how we can work less and be at home with McKenna more when Jaime does go back to work. I think that will be a never ending battle.
Jaime, McKenna and I visited my mom in Moses Lake this weekend. My brother Shawn came down as well and we fixed up a few things around her house. "Grandma Joy" watched McKenna while Jaime, Shawn, and I went to see King Kong at the theatre. It was pretty good but waaaay too long. The CGI was excellent, Kong was realistic, and Jack Black was funny. All in all a 3-1/2 diaper rating out of 5.
Other recent movies and their ratings:
Wedding Crashers = 3-1/2 diapers
Red Eye = 4 diapers
Into the Blue = 4-1/4 diapers (most of that is for Jessica Alba)
Must Love Dogs = 4 diapers
Fantastic Four = 3-1/2 diapers (most of that is for Jessica Alba)
Nip Tuck (Season 2) = 4 diapers
Thankfully LOST is back on TV with new episodes now, if you haven't got hooked yet, it's not too late! (The Title of this blog is taken from the episode last week)
I hope all is well with you and yours and that you had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. I know ours was splendid.
Until next time....

What a great way to wrap up the year

2005-12-29T17:46:00.000-08:00

What a year we have had! As I write this post I am holding the most beautiful baby in my arms. She is definetly the best gift I could have gotten for Christmas & I can't possibly explain what a joy it was spending her first Christmas with her. She is quickly beginning to show her own personality which is so much fun to see....she has the magnetic personality of her dads and the stubborn pout of her mom together they can be a leathal combo and both Mark & I are preparing for a life without the word 'No' in our vocab.
I am getting closer and closer to going back to work which makes me sad because I am going to miss out on so much of her firsts. I am half expecting the daycare to call us shortly after she starts going to tell us she is too high maintenance and they can't watch her so I will be forced to stay home :) She can be quite a handful but it is so worth the price. I can't imagine life without our little precious and can no longer remember what its like to not be a mom.......you never think that your life can literally change overnight but it does and when that happens it is the most wonderful event you could ever imagine. Being a mom is amazing, it is also the toughest job out there so I now have a new appreciation for all of those who care for children.
I hope everyone who reads this has a wonderful holiday season and is as fortunate as Mark & I have been this year. Thank you all for being so involved in our lives and for helping us out so much this year. We love you all.
Jaime

The cutest baby in the universe

2005-12-20T14:45:00.000-08:00

It's official Today's top news story "Gerber baby loses cutest baby in the universe competion to previously unknown angel McKenna Gwen Beadnell." Her prize is an endless supply of diaper changes and a lovely convertible crib complete with all the amenities a 0 year old may require.
I am having more fun with her as each day progresses and continue to be amazed with every thing she does. December 18th was her first official "non gas" smile and for the last three weeks she has been gloriously holding her head up on her own. Mark & I are getting pretty good at figuring out what she wants and although she still maintains her right to a quality temper tantrum, they are becoming fewer and farther between. It's amazing to me how routine she has become in her habits already, she wakes up within 5 minutes of her feeding times almost every time now <-not forgetting to wake me as well, isn't that sweet?! Around 9:30 am and 1:30pm every day we turn on Ray Charles and dance which she also reminds me of. Ray Charles and Brad Paisley calm her right down and I recommend to any having children in the future to find a few favorite musicians and listen to them the last few months of your pregnancy....your baby will be familiar with them like McKenna is. I plan on writing to Brad Paisleys fan club soon to thank him for all the times he saved us from impending cry fests. With McKennas first Christmas just around the corner Mark and I have been busy shopping and cleaning up. It's nice the first year of her life because I can buy her all practical stuff as she won't know the difference, this will be the first and last year I can do that I'm sure. It seems to be a theme this year of practical gifts because as a gift for our house Mark & I got a new improved whirlpool duet dryer, that's right eat your hearts out ladies it can dry plastic (including plastic tableclothes) and has a wrinkle guard so clothes never wrinkle. Since it can do 24 towels or 16 pairs of jeans at a time I plan on letting my laundry pile to the ceiling so I can baske in my squalor before I wipe it away. Let this be your warning if you plan on visiting. :) This year we got a frasier fir tree and we will soon post pics on our website of McKenna in front of it. It's pretty but already very very dead. Can't win em all. Well, to all who read this, Merry Christmas and New Year.

Merry Holidays! From All of us, to all of you :)

2005-12-15T14:21:00.000-08:00

Jaime and I went to see Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe last Sunday while Jeni babysat for us. It was kinda weird the both of us being without McKenna for the first time. I was looking around the whole thinking there was something I should be doing. I had my cell on vibrate in my pocket with my hand on it the whole time making sure I didn't miss that "urgent" call.

The movie was great. The CGI animals were pretty realistic (one of the things that I was hesitant about), especially Aslan the main Lion, voiced by Liam Neeson. It's amazing what they can do nowadays. The story, if you don't know, has some fairly obvious religious undertones which coincide nicely with the Christmas season. It's certainly worthy of a theatre experience with the surround sound and so forth. I'd give it 4-1/4 out of 5 diapers.

We bought a little Christmas tree (5') on Saturday as well and I put up the Christmas lights around the house. We actually had snow on the ground for awhile, but now it's just really cold (for Seattle anyway, it's been below 32 at night and in the mid 40's during the day) I've almost got my Christmas shopping done although that doesn't account for much because I'm only getting stuff for Jaime & McKenna this year (sorry everyone else). Jaime has pretty much been done since July. We had wrapped presents all over the house for awhile now.

I finally finished the last math class that I have to take for my degree last week as well. I completely bombed the final but still managed to pull a 3.9 out of the class. Which leaves me with a 3.88 overall and still in the Phi Theta Kappa thing (which I pretty much just joined up for the plaque). I'm taking this quarter off to adjust to parenthood but plan to slowly get back into things in the near future.

Until Next Time,

Happy Holidays! from The Beadnell's.

"I've got Soul but I'm not a Soldier"

2005-12-08T08:11:00.000-08:00

We gave McKenna another bath last night.
She is just the most precious thing you've ever seen, ok...so I'm a little biased.
I posted some new pictures on our nellnell.com website. We almost lost her in a poker bet on Thanksgiving night, but luckily I won her back a little later on... More later on....Hope all is well!

Advertisements & Fatherhood

2005-12-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

So as you can see, I'm trying out some advertisements on this blog and also on my main website. I've already made a few bucks, and it's really easy to do. Please let me know when I've gone too far, I'll try not to over do it. But listen to this.....If someone signs up for NetFlix from the Ad on my sites, I get $9.00. The google ad under the netflix banner pays a couple buck per 1000 clicks and the ExpoActive ads on the right side pay out at $.05 per click! And then there is the Mozilla FireFox download, which pays $1.00 if someone downloads it through my site and starts up the Firefox browser. Also, if you have a website and want to advertise through google on it, you can sign up for Google AdSense through the very bottom link and when you make your first $100, they send me $100. All of these only pay out on unique IP Address clicks, so it's no use clicking multiple times to try and make me rich (although I appreciate the thought). How easy
Actually, I highly recommend both Netflix and Firefox. I use both very frequently.

In addition to the advertisements, I'm starting my own online store. Selling TShirts, Mugs, and so forth. I'm still working on the logos and pictures that are going to be on the stuff, so give me a week or so before you start buying tons of stuff! :) Should be fun to get Shirts and stuff made with McKenna on them or any other kind of silly stuff. If you have a design in mind, let me know and I'll add it to the store!

Thanksgiving was nice. It was Jaime, McKenna, myself and Jaime's Mom, Dad and Sister for dinner. Jaime had been cooking misc things throughout the week and then Jeni (Jaime's sister) came over to help with the turkey on Thanksgiving morning. We played poker after the food and Jeni's boyfriend Brian joined us. Lots of fun.
We actually went out shopping on Black Friday too, got up around 4 and went to the Fred Meyer sock sale and to the mall. It didn't really pan out too good though. It's hard to shop without any money! :)

On another, I love being a dad. It's just so fun to sit with her laying against my chest and to watch her little face scrunch up or smile or grimace while she sleeps. It makes all of the crying and poopy diapers worth it. I feel bad for Jaime now because when I come home from work sometimes she looks exhausted having been up with McKenna for most of the night and what not. (As I'm sleeping in another room during the work week).
I can't believe it's already been over a month! We got professional pictures taken with the three of us the other week. They turned out pretty good for the most part (if you take me out of them)

Besides that, on the movie front it's been pretty lackadaisical. I watched Murderball, which gets a 4 diaper rating. It was really interesting and gave me a different point of view on situations life throws at you. The Devils Rejects gets a 2 diaper rating. Pretty lame. Certainly not a kids movie or for those that don't like stupid horror/camp movies. It's the 2nd movie from Rob Zombie (House of 1000 Corpses was his first). Melinda and Melinda was an ok movie, a 2-1/3 diaper rating. I'm not a huge Woody Allen buff, and this plays like a semi typical Allen movie. Jaime and I have gotten hooked on another TV show as well, this time via Netflix. We thought we'd give Nip/Tuck (the first season) a try and really like it. It's not for the children but is pretty good TV, for that late night, drama type show; 4 diapers.
Jaime and I are hoping to go on a date this weekend if we can find a babysitter....Narnia comes out on Fri and we have been looking forward to seeing it for awhile. If you know our infatuation with the Lord of the Rings movies (I collect the swords and some memorabilia), J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis were friends and were in the same writers club in their youth. They shared ideas and often reviewed each other's ideas and stories. It should be a good movie.

Other than that, Have a great Holiday Season! And be Safe!
Happy Holidays,
Mark, Jaime, McKenna, Monster and Dakota.

Back to Work

2005-11-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

I'm back to work now...After taking 2-1/2 weeks off to spend time with Jaime and our new little one, McKenna. Jaime is still at home for another couple months and has her hands quite full from what it sounds like. I wish I could be there as well to see the new everything is that I'll most surely miss. I'm also sleeping in another room because McKenna wakes up every few hours for feeding or cranky time. I keep telling Jaime she has to nap when Jaime naps during the day, hopefully she'll get some rest after the schedule we're trying to establish takes hold!

Our new little bundle of joy is so cute. Even when she's screaming. Which lately has been a lot. We've found that when she screams and you blow on her face, she stops for a second and raises her eyebrows and squints her eyes and look right at you as if to say "What the ?" and then continues to fuss. It's quite cute.

We thought she had an eye infection or pink eye or something because her left eye was gunking up all the time and was really red. We also thought that she had a fever and was taking her temperature with 3 different thermometers every few minutes. Jaime called the doctor and they said it was a blocked tear duct, happens in about 80% of newborns and isn't serious at all, just to keep cleaning the gunk with a wet cloth. Now why couldn't they have told us that before we freaked out for 14 hours straight??? :) I have a feeling there will be many, many more instances like that.

One thing I have to say is thank God for digital cameras. I would be so broke and in debt if I had to pay to develop all of the pictures we've been taking of her.
As we do every year, Jaime is cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the family. Although this year instead of the entire extended McConnell/Probst family we're just going to have Jaime's mom, dad, sister and friend as well as Jaime, McKenna and I. There will be lots of food, and hopefully some naps as well. I get Thursday and Friday off work, and have now homework to do over the weekend so that should be nice.

We've seen a new dvd's lately Bewitched gets 2-1/2 diapers. Christmas with the Kranks gets 2-1/2 diapers. House of Wax gets 2-1/2 diapers. Land of the Dead gets 3 diapers (just because it was so campy but still made seriously, and it had a guest cameo by the Shaun of the Dead director and lead actor). Also, we finally finished the first season of Veronica Mars which gets 5 diapers.

That's it for now, keeping checking out nellnell.com for new baby pictures and other fun stuff. Also, I've added some more links to other friends sites. Check them out when you have time.
Hope all is well with you and yours, and have a great Thanksgiving!

A very long ordeal (with a happy ending!)

2005-11-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

A Play by Play

Wednesday Night
11/2/05 11pm. Slight water leakage, Jaime says "I think my water just broke"
Thursday Morning
11/3/05 12am. Larger water leakage, Jaime says "My water just broke"
12:15am. Contractions 4-5 minutes apart, although they are not painful. Called Dr. Steinberg (OB/GYN), their office gave us the go ahead to go to the hospital and get evaluated.
1:30am. Checked into Stevens Hospital, got a room assigned (#711). Jaime got "gowned" and had her vitals taken. She was hooked up to a monitor for her and the baby. Contractions 3-4 minutes apart, still not painful. Tried to sleep a little.
3:00am. Contractions starting to hurt, still 3-4 minutes apart.
4:30am. Contractions hurting A LOT. 2-3 minutes apart
6:45am. epidural installed and Jaime is examined. 5 cm dilated & 75% effaced.
8:00am. An adjustment to the epidural placement (it was only working on her left side). Got a little rest, not sleep necessarily, just peaceful napping.
9:40am. Catheter installed. Jaime doesn't seem to be in too much pain, looks like the epidural adjustment worked.
9:55am. Examined, 8-9 cm dilated. 95% effaced. Dr. Siscoe's (the on call delivery doctor) guess is that we'll be holding our new baby around noon!
10:42am. Examined, 9-10 cm dilated "Anterior Rim" (Whatever that means). Our nurse Amber said our baby has a "cute head". :)
11:28am. Examined, 10 cm dilated. "Ready to Go". We'll start pushing as soon as the anesthesiologist gives her more medicine, it's starting to hurt more.
11:40am. More epi. medicine and they gave Jaime some oxygen in preparation for pushing.
11:55am. Starting pushing with the contractions.
12:37pm. Still pushing, nurse said our baby's hair is dark brown or black.
1:00pm. Still pushing, Jaime is in a lot of pain. The baby is in the correct head down position and her head is turned correctly, but her shoulders are turned so that they are hitting Jaime inside and won't come through easily.
1:30pm. Jaime headbutts Mark because I'm invading her space while trying to comfort her. (More to follow from Jaime's point of view)
3:00pm. We've got a beautiful baby girl! Welcome to the world McKenna Gwen Beadnell!
Lots of tests and exams and waiting and talking ensue. (All normal for the baby, Jaime still has trouble with her calf muscle on one of her legs from the epidural, and lots of pain)
Friday Afternoon
11/4/05 4:00pm. Discharged and head for home to begin our new life as a family! Where do we pick up the Instructional Handbook...?

So if you're counting that's:

16 hours of labor after her first water breakage \or
12 hours of labor after it started to hurt \or
3 hours 5 min of intense pushing

Everyone at Stevens was very nice and helpful. Although we would of loved to have Dr. Steinberg deliver our little one, we were left in very capable and gentle hands with Dr. Siscoe. All of the nurses throughout our 37-1/2 hr stay were great. At times we had up to 6 attending to us at the same time! So, thank you very much Stevens and staff! We very much appreciate it.

Coneheads and poopy diapers

2005-11-07T11:10:00.000-08:00

She's here! Finally :) McKenna Gwen Beadnell arrived to us at 3pm on November the 3rd, 2005. She weighs 8 lbs, 15 oz and is 20 inches long. Has a full head of black hair and is as cute as can be. (My newborn can beat up your newborn!) Jaime is doing pretty good, she had a tough delivery (long) and now has Strep Throat as well. She's been trying to get her rest, and I've been trying to do all I can to make sure she gets her rest. There are some thing I just can't do however (breast feed), although sometimes when I'm burping McKenna, she doesn't realize this and tries anyway.

Getting used to waking up every few hours has been difficult for both of us...and the poop that comes out of her....OH MY! The first 10 or so was this dark dark black sticky tar...I was thinking of patching up some road out front of the house with it. For those of you that have had babies I'm sure this is not surprising, but OH MY!...now we're in to a lighter brown watery kind....easier to clean up, but it doesn't always stay in the diaper! OH MY! In the last 3 days since we've been home we've done about 10 loads of laundry already. Anyways....enough of the poop. (I've got more stories if you want to hear about it, that means you Jeff)

So all is well, even better than well...it would be perfect if Jaime was feeling better. We're just so happy that McKenna is here and she's healthy and beautiful and ours!

The next blog will be a breakdown of our time at the hospital.

Until next time.....
Love,
Mark, Jaime, and McKenna

Remember to check out more pictures at: http://www.nellnell.com

Diapers, Doctors & Back Pain

2005-10-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

One word can describe the last few weeks....overwelming. I am slowly becoming one of those "Hermit People" you see on talk shows that stay at home, blinds drawn only to remove themselves from bed to eat or use the lav. If I had much longer to go I may require a Maury Povich intervention. Lucky for myself (and Mark) we only have a short time until little Nell Nell is here. I have officially forgotten what my feet look like and am starting to forget what my legs look like as well. I am assuming that if I do get post partum depression it could have a lot to do with seeing my thighs again for the first time in months (I hope they break me in easy with the mirrors) . I am truly excited for the moment labor starts and can honestly say I am not afraid at all (yet) about the labor process....so those of you who told me your horror stories about labor have failed at your task to shock and bewilder HA! Today we visited a wonderful daycare and I think it may be the one we choose when the time comes. It's alot like a prison enviroment...low lighting, high tech surveillance and a yard out back to exercise in for half an hour a day. Brilliant! The other great news is that two of our best pals have just announced they to are expecting a rugrat (set to land sometime in April 06) so baby girl will have a pal to play with when Mark & I go out with our pals too! Play dates in our future...all signs point to yes!

The Adventures of a Sizeable Tummy

2005-10-21T14:01:00.000-07:00

12-1/2 actual days to the "due date" to go. However, on our last doctors visit on Tuesday the doctor said she'd be surprised if we went that long. Jaime and I are keeping our fingers crossed! Jaime is having a lot of BraxtonHicks contractions and feels like she's ready to go any moment. Although I think the baby will have the last word on the when part. We've found a pediatrician for the little one that comes highly recommended and isn't taking new clients unless it's by referral....but we got in :) Still looking for a child care place and going over all of the possibilities. Jaime is working a little less at work, but is still very tired at the end of even her shortest day. She takes lots of naps, and drinks a lot of water. We take walks on our breaks at work which I think helps a little bit.
I've been pretty busy lately with work and school. The last few weekends I helped Jeff put the start of a shop in his garage. It's a similar setup to mine in the design of the counters. His garage is fairly finished with drywall, so it looks a lot cleaner. It should be a good setup for him.
We haven't watched many movies lately, but I am renting the entire 1st season of Veronica Mars with Kristen Bell. It's a great series. 4-1/2 Diapers
We're also hooked on ABC's LOST. (Me more than Jaime, I think) There are TONS of cool websites and theory boards out there...it's really got a lot more to it than just the surface of the show. It's a great mystery to try and solve before the next installment airs. A Strong 5 Diaper rating.
If you've been watching you might want to take a look at some of the following websites:
http://www.oceanic-air.com/ this is a great site with lots of hidden "easter eggs" to discover
http://www.oceanicflight815.com/
http://www.lost-forum.com/index.php this site has some pretty interesting theories
http://lost-media.com/
http://thelostnumbers.blogspot.com/ some people have WAY too much time on their hands
http://www.thehansofoundation.org/ putting the clues together one by one.
http://www.dharmaindustries.com/

Well, until next time

The Generosity of Others (Part Deux)

2005-10-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

So Amy (from work) hosted a coworker shower for Jaime last night. I think all but 4 women showed up from work (I even went to see what it was all about). Once again, everyone was very gracious in their gift giving to us and the baby. Amy did an excellent job in organizing things (as always). They played a few games and ate lots of goodies. Kathy and Kimberly had a cake made with an edible ultrasound picture of the baby on it. It was pretty cool....(actual picture of the cake to follow). Our house now looks like a Babys R Us showroom!

Last weekend we installed a new toilet in our main bathroom (the other wasn't flushing wellmost of the time and was constantly running). Jaime bought it as her birthday present from her mom and dad (Thank you Rich and Marilyn) And it should save us some on the water bill because it's a lot more energy efficient.
Let me tell you, it's a kings throne :)

Last Friday Jaime and I went to see A History of Violence w/ Viggo Mortensen (aka Aragorn). It was a little slow moving at times, and in my opinion the acting was not so great in parts. I think this had a little to do with the directing and the pace of it. But it was a great premise and I really like Viggo. There wasn't much violence in the movie, but when there was....holy cow...they made it matter. All in all, an ok movie, worth a matinee or a rent. 3-1/2 diapers.
Until next time....

"Remember, you can't beam through a forcefield. So don't try it."

2005-09-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

So Jaime and I ventured to the Puyuallup Fair to take in the cotton candy, animals, and of course the Brad Paisley/Sugarland concert. It was lots of fun, although there HAS to be a better way to do the parking and traffic control in that town, Geesh! We saw lots of animals (both human and the animal type), ate lots of foods that we probably shouldn't, and walked around a little more than normal. All in all a fun outing.
The concert was great, Sugarland was good and Brad Paisley was awesome. He's just such a great performer and really funny. If you've never listened to the lyrics to his songs you should give him a go. You'll never guess who showed up at the concert and sang a song with Brad....no.....no....William Shatner...that's right, Captain Kirk himself. It was pretty funny. I guess Brad Paisley did a guest spot on his latest album and they sang that song together at the concert.
For my latest movie review, I'd highly recommend Shaun of the Dead, giving it a 5 diaper rating. Not for the kids, as it is pretty gory with lots of cussing....but a hilarious campfest movie none the less. And for the kids, Because of Winn Dixie. It wasn't really well acted, nor was it one of the best movies I've seen, but it was entertaining, in a 'oh look at that dog smile' sort of way. I'd give it a 2 diaper rating. Dave Matthews played a bit part in it (he should stick to singing), and Annasophia Robb, most notably from this years Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was pretty cute.
School started up for me last night, my last math class required for this degree! I just hope I can finish it with a half way decent grade and without being away from Jaime and the baby too much.
All in all, everything else is going fairly smoothly. Jaime is starting to feel a little more tired and run down, but the baby is moving around a lot and seems to be in good health from what everyone can tell.
Until next time~

"Babies have big heads and big eyes, and tiny little bodies with tiny little arms and legs. So did the aliens at Roswell! I rest my case." -William Shatner

The Generosity of Others

2005-09-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

So.... Jaime had her first baby shower and let me tell you, Baby NellNell is going to be spoiled! I went over to my brother Shawn's house for the day and when I came back there were presents lined up against the wall almost to the ceiling.... Lots of blankets, clothes, and hats, and most of the "big ticket" items like a highchair, stroller, playpen, etc. It was very, very nice of everyone to be so thoughtful and generous, and to know that our little one is and will be so loved by everyone. Jeni and KD (Sister and best friend, respectively) put the shower on and from what I hear did an excellent job. There was scrapbooking, in which family and friend attendees made a custom page addressed to the baby for a future scrapbook. They also played a guess the poo game, where diapers were passed around with melted candy bars in them and the attendees had to guess what kind of candy bar it was. All in all it turned out great and we hope that everyone had a good time and want to thank everyone involved for the gifts and attention. And we still have another baby shower in the near future that our friend Amy is putting together with co-workers!

As for everyday life, Jaime and I have completed our child preperation classes and a pediatric CPR certification class. Jaime's belly is getting bigger, she's ready for the little one to come out. The baby is getting longer and bigger, which is pressing on Jaime's lungs and innards, at times making it hard for her to breath and sleep....but I guess that's normal?! We're still waiting to win the lottery, keep your fingers crossed :) School starts up for me again this coming Tuesday, I'm just going to be taking one math class, hopefully it won't be too much with everything else going on. I'm also taking Jaime on a date to a Brad Paisley/Sugarland concert at the Puyullap Fair this Saturday. It should be pretty fun, probably one of the last real "dates" we''ll have in awhile!

We watched Crash last weekend, with Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon and, Sandra Bullock ....an exceptional movie! I'd highly recommend it. A 5 diaper rating!

Well, until next time....

8 weeks left, 8 lbs heavier and 8 million things left to do.

2005-09-07T17:04:00.000-07:00

Today is now my favorite day of the week! I have been given the green light at work to work only 7-11:30 every Wed until the baby so I now have time to do Dr appts, take naps & do some killer yoga moves. Our little one is already proving to be a little rascal and I am certain she will very athletic when she finally joins us on the outside as her hobbies already include rock climbing (up my rib cage) and kickboxing (in my bladder). The time seemed to go by so quickly in the first two trimesters, but now it seems we are in some strange vortex where each second is another eternity. I am so looking forward to seeing my feet again without attempting insurpassable feats to do so, and I can't even describe how much I am looking forward to even one night of decent sleep again. Mark has been a real sport through these long months and has dealt with his share of my lovely mood swings so I am certain he feels as ready for this baby to be born as I am. I just have to keep reminding myself that shes almost here...

"Who's the one that knows illegal Ninja moves?"

2005-09-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

3 Day Weekend! Oh...it's already over???! That went way too fast. Since we had this weekend off from our baby classes, Jaime and I spent the majority of our time slaving away at our house cleaning and doing some odd things that probably won't get done for a long time after the baby comes. We rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned all of the carpets in the house...spic and span....we figured it would be good for a new toddler! I finally painted the outside trim and touch ups on the new windows I put in the manroom. I installed a cat door in between the kitchen and man room so we can close off that room to the baby when she starts to wander. And Jaime did loads and loads of laundry and dishes and misc cleaning.
We also went to see Madagascar at the cheap theatres....I'd give it a 3 diaper rating....it was fairly funny, worth the cheap price but not necessarily worth the $9 regular price.
Oh yeah....and we watched Napoleon Dynamite again.....it just gets funnier every time I see it.

Until next time,
Mark

"Pedro offers you his protection."

Installation complete

2005-08-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

We bought a car seat for the baby, and after hours of seatbelt extensions, straps, instruction booklets, and head scratching, I finally got it installed. (It really wasn't that hard after I understood it, call me an idiot) So we're ready for that baby now! We got a crib and a carseat, and diapers...everything else is just icing on the cake. .....So where's that baby at already?.....

Jaime and I had our 2nd baby class yesterday...watched a few birthing videos and practiced some more breathing techniques and calming exercises. Jaime's definitely the hottest mama in the class!

We also watched a few dvds while relaxing this weekend. Starting off with A Lot Like Love w/ Ashton Kutcher & Amanda Peet. This was actually a pretty good movie for a chick flick. I laughed and cri....uh laughed some more. Sin City was a visually great movie, and Beauty Shop followed up the weekend with a few laughs as well. Out of a 5 five diaper rating we'll give A Lot Like Love 3-3/4, Sin City gets 3-1/2, and Beauty Shop gets 3 diapers.

Speaking of installations, Jeff and I finished up installing a couple of windows at his house today. One was just a replacement in his bedroom, and the other was a full blown new window in a wall where there was previously no window. It looks really good and it went pretty fast, faster than the carseat installation.....

The Light and the Darkness

2005-08-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

So this is pretty cool. It's night time, we're getting ready to go to bed, teeth are brushed, alarms are set and the lights are off. I snuggle up to "the belly" for my goodnights, but this time with a flashlight nearby. I talk to her for a little bit, wondering how her day went, what kind of positions she was in, what she ate, etc....(we're talking about the little unborn baby now). All the while she's turning and kicking, trying to communicate with me and answer the questions. And THEN I turn on the flashlight and shine it right up to where I think her head is while I talk to her some more, but she stops moving around. So I turn the flashlight off and she starts kicking like mad, so I turn it on again and she stops, and so I turn it back off again and we think there's a little alien going to poke its way through Jaime's belly she's kicking and punching so hard. Finally, I tell them both my goodnights and turn over to go to sleep. I guess she kicked and moved around all night waiting for the light to come back on. Jaime didn't sleep too well, I slept pretty good! ;}

I posted some pictures of the nursery crib we bought and the changing station I made on our MSN website....http://groups.msn.com/TheNellNellExperience/babypictures.msnw?Page=2

As well as some new pictures of my niece Katie and her new husband Chad's wedding reception
http://groups.msn.com/TheNellNellExperience/katiesweddingreception.msnw

A few of my favorite things....

2005-08-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we're about 11 weeks away (29 weeks in) from our new baby girl (As Yet Untitled) Sometimes you can kind of see a leg or back or a head type of shape in Jaime's tummy when she stretches out and lays down. The baby seems to be lulled to sleep whenever Jaime is active, but wakes up and wants to do calisthenics when she's trying to rest. I think she's going to be a kickboxer or something like that.
I love to rest my head on Jaime's tummy and talk to the baby and feel the kicks and pushes she gives me in response. She reacts almost immediately to my voice now, anytime Jaime is resting and I'm near her I try to listen and talk....perhaps I'm one of the reasons she gets so rambunctious and Jaime doesn't get any rest! The baby also responds to Jaime's intake of sweets....she seems to do jumping jacks after a good sugar rush of Heath flavored Blizzard® :)

The nursery is almost all set up. We've now got a white crib with built in dresser drawers, and a changing table I built in the closet. Jaime wrapped some wood frames I built with some nice colorful fabric and put NEMO and Lion King prints in them. The border or the room is original Pooh. The room is mint green with white bead board paneling and trim. It's pretty cute. Pictures to follow on our website soon. (www.nellnell.com)

Well, I'm hoping to get Jaime to post on this thing some too...I'll try to keep up as best as I can. Until then....

Welcome!

2005-06-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The NellNell Experience Blog!
This is a site in the making, so post if you wish and be patient! :)