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....

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 :)

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...

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.

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..... :)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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