Well the updates this month have been few and far between. This is mainly due to the fact that Jaden and Karen have been sick for over a week and a half and I've been fighting it back with every bit of strength I have. On top of that with found out that our bedroom was over runwith mold which was probably a big reason we all weren't getting better from this sick thing. Then our water heater broke down twice in one week and we finally got the landlord to replace it. Needless to say it hasbeen a pretty tough month for us, and once again we stuck it through and had a really great time seeing family and friends over the holidays.

I'll try to have the photo gallery page up and running soon. Jaden's picture links on his page will probably stay there for now since those links are to photo albums with anything Jaden related. We did manage to break away from the insanity that is Christmas and see the Two Towers and I still can't believe my eyes on what Peter Jackson's crew did with the Gollum/Smeagol. They actually made me believe that Gollum was a real person/creature that was acting right along side Elijah Wood and Sean Astin. Truly an extraordinary performance by the actor Andy Serkis and the CGI crew. That aside though the film was especially entertaining and believe it or not I felt it needed to be longer!

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Yesterday was a sad day for Karen and me. Jaden spent his first day at the sitter's house and Karen went back to work. All in all we weren't very happy about the these events but everything went pretty smooth and Jaden came back home to us safe and sound.

So the last weekend in November was pretty hectic for us. We thought we had everything ready for Najwa, our sitter, but Saturday night & Sunday morning turned into a real "down to the wire" time for us. We had everything to bring over but still needed to assemble the Playard and Bouncy Chair "Kick 'n Play" thing and pack everything up. Whew this kid is work, but we love it

After all the work was done, our friend Kari watched Jaden and we headed off for a movie break. We had decided to go see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. These are really fun movies and especially fun for the kids. I love seeing kid films that do not hold back on story, plot, characters and even good scares every now and then. These "Harry Potter" flicks may not be the best movies out there but they do remind me of some of my childhood favorites such as "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes" two extremely fun kid films yet have a touch of darkness to them that keep them entertaining and not boring. I never read the books and that is something I will hopefully get to soon. I recommend this film for the whole family.

The newest updates are located in Jaden's page. I added photo albums 10 and 11. Click here to go there and check them out or click on Jaden's picture at the top of this page.

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Okay, so I spared you my long, drawn out update a couple a days ago. Basically it was going to be an explanation on how horrible Best Buy is. So instead of writing this terribly long hate update I decided to save it for later so I could get every little detail of this fiasco in order. Once it is finished I will be posting an entire page to this one great big mess! Along with links to Anti-Best Buy Web sites, some cool images and whatever else I can possibly think of that will put Best Buy in place where they belong. Enough said for now, but I'll have that page ready soon.

So the weekend kicked off with what I thought was going to great time. My mom came over to babysit Jaden, and Karen and I went to see a concert. We had bought tickets awhile ago and couldn't wait to see it. One problem, the people who were coming came a little bit late (actually only one of them showed up and the others went right to the show). Even though I was given the chance to leave earlier and meet up with the rest of the group I opted to stay and I know now I made the wrong choice (oh well live and learn). I ended up missing the two opening acts, The Distillers & Garbage, who by the way were the two groups I even cared about seeing. No Doubt was the Headlining act and from the one other time I had seen them I really wasn't interested due to the fact that their set wasn't that good. But as dissappointed as I was, I must say that No Doubt really improved their live show drastically. They had that crowed going pretty wild and the version of "Bathwater" was spectacular. The stage seemed pretty standard until they revealed a very groovy way of presenting themselves to the crowd via Big Screen/Medium Screen. And even though "Don't Speak" was the song I was dreading to hear because of how much that song overexposed, it actually gave me goose bumps to see Gwen stepping aside to let the 15,000 fans sing it perfectly like the album. So what could have been a complete disaster turned out pretty fun, although I'm slightly bummed out missing the two openers. And to all the would-be dates, wives, etc. out there, here's a cool tip for you, "men care about the opening acts." On a side note, a very special thank you is in hand for my mom, who watched Jaden over night until 11:00 AM on Saturday morning. Thank you for all your support Mom you are terrific and good luck with the show.

Saturday
My Aunt Dawn came over and watched Jaden while Karen and I got tons of housework and errands done. My Aunt Trudy dropped by to visit along with her daughter (my cousin) Katie and Dawn's youngest, Hannah. They all took Jaden for walk down 2nd Street and said they had a blast getting the "Baby Looky-Loos" all confused as to how old and who's baby he was. Trudy, Katie and Hannah left a few hours later and Dawn's husband (my Uncle) John showed up with their son, Blake minus his awesome 'fro. To see a great pic of this 'fro check out the picture on Jaden's page of him at the hospital with his family. We hang out for awhile and talk then head down to Domenicos for the best pizza in Belmont Shore! We had a great time and another big Thank You goes out to Dawn, Trudy, John, Blake, the girls Katie and Hannah! You guys are great and we'd love to have you down here anytime.

Sunday
Jaden had a relapse on his cold and was coughing all day and pretty bad at times but he is doing better tonight. Jaden and Daddy got to watch a couple DVDs this weekend. We saw Attack of the Clones and Pee Wee's Big Adventure and I must say that Star Wars looks GOOD on an HDTV in full widescreen. Not the greatest of the series but WOW it is one sweet looking movie. This is the best reference DVD for video out there and Jaden agrees, personally I think he just likes the bright colors but I could be wrong. Anyway here's a couple of screen grabs just for fun.

Fact of the Day: not a single Clone Trooper in Episode II was real. Every single
one was a CG character!

This is gonna be a heck of an update, so grab some snacks and a drink and enjoy.

It's been a long time, but things are pretty hectic right now at the Evanskey household. Karen's going back to work in a week and a half and that means Jaden's going to start with the daycare lady. Karen and I are both feeling pretty down about letting him go but it's something we're working through.

So the last few weeks have been wild to say the least. I got sick about three weeks ago and Karen picked it up right after me. This all happened right when Jaden was getting his 4 shots at the two-month marker. So both parents sick and the doctors say that the shots will probably give him a fever. It wasn't looking good for the little guy. Yes the shots did give him a small fever but seemed to miss whatever Karen and I had. Or so we had thought. It took a few weeks but that bug finally caught up with Jaden and he is just now getting over a nasty cold and cough.

So what else has been happening with us. Well, Karen and I got a break last Friday and went out to see the new Harry Potter flick and Lo and behold there were a billion people at the theater to see it so we ended up seeing our second choice "8 Mile". This is basically a "Rocky" for the rap genre, not that that is bad in fact the acting is what really holds this movie together. Eminem, Kim Bassinger, Brittany Murphy and the rest of the supporting cast are all right on. This is loosely based on Eminem's life and what it was like growing up white in a predominately black neighborhood in Detroit. Curtis Hanson (L.A Confidential, brings credibility to the direction and once again kudos to Eminem for showing us a side of himself that a lot of us are not too familar with.

I know I said this was going to be a long update but it is getting late and I've been working at keeping Jaden pretty clam tonight. So it's off to sleep and the rest of the update will have to be for this weekend.

A new month and and new color scheme. I know I said I wouldn't be switching them all the time but this is just too much fun. Anyway with all the holidays coming and going I'll stick with one color at the turn of the new year.

So just a quick update and then maybe I'll get to some of those ideas I was thinking of. Jaden's page has been updated with two new photo albums, which brings the total up to nine albums in just under two months. Whew! that's a lot of pictures. I'm also working on getting some stuff up for Karen's page but I need to consult with her on what she wants first.

No new movies to talk about, but I do want to see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones on the big IMAX screen. I can only imagine that Yoda/Dooku fight scene on a screen that's over 50 feet tall. That's some serious Star Wars! Now if we could only speed Lucas up on those DVDs and I would be one happy Star Wars camper, that is if Lucas decides to put the original films on the DVD along side the ultimate, mega, newly enhanced versions. And dammit Greedo DOES NOT fire first!!! Han is a smuggler and not so much of a nice guy and doesn't need to be justified with Greedo shooting first. Bah! What's wrong with G.L. anyway and speaking of bad ideas what's up with Spielberg messin' with E.T. I mean really are we that sensitive nowadays to guns and the even the word "terrorist" sends shivers down our very spines. Removing the guns from the FBI agents chasing the kids and replacing them with Walkie-Talkies is just down-right stupid. Then altering the the dialog track so mom wouldn't say her son looks like a terrorist in his Halloween costume to now "not looking like a hippie" is ridiculous. Man, if I were a hippy I would be up in arms right now. What a joke this whole paranoia thing has become!

What a busy crazy weekend. Friday night was interesting to say the least. Jaden did really good and slept for almost six hours! I fed him when he woke up a 3:00 A.M. and within the hour he was back to sleep. That is when Karen came out of the bedroom with this look on her face. Apparently one of our cats peed all over the bed while Karen was in it! Cats have such an interesting way of telling you that they're not happy. Needless to say I ended up at the laundrymat at 6:00 A.M. washing the comforter and all the sheets. Fun and exciting times!

We did try to get out on Saturday and had Sam, a good friend of ours who married us, watch little Jaden for a couple of hours while we went to go see Punch Drunk Love, the new Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) movie. The film was excellent! Completely bizarre and wonderful. This is the way a film needs to be made. I totally enjoyed the love story and the off beat humor. And this, so far, is Adam Sandlers best work! It's great to see him in such a weird film and not his typical college fart and poop joke movies (don't get wrong, some of those are great too) but this is where you have a great film by an excellent director and a script that totally is character and dialog driven! Everybosy in this film is great. Emily Watson is wonderful and mysteriously unusual. The P.T. Anderson staples such as Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Louis Guzman are great. Hoffman is the standout here and his part, being a small as it is, just rocks! Kudos to you Mr. Anderson for making a wonderful film and keeping the running time down to 89 minutes! I recommend this movie for people who enjoy films not movies and like weird and alternate ways to tell a love story.

We left the theater and headed home and Karen hadn't been feeling good since the whole cat pee thing and we ended up staying home the rest of the night to get some well needed rest. Jaden and Daddy got to watch the excellent Angels game however, and that was that exciting. Way to go Angels and also to the Rally Monkey! Mom got to see some of it, but we're just happy she's feeling better.

Sunday we switched our clocks back and had a nice, long sleep. Grandma came by to visit and is here now while I'm updating the site. Jaden is getting ready for Game 7 and is rooting for his home team!

Go Angels!

Saturday we went to a baby shower for friends of ours, Lori & Damien. It's was the first time that the whole baby reality set in for me. Yeah I know we went through the nine months, and yeah the birth was spectacular, and Jaden is the greatest boy on earth. But sitting in a room full of people talking shop about theirs or other peoples kids was such an eye opener. The fact that every night and day is watching, feeding, burping, changing Jaden and that those few moments Karen and I get to spend away from the little guy feels like we have to "hurry, hurry, hurry" so we can get back to Jaden, never gave me the feeling of control. It was kind of like that feeling Luke had in "Empire" when he couldn't quite reach his lightsaber and feeling all frustrated and then he realized he needed to let go of the frustration and let the force calm him and everything worked out (okay I haven't had a Star Wars reference yet and you knew one would be coming). But being at that party with Jaden felt good. There was a sense of confidence in the both of us that felt like we were finally in charge (for the most part).

Anyway, back to the baby shower, we're very excited and super happy for Lori, Damien and their anxiously awaited bundle of joy, Laurel Estella Murty. In honor of their soon to be arrival I'm posting the closest thing we have to a picture and that's a super cool mega high tech new type of Ultra Sound photo in glorious color and 3-D. So here's your first glimpse Laurel. We can't wait for you to arrive, Laurel, Jaden's a superfly little boy.

A couple of quick updates and then I'm outta here.

I fixed the links on Jaden's page to now open in their own windows, so no more hitting the back button fiftymillion times to get back to his page. Whew, that's a lot of button clicking!

I will be adding some new pages soon but as to what they are exactly you'll just have to wait a little bit longer, as they are in the early production phase right now and if I decide I don't like the ideas I'll just scrap them and try something else. I can say that an Archives section will be coming soon but I need to get enough news items up to really start that so it will probably be up and running in November. One other thing that will definitely be going up is a "Top 5" page, it's something that a couple of friends (Joe Servia and Gordon) and me started at work and has really had a good vibe at work. I'll probably have a link to it from this page or Scott's page.

Every thing moves so fast, yet so slow...weird.

Before I start with the updates there's something I need to talk about...

THANK YOU ALL!
In the past month, between taking care of Jaden, taking care of Karen and trying to maintain my sanity (which has been in question this whole time), I've thrown together this little rickety little Web site and realized today I have grossly overlooked the people who have helped us through all that has happened.

So first off, I need to sincerely thank our very good friend and co-coach who really came through with shining colors, Cristine Hulka! She not only stayed close to karen and me through first nine months, but she attended many of the birth classes with us to prepare for her job as assistant coach! She was there when we needed her during the delivery and gave Karen much needed relief with her great head massages, feeding Karen ice chips and keeping her cool with wet towels. And I almost forgot that she was the one managing the digital camera during the birth, in which she got some great shots of Jaden coming into this world! But it doesn't end there, she also came over to our place and not only helped but took charge of the cleaning of our disasterously messy apartment. Thank you, Cris you are the best!

Next on the list is a group of people who have all done their fair share of help. I want to thank my mom for her continued support and all the times she's been able to pretty much drop everything to help us through some pretty tough times. Thanks mom for all your help and advice! You really are the greatest mom. Along with my mom is my entire family, the Feikemas. For all of you that showed up to the hospital or sent your best, I want to give a big thank you out to you all. Trudy, Katie, John, Dawn, Blake, Hannah, Marilyn and of course Grandma Willie (or should I say Great Grandma). Frank, Cameron, Garret, Lindsey, John V. we know your heart was with us and thank you for kind words and thoughts. We can't wait to bring the little guy around for the holidays to meet the family.

Theresa Volk has been a friend of Karen's since the "Parapet Days" (that's the street Karen and all her friends grew up on) and this was the year Karen needed her the most. She came through for the both of us and it showed tremendously. Theresa threw the "It's Not A Baby Shower" shower BBQ and we all had a blast. We thank you Theresa for your support.

Mark thank you for being a great friend through everything for me. We got some great shots of Jaden with the coolest stuffed animal duck ever!

Alright it's midnight and Jaden hasn't slept in like 6 or 7 hours and he is seriously fussy and crying. Time to end this and I'll have to talk about the updates tomorrow. Goodnight.

So here's the deal, I cut the last update short, due to extreme exhaustion. I'm really trying hard to get used to this no sleep thing and I think I'm finally getting a system worked out. Anyway, this time the updates are going to be more diverse and complete. Don't worry Jaden fans, the little guy will be getting the most news time since he's the focus of Mom and Dad's life. But I'll be throwing in some variety to keep the mix fresh and you'll know what Karen and I are doing.

First things first
JADEN IS ONE MONTH OLD!

A new month means a new color scheme. This color scheme thing probably won't be changing every month but it seems appropriate since Halloween is upon us and I thought I would theme up the Web site a bit. I'm not going all out with the theme, but I will be adding some new main page photos above and I'll try to keep the updates coming on a more timely manner (if Jaden allows it).

Also, in tribute to one of my favorite holidays, I bought a box of Boo Berry cereal and damn this stuff is good. Just so you all know not only is it a kids sugar cereal but it has 9 (yes 9, count 'em) essential vitamins!! A healthy Halloween is to be had at the Evanskey household this year. I'm getting Jaden started on his health food kick right out the gate! Mom will be proud.

This past weekend was a big step forward for all three of us.

FRIDAY
Our friend Cynthia came by and watched Jaden with us for a couple of hours. She then gave Karen and me a dinner break and watched him for an extra hour, (did I mention she's really good with him). Thanks Cynthia for all your help!

Today was also a discovery day for Daddy. I took over watching Jaden while Karen got to sleep the whole night through (ok, there was one time she woke up and helped with Jaden, but she went right back to sleep). I decided that I would feed him 3-4 ounces of the soy-o-rama formula and then put on my Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring DVD. I figured I'd watch the movie while he fussed and cried and to my surprise he ate all 4 ounces and then conked out while listening to the music of Lord of the Rings. HOORAY!!! Continuing my shock, he slept all the way through the movie, a full three hours, then woke up at the end credits and we did it all over again the next time at 2:30 AM and one final time at 6:00 AM! He's such a great boy.

SATURDAY
Saturday we got a chance to break free for almost three hours when Karen's friend Kari was kind enough to watch the little guy so we could check out Red Dragon. The movie was really good and I definitely suggest you see it, especially if your into the Hannibal Lecter saga. This movie was based on the Thomas Harris novel of the same name and was made into a movie in 1986 called Manhunter by Micheal Mann (Miami Vice, Heat, The Insider). That version of the film is also a very good adaption but at times seems a little dated with its 80's synth music (which isn't that bad) and the miami vice look. A few problems I had Manhunter were specific scenes that were left out, which I felt were important to the progression of the Francis Dolarhyde character and the changed ending. Red Dragon, on the other hand, adds in missing character development and stays true to the original ending, which I found much more suspenseful. I still feel the relationship between Francis Dolarhyde and his love interest could have been explored more deeply as in the book, but Red Dragon pulled it off pretty good. One other thing that Red Dragon really tackled was the importance of Francis Dolarhyde's relationship with his Grandmother, which is pretty much non-existant in Manhunter. So my over-all feeling is this is a really entertaining film that should not be missed. There's my quick review. For anyone who cares, go see it!

Saturday was good throughout the rest of the day and then later that night he went back to his old ways. Karen stuck it through all night and I took over the next morning.

SUNDAY
Sunday got slowly better and by the evening I ended up doing the Lord of the Rings trick. And it worked again! I feel like I now have a little leverage on this colic thing and on top of that I now have Fellowship of the Ring memorized! But that's all good and he seems to be happier and I like the movie!

Okay, okay so it's been awhile since the last update, but that's because I'm still learning that there is little time for mom and dad to spend by themselves. Not that that's a bad thing because this whole being a daddy thing is great! I'm learning so much from Jaden and Karen and it's a blast. Yeah I'm tired and yeah I'm physically worn down and probably going gray too, but man there's never a dull moment with this kid!

Anyway on with the updates. This past week and a half have been something else. We decided that it was time to switch the little guy over to formula last wednesday and he was not happy about that... and he let us know it too! So by wednesday evening (and quite a bit of screaming later) we decided to switch from the regular formula over to soy and he took to that much better. Everything seemed to be going pretty good until Friday and then all hell broke loose! We think it was the combination of air that he was getting while feeding (probably from the wrong type of nipple) which contributed to the massive amounts of gas (poor little guy) he was having and he was showing signs of Colic.

Getting tired I'll finish this tomorrow...

The week has been getting progressively better. Jaden had his two week pediatrician appointment on Friday and he is almost back up to his original birth weight of 8lbs. 3oz., plus the Jaundice is kaput! His feeding is still a little tough, but Mom and Dad are toughing it out.

Jaden's page is slowly coming together. You can check out the sample pictures I've uploaded by clicking on his name and more content will be coming soon.

*Update* The Karen & Scott pages are working now. Jaden's page will be up soon and I will be adding stuff to all three gradually so keep checking back.

Karen got a break today and had a massage and an adjustment (she really needed it!). Dad on the other hand is working away, getting attack by Roxy (our youngest cat) and have finally just been able to sit down and update this site.

I can't seem to get my Scott page updated, so I will be working on fixing that as soon as I can.

The system has been down for the past week but it looks like we're back up and running for the moment. More updates and pictures will be coming soon.

We were graced with the arrival of Jaden Alex Evanskey on Saturday, September 7th, 2002 at 12:05 PM. He measured in at 21 inches and weighed 8lbs. 3oz. He's doing great and I think our excitement has been keeping us going (along with tons of caffeine). This past week has definately been a learning experience for Karen and me.

Jaden (as with all newborns) in the first few days showed signs of Jaundice (a yellowing of the skin due to an elevation of bilirubin in the blood). All babies have this just at different levels and this is caused by a babies liver not yet working properly to filter these bilirubin out of their systems. Anyway, Jaden had a higher level (17.3) than normal (12) but with the proper amount of breast milk and some filtered sunlight his levels have dropped considerably and the yellow is fading away. Jaden's doing much better now and can't wait to say hi to everyone!

I'll be updating the site with Jaden photos or posting links to my Ofoto account.

The Evanskeys are now on the Web! The old site Scott's Place is still up and running, so if you want to keep that address handy feel free although I will probably not be updating it

Karen and Jaden are doing great! The Doctor says the Jaden is fully down and now were just waiting for Karen to dialate.

The links will be coming soon, have patience.