Our Fun Family

I just love New Year's Day.  There is something refreshing about a clean slate that comes with the start of a new year.  Over the last week, the girls have been playing with new toys and wearing new clothes.  The house has been restored to a pre-holiday state, the decorations safely stored away for another year.  My scale breathes a slight sigh of relief since I am about 40 pounds lighter.  My closet has been thinned a bit as well, with my largest sizes in a bag ready for a trip to Goodwill.  I have also been fiddling with my new toy, a brand new Nook Color from Barnes and Noble, my hard-fought winnings from our family Biggest Loser challenge.  (A tip of the hat and a "thank you" to Tracy and Missy for pushing me all the way to victory!) I am excited to see what 2011 holds for us as a family.  I still have about 80-90 pounds to go to reach my goal weight.  To help along the way, we are planning on Season 2 of our Biggest Loser challenge....

Last Friday, after I returned from my business trip (the last of the year, yeah!), we loaded up the travel trailer and got the girls and headed over the river and through the woods to Gramma and Grampa’s house.  It made for a long day, but it was worth it.  After getting unloaded and settled in a bit, Gramma was ready to play Santa Claus.  The girls scored big.  Grace got a play grill that looks a lot like my little grill that I use at tailgate parties.  We put it together Saturday morning and she seems to really like it.  But the big hit was definitely the dress up clothes, shoes, jewelry and tutus.  The girls were adorable.  I think I might be in trouble with Hailey.  She already has a thing for shoes and jewels. More pictures have been loaded on our public album, but here a few favorites. Dressing up at Gramma's ...

The week of Thanksgiving, we took Grace to a pediatric surgery center to have an umbilical hernia repaired.  She has had it since she was born, and early on our pediatrician pointed it out to us.  She told us that it may heal on its own, but cautioned us then that we may need to consider surgery if it didn't correct itself by age 4. It was a minor surgery, we were home with Grace resting on the couch by 9:30am afterwards, but it was still pretty scary to watch a couple of nurses wheel your baby girl into an operating room on a gurney.  She did great and rebounded very, very quickly.  The surgeon told us that we would likely have a hard time containing her after the first couple of days, and he was definitely right.  I can't tell you how many times Brenda or I had to remind her to take it easy, she had stitches in her belly! There is no keeping a 4 year old down.  I asked her teacher to try keep her from jumping off the top of the monkey bars...