Our Fun Family

Today is Sunday, January 30th.  I am noting the date because I am about to lose big time, I mean huge.  A loss like this should be worth remembering, permanently etched in my mind.  Tomorrow morning, we begin our second “season” of Biggest Loser.  Last August, I accepted a challenge from two of my sisters, a weight loss challenge.  All three of us have struggled with our weight, and all three of us at times haven’t struggled nearly enough with our weight.  We got complacent, accepting our weight as a few extra pounds, and it is absolutely amazing how deceptive a mirror can be.  Some people look in a mirror and have some sort of epiphany about their appearance and the physical affect that extra weight can have on a body.  I didn’t have that sort of epiphany.  As a matter of fact, I honestly believe that my self-image allowed my mind to process the image reflected in the mirror as something different than what was actually there.  I actual...

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...

With several recent trips and weekends spent tailgating, we hadn’t gotten around to carving our pumpkin.  Since today was Halloween, I figured we better get on it.  This year, Brenda had found a great little ladybug costume for Hailey that she ordered online.  We had asked Grace what she wanted to go as and she had told us she wanted to be a tiger.  We hadn’t found the “right” costume for her yet and we are glad we didn’t.  As soon as Brenda had Hailey’s costume in hand, we tried it on her to make sure it fit well, and Grace decided she wanted to be a ladybug too.  Gram and Granddad came over to handle candy duty at the door, while Brenda and I took the girls on the walk.  Here are some pics from the day! Halloween 2010 VIEW SLIDE SHOW ...

Cherish the people and opportunities that matter to you, because all too often, they can be taken from you.  I know we have all heard it time and time again.  After all, each of us have lives full of “wish I could have”, “know I should have”, and “could I have?”.  I am going through this exact type of moment right now.  About a year ago, somewhat out of the blue, I received a call from Terry Cornish.  Terry is my biological father, whom I had not spoken with in about 12 years, and hadn’t seen in about 30.  I have a family that is not too dissimilar to a lot of stories from our generation.  Terry was a veteran of the Vietnam War, who upon returning home continued to wage the same battles, this time within his own mind.  In today’s military, there are resources for our American heroes that return and struggle to adapt to civilian life.  We are aware of posttraumatic stress syndrome and its affect on military families.  In Terry’s day of ...

I am guilty!  Good grief, how in the world have I managed to let our family blog get so out of date.  I assure you it isn’t because nothing exciting has happened in the last month and a half.  So much is going on, it is hard to keep up. I have updated some photo albums, so go check that out if you haven’t already.  We have a 4 year old!  One of the many exciting things we have celebrated as a family since my last posting was Grace’s 4th birthday.  I keep reflecting back to see if I think the 4 years have flown by, but time has a funny way of staying relative.  I find it so hard to imagine our family without her, that it seems that she has been here “forever”.  I even have a hard time remembering when she wasn’t a toddler.  What a fantastic little girl she is growing into.  Just before Grace’s birthday it was “back to school”, or rather back to pre-school.  Going to school everyday has done so much for Grace’s development....