Nela post-surgery

Here's Nela after the surgery. She's doing fine, still pulls at her ears a little, but doesn't appear to have any problems.

Nela pre-surgery

We had to get up pretty early Friday morning after Thanksgiving to take Nela to the hospital. She's been having ear infections since Sept. 18 and we finally decided it was time to put tubes in each ear.




This is when the nurses took her back. The surgery only took about 10 minutes.

More random shots

Here's Nela and cousin Klein who came to spend the weekend with us.

Von, Rolland and Nela eating Chereos at the mall

Here's Von just hanging around.

Playtime at the mall

Here's Nela playing at the mall

Random shots

Nela always passes out on daddy's belly!

Nela 1/2 way through a mall trip

Here's Von riding a motorcycle at the mall

Von and Nela

Rolland and Von

Miracle on Main Street

It sure was a Miracle on Main Street. Look at these good looking kids! That's Hanna on the left.

This was really cute of Von and Hanna!

My stupid camera is not meant for night time. Wish I would have taken my Nikon!

Misc shots

Hanna and Von dug right in at last weeks family reunion, before the meal even started!

Here's Nela taking a bite out of Kujo's belt.

Here's Kujo enjoying himself at our family reunion.

Nela and family

I just loved this picture of Nela laying on Kujo's face.

Here's another favorite. I love seeing their interaction.

Here's me and my baby girl.

And just Nela again. She's soooo pretty!

Here's mom and Nela.

The thin me

I wanted to do an official kick off to this topic, but I can't wait to get my thoughts all straight first. For those of you who haven't heard, I've been looking into getting the gastric bypass surgery done. I've been somewhat practicing the diet and exercise to see if I'd be able to make it. The past couple weeks, after having met with the clinic's nutrionist, I've been getting up EARLY to exercise ... 6 a.m. is sometimes too early, but I'm working hard at doing a mile on the treadmill before work. After my mile walk, I have my breakfast while watching the Steve Harvey Show, followed by my morning bath/shower, then the normal routine of feeding and dressing Nela while Kujo gets the boys ready for school. I think I'm going to do fine. I've realized I do eat more sweets than I originally thought. I do well staying away from them at work, and at home when they're not here. I think I'm going to have to say No Thanks when it comes to friends/family dropping off goodies for the boys. Out of sight, out of mind, in the house, in my mouth is the motto around here. I'm excited to go through this process, and hope I decide to do the surgery after all my initial visits are complete, because this BBW (big beautiful woman) is looking forward to shopping in the skinny girl department.

The forgotten one

I felt terrible today. I forgot to pick up Brayden at TLC. I kept reminding myself that I had to pick him up and even had it written down on my work calendar to leave early. One of the reporters was doing a story on TLC in the afternoon which was another reminder that I was to leave early to pick him up.

Sure enough, 5 p.m. came, I shut down my work computer and when to pick up the kids as usually at the day care. I get there and one of the girls stopped me and said she was so worried when she couldn't find Brayden when the bus came, then she found her note about his being at the program on Tuesdays.

I was 30 minutes late ... well, they were probably only waiting about 15 since the parents meeting started at 4:45 p.m. I pull up and there's the assistant principal, the TLC lady, tutor and Brayden. I think this just proves that you're more likely to forget the things that you constantly remind yourself about.

Brayden said "Mom, I thought you weren't going to come for me" ... he was probably wishing I had after I wore him out with housework when we got home!

Sibling photo shoot

FINALLY! I'm so pleased with myself and my kids. I wanted to do a photo shoot since I haven't uploaded pics in a week and I actually got a couple good ones!

We were all having so much fun. Once I got my nice one, I kept snapping because the kids were playing around and we were being silly!

Ouch! Looks like Nela got him good!

I love this picture of Von. This was a really fun time for us all .. then it was time for bed!

Poor kids

Poor Brayden, he's being attacked by Von and Nela...

Poor Nela! Von tries to carry her around and when you tell him to put her down ... well, he does, no she's not standing, um, she's being put down. So far, she's landed like a cat!

Ahh, Rolland. Here is his riding his bike on the TowPath. I thought my friend Barb would appreciate the shadows in this picture.

Sibling fun

Ahhh, how sweet, Brayden and Nela

Von was sure cracking up about something..

I love it when he smiles. He usually looks so sad, even though he's having a blast

There's my pretty girl, Nela.

Nela and big brother Brayden getting close