The Mom/wife- That would be me, also known as Marlana (or Lana). I'm 33 years old at the moment. I'm a wife, a mother of two and also a cancer survivor. I try not to think about the cancer part much since I enjoy the whole wife and mother thing soooo much more. (I'll talk about my cancer later)
The Daddy/Husband- That would be my husband Felix. He is 31 and loved very much around here by both myself and our two daughters. I'm sure most women think their hubby's are the best but really mine is hand's down. We've been through a lot in our 7 1/2 years together and he held my hand through all of it. I'm also pretty nuts sometimes and he hasn't ran away so that alone earns him huge props. (hee hee)
Daughter #1- Alanna Jewel, she just turned four and she has been the source of some major laughs around this place. There is never a dull moment with "Nonny" around and she has been entertaining us pretty much since the moment she was born. (We have pictures of her a few minutes after she was born where she looks like she was making moose antlers with her hands.)
Daughter #2- Angeline Barbara, this is the newest addition to our family. She was born on August 25, 2011. This is my little "butterball" at the moment her likes include lots and lots of "ba-ba's" and swinging in her swing. She's a pretty peaceful baby, not a lot of crying and just pretty content with life. (Did I mention she's cute as a bug?)
What would become known as "us" began back in July of 2004. I was just about to turn 26 when I met my now husband Felix. We began dating and within a very short time we were living together and spent every moment together, 6 months later he proposed to me and we were married on the one year anniversary of when we met.
Fast forward a bit to January 2007 and we were now expecting our first child.. A little girl that we named Alanna Jewel (we call her Nonny). Alanna was born on October 24, 2007 and I quickly became the "obsessed mom" who thinks everything their kid does is just the greatest, cutest, most perfect thing ever!! I have followed her around with a camera since minutes after she was born. This was kind of my payback for the 20 hours of labor, since I will have plenty of embarrassing photos to show her first boyfriend. (when she's 35 and we allow her to date.)
One year later in October of 2008 a strange lump about the size of a golf ball popped up on the left side of my neck and I was having bad headaches. A biopsy was done and the mass was removed, on November 8 I got about the worst news I could ever wanted to hear.. I had cancer. More specifically I had Hodgkins Lymphoma. I went through three surgeries and six months of chemo and was then told I was in remission. At the beginning of my diagnosis we were told that if I did not undergo fertility treatments and have some of my eggs frozen we would probably never have anymore kids. At that time I was more concerned with whether I was going to live or die and also caring for my twelve month old daughter so we opted not to have the fertility treatments. We were content with the idea that if God wanted us to have more kids then we would and if he didn't well; we still had our Alanna. I was told I was in remission in July of 2009 and our life resumed.
Here we are in 2011 and much to the surprise of EVERYONE I was pregnant with baby #2. We considered this nothing short of a miracle and a true blessing. At our 20 week ultrasound we found out baby#2 was another little girl. (Yay for girls!!) Baby#2 became our little Angeline Barbara who entered the world on August 25th after only a few hours of labor.
and that's our little family of four (although I do suffer from temporary insanity every once in awhile and ask my husband if we can have another baby because you know.. a couple hours of sleep each night is just wayyyyyyy too much and the only way to fix that is to have more and more babies) I'm kidding, but seriously a third and maybe a fourth would be nice someday maybe.
