a blended life

Today marks a one year anniversary of my gallbladder surgery disaster. I'm not really interested in going into the details of that right now...I just reread the some of the journaling that we have of those events and it was horrifying. So, one year later I am still on a low-fat diet and probably will be forever. But I feel much better and really, really need 2009 to be a better year than 2008. A lot of very positive things happened this year and I don't want to forget those, but Brian and I are truly hoping for some better luck. Brian took this terrible picture of me after one of the surgeries. Not flattering, but who looks good in the hospital?

***WARNING*** The following post is picture-heavy and could be slightly boring.... This year was a bit of a milestone for us because we weren't with our parents, either set, so we had to grow up and make a good holiday for our kids all by our lonesomes. It was great! Definitely a keeper. This was also the first year that Leah cared about it, so we were really expected to produce. So, Christmas started out like most others-kids want to open presents, parents are too tired to care. I figured I needed to throw in a few obligatory pictures of present opening: Leah is posing with her biggest wish-a purple bathrobe. She's been saying this for weeks "I want a purple coat so I can be just like my Grandma." She's talking about my mom's blue bathrobe. The next photo needs no explanation, except that Brian got me some cool stuff. I'm not ging to make a list of gifts recieved because that would make this post even more boring and tacky. I'd like to mention now th...

Brian just shaved his head, so tomorrow I will be blogging about that and our Christmas adventures. We had a really good day, minus a few hours of hyperness, and I'm just too tired to get into it.

This was taken earlier this year, but it was cute and introduces my topic for the day-washing dishes. Some background: We live in a flippin' TRAILER HOUSE-a topic so sore with me right now that I can hardly talk about it. The reality of being true white trash is very raw at the moment....anyway, the place we are living is being torn down in a couple years. That means that they won't put any money into our 'house'. What happened this weekend: The disposal broke, and since it's not an essential item the maintenance guy ripped it out. And since the dishwasher won't work without a disposal, they are taking that too. So now we are trailer trash without a dishwasher. Maybe it should be mentioned that the topic of doing dishes has been one of the more taxing marital issues and not one that I wanted to revisit! Sorry if that last comment made anyone uncomfortable, but you are reading my blog and I'm one to hold back on anything. Additionally, the ONLY reason I was ...

Here's yesterday's little story. It's been snowing TONS here, so some dumb mom--let's just call her 'snow tard'--thought that Leah would like to make a snowman. So we-er, snow tard and Leah- suited up and went outside to make said man. Turns out the snow was a very typical Utah quality, which is fine and powdery and doesn't squish together. You have to wait until it gets a little warmer for that. Great for skiing, bad for snowmen. Snow tard tried in vain to pack a ball for a body, but the snow would only fluff around. Leah stood there, quite annoyed, saying "Snow tard, are we making a snowman?" or something like that. Finally snow tard got the shovel and heaped some snow in a pile and put the hat, nose, mouth and hands on it. Snow blob. Leah looked at it for a minute, patted his nose, and said "Let's go inside. I'm cold." She hasn't asked to make another snowman.

"and prove me now herewith... if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessings, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Malachi 3:10 We got hit twice today by 'secret santas'-people in our neighborhood who anonymously left gifts for our family for Christmas. They are nice and we are so, so grateful for other peoples time, money and generosity. We will put them under the tree and remember how other people are thinking of us. Hopefully we will be able to return the favor some day for someone else. We were trying to go to California for Christmas but it didn't work out, so we'll stay here and start our own traditions. Brian said he would make spaghetti for Christmas dinner.

My motivation is severely lacking lately but I didn't want a long time to go in between posts, so here's my quick update. Maybe I should mention that every winter in Logan, my motivation goes down the drain and my whole body nearly stops working because of frozenness. Lucky for us this year, the frozenness started early. Yay. *Leah got some new glasses. We are still trying to convince her to wear them, but they do look cute. I'll skip the story about how she had a meltdown at the optometrist over not bringing home the glasses right away, so they put a rush order on them and had them ready in a few hours. I tried to explain that she could really use a lesson in WAITING, but I think the severity of her trantrum was alarming. I guess I didn't skip that story. *Leah is also starting some medication. Due to the controversial nature of medicating children combined with those who are in the 'there's nothing wrong with Leah' camp (you know who you are), I'm not ...

It's time for another installment of 'things that are good in my life'. Or maybe this is the first installment. Anyway, we have a lot of blessings and many things to be grateful for, so I wanted to make sure they didn't go unnoticed. 1)We had to buy some tires that we couldn't afford, but yesterday we sold our upright freezer that we weren't using. An awkward moment happened when two people showed up at the same time and both wanted the freezer, then looked at me to decide who should get it. Bad for two reasons: a)They both were 'having a steer killed and needed some room for it'. EW! b)I totally didn't want to choose who should get the freezer! Someone just pay me and get it over with! 2)Leah's teacher says that she's 'popular with the other kids'. She's very accepting and everyone wants to play with her. We're glad she's having a good experience, even if she got in a spat with Santiago over a trike. 3)Speaking of the lit...

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I told myself when I woke up today that I. Was. Going. To. Have. A. Good. Day. It's all about attitude, right? So, I went to the ward party last night by myself (this is what happens when you have a munchkin who goes to bed at 7. Leah.) I got a flat tire in the parking lot, so Brian and a nice guy put on a donut-or is it doughnut?-and drove it home. I spent two hours in Sam's Club today getting it taken care of...to make a long and irritating story short, they wouldn't fix the tire ('it's too worn and is a liability for us. And your other front tire is terrible also'). I ended up leaving with two new tires. My fabulous-and I mean fabulous-sister took my girls while I waited, so I had some free time to eat samples and sit in an office chair and read Tales of Beedle the Bard. This is only cool if you are a Harry Potter geekster like I am. So, day wasted, Christmas money gone, but things could have been much worse. Hannah is a bit of a character. I don't know h...

I told myself I wouldn't post again until I had something positive to say or some good news. But if I wait for that to happen, I might not blog for months. Brian is out right now fixing a flat tire on the van with a guy-from-work-who's-our-neighbor-who's-in-our-ward. He's very nice, which is good because Brian was a little less than thrilled to be doing that tonight and probably needs some joviality (is that a word?) to help him get the job done. I'm going to skip a bunch of stuff about my week and about my kids because writing it might cause me to relive it. So here's some other things on my mind: Advent calendar update: We decided to stick it out and follow through with Leah opening on box every day, regardless of how much she likes what's in the box or what day the pink horse will be opened. It was rough at first, but she has the hang of it now and we don't have major issues every morning. Today Leah was eating lunch and wanted some of Hannah's le...

This is the first year that Leah has noticed the holidays and been interested in what they are. She still doesn't understand that Christmas=presents, and when someone tries to chat with her about Santa she gives a blank stare. But she knows something is up, so we thought we'd get her an advent calendar to help her get some idea of time until the big day. After getting the calendar, the rest of the day turned into a HUGE screaming tantrum. 1)I got the 'Playmobil Princess Unicorn Advent Calendar'. Sounds harmless and totally unrelated to the season, right? We are new to the world of Playmobil-and after today, I think I'll bow out. This ridiculous set had over 100 tiny pieces that had to be put together before the calendar was functional. Leah had zero patience for the setup period; it's for this reason that before her gifts are wrapped, they are assembled first. That was the start up of the tantrum... 2)The whole idea of the advent calendar is to open one box ever...

Mop or blog? Tough choice... I didn't get a chance to blog about the events of last week due to lack of camera...and now that I have my camera back, I've lost motivation. Additionally, for some reason there are NO pictures of my birthday, which is really a shame. Karina did an amazing job of everything-cake, decorations, food. We had Brazilian food (delicious!) and she made a beautiful chocolate cake. We played a game where everyone wrote a memory or thought about the birthday person and put it in a balloon. Then you blow up the balloon and the birthday person pops it and tries to guess who wrote it. It was a little obvious who wrote what, but still very funny and definitely humiliating (I think that the point. Thanks Karina!) It was a wonderful night. These are a few pics that don't really need explaining. The first one is of my brother Sean and his girlfriend Jean. She really cool and smarter than he is.