a blended life

The strangest thing happened-I blogged yesterday and it didn't show up. It was about Brian's LSAT, so rather than blogging again I'd like to recommend Brian's blog over there on the right (I am the Walrus) if you care. Have a happy weekend!

Here's how my weekend got started: The four of us went to the Draper Temple open house. It's an LDS temple that is opening up in south Salt Lake, and before the temple starts operating, they let anyone walk through it and see the inside. It's very beautiful and interesting, but two little girls I know couldn't have cared less. Short version-we left early. Maybe I'll go back without the little helpers. This is what I have to show for the rest of my weekend at my parent's: I went for a visit to spend a stack of gift cards that had been piling up...not that I minded that at all! We came home with a new David book, a Max and Ruby card game, a crockpot (but what I really wanted was a monkey bathroom set), a purse for me, these smashing bowls from Williams-Sonoma (I love them!), and of course some Build a Bears. Actually, Build a Hello Kitty and Build a Turtle. I don't have pictures of those because, well, I'm just too tired and cranky to care right now! I als...

Brian tested positive for strep today. He is capable of only a few activities: short naps around the clock, eating nothing, vomiting everything, and maybe an occasional shower. So far, the rest of us haven't had any symptoms and I'd like to keep it that way (maybe it has something to do with me and a bottle of bleach and some Clorox wipes and about 20 loads of laundry?). Did I mention that I'm not interested in getting sick? Guess which kind of wife I am right now: a)Oh my gosh! My poor husband is sick. I feel awful for him! I spend my time doting over his limp body, bringing drinks and cleaning the toilet twice a day. I don't expect anything out of him. Pobrecito. b)He's sick again?! Get over it- I'm through with single motherhood. In all fairness, I did get a delicious nap this afternoon. Thanks Brian! *heavy sigh* I am soooo ready for some HEALTH to happen in this house!!

I feel like I should post something because I really need that awful picture of me in the hospital off the front of this blog, but it's been a very rough few days and I just don't have it in me to do much right now except lay in bed. School is draining me more than I thought it could and Brian is sick for the third time in two weeks. I am not enough butter spread over too much bread. Sorry for the downer. Oh, wait-I did get my eyebrows waxed, so there's something good. I'm sure this will be a better week....

Hannah turned two today-hooray!-but no one was up to festivities. Brian has stomach flu, Leah has ear infections plus nasty fevers, and Hannah has sinus infections plus nasty fevers. We decided to celebrate in a few days when were up for it because, hey-she's two, right? We can get away with it this year. Next year I know we won't be so lucky, and we'd better not be so sick. This is a thought I've had many times over the past few months: Hannah came into this world at 1:50 am. I've been up at that hour with her almost every night since then...and I really wish that was an exaggeration! She's always been very passionate about food and turns every meal into a full body experience. She has a wonderful big sister! Leah loves her little sis and I really dig how they take care of each other. She's always been a bit of a monkey. There is way too much personality for her little body! She is such a delight to be around. We feel so blessed to have her and Leah both ...

I just wanted to add a quick note-I was approached at church today and told that someone else has been asked to play the organ and I would only need to fill in as a sub. I was thrilled!! Now I only have two callings instead of three...ahhhhh, relief. I love to do whatever and help in anyway I can, but it was getting a little nuts. So I'm down to teaching my spanish class, which is going well, then conducting the music in Relief Society. This is a schedule I can handle, especially since I'm a single mom at church usually!

We celebrated Hannah's birthday with the Walkers tonight-she'll be two on Tuesday! Not our little baby anymore... She and Leah both really love Rock Band or it's equivalent. I see a Wii in our future. Leah was feeling a tad jealous and needed some extra TLC, but overall did pretty well with someone else's birthday. Hannah got this really cute outfit from the Walkers and some Thomas trains from Grandma and Grandpa Day. We will open other gifts on her actual birthday. She was pretty happy about the whole deal! I made this heart cake-another example of "why didn't this turn out like the picture in my head?" Hannah didn't care, thankfully.

I wanted to post a short thingy about this thing we call Monster Concert. It's a yearly piano recital where the students of piano majors (about 150 kids) play duets for a big audience. This picture doesn't do it justice, but there are about 15 pianos on the stage and around 30 players per song. It's a lot of fun for the kids and an enormous amount of work for us-lots of rehearsal time and set up. I wasn't as involved this year as I have been but I still had a student participate, so I went. Part of it made me sentimental...maybe this will be the last time I participate in something like this? I don't know! Just the words "monster concert" make Brian convulse.

I'm having a major hair complex this week because I'm a girl and that's what we do. This was my hair last week-compliments of Dad's new portrait photography hobby. Here's my hair a few minutes ago-I got it cut and it's been getting some crinkly faced stares, so I thought maybe I looked ridiculous. But now that I'm actually posting about this instead something important, I realize that I'm making a big deal out of nothing. So let's not bring this up again. Maybe I won't even post this... I had to throw in some of the cute pics of the girls, because it's way more fun to talk about them than my stupid hair problems.

This is a out of focus picture that I'm posting for two reasons: 1)It's how I feel right now and 2)Leah took it-and I think her photography skills are improving. Hannah is notorious around our house for being the bad sleeper, but last night Leah was wide awake at 3 am. &*#$@. I'm so tired that I don't even want to work out-something I almost always want to do-so I thought I'd blog! Chances are good that this won't make much sense due to severe fatigue. Anyway, I have some cute pictures. The girls got some shorter haircuts last week. It was so sad! We had to do it because of the serious flying tantrums that happen everytime I pulled out a comb. So rather than having long, ratty hair, they have short ratty hair. But it kind of looks like it supposed to be that way and they don't scream as hard when I try to comb out crusty things. Puzzles are what you do when you've been up all night and you can't sit at the piano. The Walker clan got me this supe...