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 ...