a blended life

Happy Sugar Fest! (Disclaimer: When you live in Utah and Halloween lands on Sunday, you celebrate on Saturday. Everybody knows this unspoken rule, regardless of religious preference.) The excitement of Halloween was exploding at our house today-starting at 5:30 am with a screeching match between the girls that woke up the house. Awesome. These pictures don't do justice to their costumes. They looked so cute! Hannah was a Tooth Fairy (her idea) and Leah was Giselle from the movie Enchanted . She's been Giselle before, so costumes were easy this year. It was super stormy here. Right before these pictures, we had hail, thunder, lightening, and pouring rain. Luckily it all stopped by the time we had Trunk or Treat, but it was freezing! I think it was about 40 degrees. And some STUPID mom forgot to put Hannah's pants back on. She was a popsicle, poor thing. White streak in picture above=I don't know how to use my mom's camera. We did a big neighborhood Trunk or Treat at ...

I was going to post this on Facebook, but it needed a little more explanation. Here's my jr high quote of the day, courtesy of my co-worker: "Do your girls have similar markings?" She was trying to say 'do they look alike'. Did I deliver a litter of puppies or something? She was totally serious, too. I didn't realize the hilarity of it for a few hours, or I probably would have caused a scene. Markings? Really? Since I'm on the topic, I have to say that I absolutely love, love, love my job. It's so perfect for me. It was really hard to leave piano teaching and find a real career-type job, but I've found something I feel passionately about. I have never dreaded going to work, only the part where I leave and Hannah has a death grip on my neck, begging me to stay. I don't think that will ever get easier. Since I just drifted to the topic of kids, I had parent teacher conference today for Leah. She is in a transitional first grade class, so there ar...

Here are their school pictures for this year. I think they are starting to look more alike. Who really cares, though, since they're both so darn adorable. Yep, I'm a proud mom!!

***ATTENTION*** **THIS WILL MEAN NOTHING TO ANYONE** *CARRY ON* After a relatively exhausting, drab week, I've made a sweet discovery: See's Candies (which I consider to be the best kind of chocolate in the Western United States) now carries the best of the best: Very Dark Chocolate Truffle. Actually, there are other things at See's that I love deeply, but this is particularly special because it's an exact replica of the truffle that I get when I'm in San Fransisco at the Fudge House. Now I can get it here!! Hooray!

Dear faithful readers, I know I haven't posted in a while and I'm very sorry. It's been a roller coaster couple of weeks and the fun hasn't stopped. I survived divorce education class. It was pretty lame. All of the divorce paperwork has been signed and turned in, now we have to wait for the judge to sign it. It can take up to 60 days but I hear that 3 weeks is average. Then I will be an official SINGLE MOM. *shudder* The past few days have a been a blur. Hannah was up all night with the barfs. Skip this paragraph if you don't want to hear about it. She throws up about 5 times in a row, then repeats the process every 15 minutes for 2 hours. Then there is an hour of stomach cramps. She's been on this schedule since birth. It happens about every 4 months. I don't think anything's wrong, but if some stomach bug is going around, this is how she reacts. I don't like doing the graveyard shift without a nap all day. Cranky mom. Too many carbs. I keep wanti...

I'm writing tonight for two equally important and pressing reasons: 1) I need to get that school pic off the front page and 2)I need to get a few tough things off my back. My aching, need to go to pilates this week, back. Something that most people don't know: getting divorced is a big process, not one single kaboom event. So far I've met with an attorney and hashed out the terms of the agreement with Brian. That took 5 weeks. He signed his part and Thursday I signed some of my part. Now the attorney has to ______ (who knows what these guys actually do, and maybe I should find out since it's costing me an arm and a few toes) and I sign some more on Monday. Then we have to attend a mandatory, $55 parenting class--we can attend separately--and wait for the judge to sign the decree. Then it gets mailed to us at some undetermined point and we are officially divorced. There's no really big moment. It's all very anticlimactic and nearly unbearable. "Happiness in ...

The school made me get my picture taken, and if that wasn't bad enough, the picture company gave all staff members a free package. What in holy tarnation am I supposed to do with an 8X10 of myself?! I've been giggling about it all week, so I guess there's one bonus of the whole thing.