Building Party; Lounging with Padre

When the girls woke up from nap this afternoon, the kids in the building invited them to come out and COLOR!

This looked like so much fun.

I'm so glad to live in an area with tons of kids. And they're all pretty nice kids too.

And they adore the girls. These other kids are 7-12 years old, but they'll come over and play kitchen or little people with my girls.

It's nice to have them entertained for a bit, and know they're okay.

And we recently got a new couch and chair (Thank you Jennifer and Kyle!) in our living room. They're extra comfy. Chris says the chair is his spot - the man chair!

Well, Maddie has found a little spot of her own.

She's such a daddy's girl!

The Great Nashville Monsoon of 2010

Double Hitter: I Heart Heritage Makers, Rain Rain Go Away

A few months ago I went to a party and discovered this online scrapbooking website. There are tons of advantages to using this website over others, or any kind of products you can buy for digital or traditional scrapbooking. But I'm not going into those. I just wanted to show off my latest creations. I LOVE THEM... and I HEART HERITAGE MAKERS. I made this swatch book (brag book) of my FAVOURTIE (english spelling) Things, MY GIRLS.

I just added different pictures of them and some wording here and there like their nicknames and sisters, friends, TROUBLE.

Then I made a family planner to keep me and chris more on the same page with our scheduling.

It is spiral bound so I can turn the pages very easily and even fold it back so only one page is open.

On every page there is a notes side and a calendar side.

And Lastly, I made Taylor's 3rd birthday invitations on it.

I designed them myself and I totally love em.

And Lastly... It has been raining non stop all day. I thought this little puddle outside our porch was bad...

but has anyone seen I-24 lately? It's a RIVER. SERIOUSLY. It's completely covering cars and 1/2 way up semis. There was a HOUSE floating down it early. That's right... A HOUSE floating down the interstate AT OUR EXIT!!!

We're very blessed to be safe in our apartment on a hill, but Chris tried to leave to go to the store, and we're stuck. There's no traffic moving on bell road.

We've had 10-12 inches here so far, and it's not the end of the day yet. It's supposed to continue to rain until Monday I think.

There's no way we can get to Church tomorrow, or even Chris's parents house (they're stuck too, all roads out are flooded.)

This all might not even be cleared up by Monday. They'll have to clean the interstate of all the cars, semi's, HOUSES, and debri before they can reopen it. Just craziness.

But it will be kinda nice to spend the whole weekend in together. And I'm sure we'll be very very ready to get out of the apartment when it all finally clears up!

Beautiful Girls...

I know everyone probably thinks this way, But sometimes I just look at my girls and I'm amazed at how pretty they are.

And they crack me up. They're sense of humor, and the way they say and do everything is so cute, and perfect. They are so precious to me and I love them so much.

Taylor is always saying the most HILARIOUS things. And Maddie is just too cute.

Maddie doesn't say "I..." anything really. Unless you ask her to repeat you. Otherwise, it's "Go potty, me" "Eat snack, Me" "Want Juice, Me" "Play toys, Me" I don't know why or where she got this from, but I think it's adorable. :)

The past few days the weather has been wonderful here and me and the girls have been having tons of playtime outside. Here's a bunch of pictures from the past few days. (there's some on facebook too!)

Elmo's World

In case you can't hear it, she says "lalala, World!"

I LOVE IT!

Yay for the internet!

We just got the internet back in our apartment (we were mooching before and they moved out, did I mention that?) I'm so glad. I've got alot to catch up on....

I need to finish out my posts on my spring cleaning... heck, i need to finish my spring cleaning.

There's lots of great stories about the girls from the past few days.

There's lots of planning for playgroups, crochet groups, project groups and other such stuff to post about.

And I also need to figure out what goes where as far as my two blogs go. The family blog vs the mommy blog.

Lots of posts to come now! I'm excited! You should be too!

SC - Day 2

Got a lot done today. :) It's super exciting. I cleaned out my room and organized our DVD's and CD's (which is you know us at all you know that this is a HUGE task!) I haven't quite gotten to my bathroom yet. I did clean out our coat closet, and got started on some of our bedroom closet. My half anyways. I got rid of all my maternity clothes. I kinda got a little done in my office.

Oh, and my kitchen, I cleaned and organized it alot too today. All my cabinets, pantry, cupboards, fridge, sink... It's spotless, atleast it was earlier.

I've been digicropping here at Wendee Truman's house tonight and if you haven't heard about Heritage Makers yet, you should definately check it out. I finished two books tonight and I'm crazy excited to get them in. :) It's too much fun.

Anyways, I'm sure I won't get much done tomorrow on the Spring Cleaning. With work it's hard. But we'll see. Til then!

SC - Day 1

Day one of my spring cleaning,

I did the girls bathroom, and the linen closet last night to start out. Mainly because they were small rooms with not alot of stuff in them. The girls bathroom was crazy easy. I threw away some of their bath toys that were just nasty, and found some stuff to sell. I also went through their medicine cabinet and cleaned it out.

I decided to put a small bag together of emergency stuff for the diaper bag. It's an old make up bag that I don't use anymore. I put baby shampoo and lotions in it, toothpaste, toothbrushes, medicines, hair stuff for the girls, nail clippers, a small first aid kit, and other stuff like safety pins, change and a pen and pencil and scrap paper. Now it's in this small bag and I can move this bag very easily to whatever diaper bag we're using. LOVE IT. (Thanks Devrie for the Idea. You're super woman!)

For the Linen closet, I took everything out and redid it. I read somewhere to put sheet sets inside the pillow case to keep them seperated and in easy reach. This worked out awesome. I love it.

After this, I was on a roll and went and decluttered my book shelf. I found a ton of books I"ll never read again and I've decided to put them up on Paper Back Swap. If you've never checked out this website, you should. I've gotten TONS of books from here, and shipped a bunch too.

The website is www.paperbackswap.com

Today, I decluttered the girls room. I went through their clothes this morning and sorted out ones to get rid of. I packed them up and took them to a local consignment store and made $15. The rest will go either to good will or someone who needs them (anyone need 0-12 mo girl clothes?)

I also went through my boxes of the girls keepsakes. I had like 6 and I've taken it down to 4. Two for each girl. And there's plenty of room to grow in those boxes.

I feel like I'm on a roll. There are pictures, some before and after. I'll add them on later cause at the moment we don't have internet. So, i'm mooching at families.

I'm so excited to get this done, and it's a huge plus to make some money at it also. It paid for our dinner tonight (picnic at the park for FHE!) It's already improving our lives and home!

Getting Spring Cleaned

I've never really been one to SPRING CLEAN. I figured you should be cleaning all year long, right? Why should the spring be DEDICATED to cleaning?

I finally realized that Spring cleaning is more about decluttering than actually cleaning. And I'm a pack rat, so decluttering is not something that comes natural to me. But, I have decided to dedicate this next week to "Spring Cleaning." I'm going to go through our apartment, room by room, and declutter, getting rid of what is not needed, unnecessary, and has no value to us... really.

My problem is that I do attach a bit of sentimental value to things that really shouldn't have any. For instance, I still have notes from some of my best friends from high school. A couple of these people I'm still friends with on facebook, but I honestly haven't seen them in a good 7-8 years and those notes are probably all about how in love I was with some boy. So what's the point in keeping that? I don't know.

I also keep cards. Birthday cards, christmas cards, anniversary cards, valentine cards... I keep them all. I don't know what to do with them, so they're all in a box in my closet. Well, they're going. Most of them anyways. The ones with meaningful messages and happy memories, I'll keep. But the "Merry Christmas, Love The Soandsos" are getting trashed.

I save tons of my girls things. Especially colored pictures. I have a huge drawer full of them, and they need to go. I'll keep some of them, but I probably have a few hundred just sitting there. I'll make a little scrapbook for them, but the rest will go.

At the end of this week, I'm going to try and evaluate my progress. Hopefully I'll have a big ol box of stuff to toss, giveaway, or sell, and our apartment and lives will be less cluttered with junk and more full of love (cheesy moment!) :P I can't wait to be Spring Cleaned!

Y Pics

It's been forever since I posted pictures but a good friend of mine at the Y took these of the girls playing. LOVE IT.

The Y has been such a blessing for our family. Taylor had her first swim lesson today and did GREAT. It won't be long before she's a little fish. And She'll be in camp little y this summer. She's really come out of her shell since we've been coming here. She'll talk to just about anyone now and has made tons of friends. We all have. Maddie's got a bunch of little friends her own age here... and she acts like she owns the place. It's great.

I really enjoy all the programs and classes. They really are wonderful and I would recommend a membership to ANYONE. :) it really has been great for us.

First Tumble

My little bitty baby had her first bad tumble yesterday. While we were at John and Krystin's house watching their boys, Moo decided to walk down the stairs like a big girl... without holding on to anything. Me and C were in the Kitchen when we heard her start tumbling and we got to the stairs just in time to see her land on her nose on the wood floor.

Her nose immediately started bleeding and bled for a good 20 minutes atleast. The bridge of her nose swelled up and bruised. I couldn't believe there wasn't anything else wrong with her. She has a tiny bit of bruising on her side, but that's it.

I think that's the most blood I've ever seen come from one of my girls. I handled it much better than I ever thought I would. I guess those mommy instincts kick in and you just do what needs to be done.

Anyways, Maddie is fine. Still has blood coming out of her nose a bit. But it's dried up now. I don't think there's any permanent damage and I've very grateful. It could have been much worse.

New blog Here!

That's right, Yet again I changed blogs. Mainly because I changed email addresses and wanted a fresh start. So here ya go. My new blog

www.TheNashvilleNeelys.blogspot.com

Hope you like it.

Updated

I have been awful with this whole blog world lately. I haven't even been checking anyone's blogs, which is crazy for me. I'm a blog-a-holic usually. But I guess life is just busy. Because It's been so long and lots has been going on (as it usually does) I'm going to update everyone on our little world here.

Maddie - Maddie has hit the TERRIBLE TWO's 6 months early. It is BAD. She has an AWFUL temper, the likes of which I've never seen in someone so tiny. She usually will pitch one fit a day and that fit can last anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple hours. She'll hit things (walls, people, furniture, toys, anything in reach). She throws things (sippy cups, toys, etc.) She knocks things over (toys, furniture, and yes, people!) She is ROTTEN. I'm getting aggravated with it. I don't know what to do. I put her in time out. I'll spank her (giving her "something to cry about.") I'll put her to bed, I'll ignore her, I'll try to draw her attention to something else. This girl of mine is STUBBORN. And yes mom, I know it's payback :) Thanks for all the reminders. I'm praying this is just a phase and that it doesn't last long, cause if it does, then I won't!

Regardless, when Maddie isn't throwing a huge tantrum, she's the sweetest, most cuddly little girl I've ever seen. She gives the best hugs. She says hi to everyone and thinks she's big stuff at the Y. She even has a "boyfriend" now who is 4 years old. He adores Maddie as much as she adores him. He'll hold her hand and walk her around, get out toys for her, push her on the cars... all sorts of things. And he's a total cutie also.

She's talking all the time now too. She can repeat just about anything we say to her. It's so sweet to hear her little voice. Taylor gets her to repeat things all the time, like people's names and such. She LOVES to say her prayers at night. She just repeats what I say for now, but she does good. And she always says AMEN real loud after prayers. I love it.

Today was Maddie's first day in nursery, and she didn't fuss one bit. Thank you Y for prepping her for that step. :) It's so nice to be able to sit through a sunday school lesson.

Taylor - Taylor is turning into such a beautiful kid. I think both my girls are GORGEOUS, but both in their own ways. Maddie is crazy cute, but Taylor is such a Classic beauty - like she walked out of a 40's or 50's movie. Anyways - She also has a boyfriend. He's 4 years old and loves to play with Taylor. He pretends he's a puppy and she feeds him and takes him on walks and just takes care of him. It cracks me up. His mom asked if taylor was his girlfriend and he said "Yeah, I think so." :) Love it!

Taylor loves nursery and playing at the Y. She's turned into a real social butterfly lately, which is huge for her. She used to be painfully shy. But her friends and teachers have helped her open up alot more.

This summer Taylor will be going to camp at the Y three days a week from 8:30-3:30. I'm a bit nervous to not have her with me, but I think she'll LOVE it. She'll also be taking dance starting in May, and swim lessons over the summer (Maddie will be taking swim lessons also. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my job?)

Taylor is constantly talking or singing now. She's hardly EVER quiet, even in her sleep. When she sleeps in our bed (which happens rarely) chris says that me and taylor sleep talk back and forth! Too funny.

Chris - Chris is loving working at his new job. It's only a 4 minute drive from home, so he comes home daily for lunch with us girls. :) It's nice because we only get to eat dinner together a couple times a week. Those lunches make up for it. He has also started working Saturdays instead of Mondays. It's a little odd still, but it's nice to have him home on Mondays. For example, we're taking the girls to Chuck E Cheese tomorrow for lunch. :)

He's also been crazy sweet and awesome to me lately. For example: getting up at 11 to make me a grilled cheese and pickle sandwich, buying me not one, but 2, not 12 packs, but 24 packs of DR. PEPPER, letting me nap today for a few hours, buying me a GREEN vaccum, taking me out on a date shopping for shoes, and buying me awesome dark chocolate colored silky bed sheets!. :) I'm married to the most awesome man ever! yup. He's the love of my life. And he's getting old. His birthday is next Sunday! ;)

And lastly - Me - I'm doing well. Just busy with work, church, and the girls. I've got some great ideas in the works for new things at work, and working on visiting teaching. I'm also still trying to get a routine in place here in our new home, which i LOVE. I miss having chris's mom and dad around, but I've been so busy lately, I would have hardly seen them if we did live there. :)

All in all, we're doing great. Settling into our home and new jobs and routines. :) I swear there will a video soon of our place. I made one, but it sucked. Maybe I'll let chris do it. He's more entertaining than me. :)

Alright then... Well... You've been updated!

The Sandstroms

Okay, okay, okay, I know. No video up yet, but that's because our apartment has yet to be all clean enough to show on video. I swear, it'll be done in the next week.

Moving on...

A friend on Facebook asked me about what happened yesterday and so I figured it'd be easier to post it on here as opposed to there. To make this a bit more fun (cause the story can be hard to tell) I'm going to actually TELL A STORY. :)

A LONG LONG LONG time ago... I was working at a daycare while me and Chris planned our wedding. I loved my job (I've always worked with kids) and there was one boy in particular in my class who caught my attention. His name was Joseph, but I called him Jojo. He was a sweet little boy, but like most boys, loud and rowdy. He immediately won my heart over.

Joseph had 2 older brothers who also came to that same daycare. Charlie and Sidney very quickly worked their way into my heart also. They were my favorites, and I was theirs.

Joseph, Charlie, and Sidney lived with their grandparents in foster care. The day came when their grandparents could no longer take care of them and they were going to have to be seperated in the foster care system. It broke my heart to know this, and I came up in tears that day, upset that the boys would be leaving the daycare, and also they would be losing each other.

My mom and dad came to the rescue. They said they'd do whatever it took to keep these angels together. And they did. Joseph, Charlie, and Sidney came to live with my parents. They were not only my little friends at the Daycare, now, they were my brothers. I loved them as if they were mine even.

It eventually came time to find our boys a mom and dad who could love them forever. My mom and dad contacted LDS services and very quickly found the Sandstroms, a real Cowboy and Cowgirl, with a real farm, and cows, horses, chickens. It was a dream come true for our boys.



But the nightmare that had previously been their life was not completely over. There were many many battles with DCS, the courts, the biological parents and grandparents. It was hard on these young boys, never knowing if they'd have a real family one day.

This past summer, our Father in Heaven decided it was time for Charlie to return to him, at only 9 years old. Those of us who were left behind understand who he is, where he is, and what he's doing. But we do miss him in our lives, very dearly. No one in this world had a smile (or could move :P) like Charlie.

Yesterday, The battles, and war finally ended. The adoption was granted and now Joseph, Sidney, and yes Charlie too, have a mommy and a daddy. Last night, Joseph and Sidney also were baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And I'm positive Charlie was looking down from Heaven, so proud of his sweet brothers.

I have never in my life been so touched by a baptism. Looking down into that water and seeing these strong little men. While Sidney was waiting to start, I blew him a kiss and he blew one right back to me. You can't help but fall madly in love with these boys. You really can't. There was proof in that court room yesterday. We had it packed with every seat filled and all the walls lined with people, supporting, cheering, and loving these boys. I've never in my life seen such a miracle.

And this weekend, I'll be priveleged to see another miracle, as Charlie's temple work will be done, and this gorgeous little family will be sealed for time and all eternity. I am so very grateful to have witnessed this miracle, and to have had any part in it. I'm so grateful to my mom and dad for being so willing to love these boys, to see how truly unique and special they are, and for so unselfishly opening up their hearts and home to them. My parents are such great examples to me. I'm so grateful to the Sandstroms, for loving these boys so much. For wanting so badly to be their mom and dad. For never giving up, after all the battles, the trials, the fighting, the drama. They are superman and superwoman in my eyes, and many others. I love them so much, and I'm so glad to be considered a part of their family. :)

Yesterday truly was a miracle, and I'm so excited for the rest of it this weekend.

Box, after Box, after Box...

So, we're unpacking now. We're here at our apartment, and I'd Say it's about 75% set up. It's pretty much just little stuff now. All the big things are where they go. All the tv's are set up, but no cable yet, which I'm actually really enjoying. The girls aren't watching it as much, and if it takes us til this summer to set it up, that's fine by me. We buy all our favorite shows on DVD anyways. We're mooching cable off a neighbor right now, but hopefully in the next few weeks we'll have that set up. The girls both slept through the night last night, and very lovingly woke us up this morning. I took the day off from work so I could focus on unpacking cause I'm stressing it a bit. I can't think in clutter, and our apartment is a bit of a mess, with little boxes everywhere. So Today, hopefully it'll be set up and I'll do a video tour for everyone and post it. :) Anyways, I need to go clean up the girls room again so they can actually find their toys and play with them. I'm loving our new place... Love love love it!