Made from SCRATCH?

On our way home from a walmart shopping trip:

Anna: MOM we forgot to get the brownies!

Mom: No we didn't sweetheart, we bought stuff so Daddy can make brownies from scratch.

Anna: I don't like scratch!


HAHA!!!!

Daddy's Girls

It always warms my heart when I find my kids behaving or acting like me. It gives you that immortal feeling that what you are teaching your kids today will be passed on for generations to come.

Yesterday at work Alaina called saying "Hey Dad you are going to be so proud of me!" Now see this is where my mind goes right to the buckle your seat belt and hold on tight mode… I respond "What did you do sweetie?" Alaina in her proudest voice "Well, I went to the doctors today and they tried giving me a shot, so I passed out!" Already I can feel a little warming in my heart I silently say "that's my Girl" and then she finished "… then on the second shot I threw up!" Full Celebration mode kicks in - YES! pumping my fist in the air! My Sweet girl is JUST like her Dad!

Anna has ALWAYS answered the following question like this…
Who made you smart?
Anna - "Mommy"
Who made you pretty?
Anna - "Daddy"

Thats what its all about -

~Shawn~

Stick Man

Here is the long awaited video of Nolan on Halloween this year. Teresa, his mother, made his costume and she did a great job (she always does). Anyway, I finally got it off my camera and the girls fixed it all up for our enjoyment. They did a great job and it is WAY FUN to watch. ENJOY!






Kellie ~Cleopatra~
Ashlee ~She called herself the Teal Witch~
Anna ~Spider Man~


Olivia and Alaina ~Orthodontist Assistants~
Nolan ~Stick Man~


All the Kiddos


All of Kellie, Ashlee, and Anna's candy.


Anna and her big Spider Man muscles. Oh my goodness was she excited when we found this costume. She had it for a few weeks before halloween and had to put it on almost every other day just because ... well in order to be Spider Man you have to wear the costume sheeesh!

abc's and 123's

If anyone knows of any children that are in need of preschool ... I have openings in Mini Monkey's Preschool. 2 morning spots and 3 afternoon spots.

GIMME A SHOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we are on our way to the doctor's office. All the way there I am explaining to my 2 youngest daughters about flu shots. How it only hurts for a tiny second and then it is over and they give you a way cool band-aid to put on the shot spot. Of course they had a lot of questions for me and I answered them all with ease! So they are completely fine with getting a flu shot when we arrive at the doctor's. We get in there and the nurse says they can just get flu mist. Which is a liquid jelly type of stuff they put up your nose and you sniff it up and it doesn't hurt like a shot. It might taste bad in a few minutes but it does not hurt. So I am all for it and I OK the nurse to let them have the flu mist instead of the shot. The nurse comes in with this mist stuff in a syringe. She explains that it is going in their nose and not their arm. WELL ... the older child freaks out and steps back. "NO WAY she has to go first then!!!", she says pointing to her tiny 4 year old sister. So the nurse gives it to the younger child and she does just fine. The older child is confused and asks if it hurt. Laughing, the younger child says "NO!". Apparently the older child thought that the syringe still had a needle and she was going to be stuck in the nose with this flu medicine. SO FUNNY. She was fine once we explained it to her. OK NEXT, we have to go upstairs for different stuff. And while we are there they are complaining about NOT getting an actual SHOT. I am so confused at this point and so are the people sitting across the waiting room from us. They are listening and laughing at children. I keep telling my kids that I am sorry that I had them get the mist instead of the shot. I assured my 4 year old that next year when she went to kindergarten that she would get plenty of shots. She thanked me and sat for a minute and then asked "Will I get my really cool band-aid then"? OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! That is why they are upset that they did not get the shot! OK so the other people in the waiting room are trying to keep their laughter to a minimum as to not hurt my children's feelings. WHATEVER! That is funny stuff. So we get to back down to the doctor's office and explain it to the nurse who looks at me more confused than I thought she would LOL. She laughed and agreed to give them both a really cool band-aid. She told them "I would love to give you a band-aid instead of a shot any day". The doctor came in and we told him and he thought it was pretty funny, too. And as we are leaving my youngest asks if we can go on the "alligator". That is what she calls the elevator. I have told her a million times that it is an elevator and she tells me that she will just call it an alligator anyway.

TAG TAG TAG

Alrighty ... so Carrie Maas tagged me and brought it to my attention that I had not honored the "tag rule". Someone needs to slap my hands with a ruler. Ok here are the rules:

1. Link to person who tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random/weird facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your list, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

My random/weird facts ...

1. I LOVE folding laundry (but is that really weird?)
2. I have to fall asleep while the TV is on.
3. I love to vacuum and mow the lawn because it makes those neat lines.
4. Every closet in my house is color coded.
5. I still have the light that was hung in my bedroom when I was a tiny little girl.
6. My sweet parents and my lil brother live in my basement.
7. I have a cleaning lady come to clean my bathrooms because I HATE doing that!!!!

I tag everyone that has not been tagged because I have not been on here enough to know who has not been tagged.

SICK OF BEING SICK!

So here I sit at 1:33 a.m. at the computer because when I lay down all I can do is cough. I have been sick for a week now. I keep thinking everyday that tomorrow will be the day that I am all better. Well it is just not happening. I am sure the rest of you are all snug in your beds and dreaming of suger plumbs or what have you. HAHA now I can't wait for Christmas.

I have not posted on here in forever. I feel like I have nothing interesting to say lately. I just feel super busy. So much has happened it would take forever to tell you everything. I just need to be better at this blogging thing. Shawn better start posting too dangit!

Let's see ... since our last post .... We had our 1 year Temple sealing anniversary on Sept. 1st. We were sealed in the Logan Temple so we went back up to Logan to stay the night. I think we are going to do it every year. We stay at The Providence Inn. It is wonderful there. Go check out their site . We have stayed in 2 of the rooms now and we are planning to stay in a different one each time we go. I absolutely love it there!

My neice Brynlee was born. GOOD GRIEF!! Ya gotta love babies. She is freaking adorable. You will have to go see pics of her and her sister. My brothers blog is under my family list - Nick and Aimee Sommer. Ya know what, my Mom and Dad had 1 girl and 3 boys. They kept trying for a girl and it never happened. Now they have 2 grand-sons and 8 grand-daughters. They finally got all their girls didn't they? Now on the other hand I kept trying for a boy and ended up with all girls. Thank goodness for my step-son, otherwise I wouldn't know what it was like to have a son at all.

Four of our 5 girls got braces. How cute are kids with braces?! They all look older. Yeah, that is not a good thing but they really are cute. We want to get pics posted soon of the 4 of them standing together. Three of them have blue and orange elastics ... GO BRONCOS! Yes they did it for the Broncos. Or maybe they did it for their Dad and their Uncle Justin. Who knows? I do know that if Anna had braces too right now then hers would be orange and blue, too.

My Mom and Dad and my brother Koby moved in with us this month. I begged them and begged them to sale their house and move up here and it finally worked! No really there were very logical and good reasons for them moving up here with us. They sold their house pretty quick and didn't have time to really look for a house that they actually wanted up here so we told them to just move in with us. I do not expect them to move out until at least Spring. Moving is stressful and the snow is coming soon so there is no point in rushing to get out when they just got everything settled in my basement. They have 1,000 sq/ft to live in right now so they will be fine until Spring.

Preschool is awesome! I love teaching those adorable students of mine! I can't believe I didn't start a preschool sooner. We have so much fun everyday. We have already been on a field trip to a tumbling class and we have Andrea Hanks coming to take pics of the kids on Tuesday. You will have to go see her blog too .. under my Rock Creek list. She rocks and I am so excited to get these pics done for the kids. I only have positive things to say about my preschool and my students. I am so happy and blessed to be able to do this in my life right now.

OK see I have too much to talk about and now it is 2:00 a.m. so I am going to go to sleep, HOPEFULLY, and maybe catch you up on more stuff later. SWEET DREAMS!

~Michelle

Sooo why were there two proposals…

This does sound better coming from me, after all it is ALL my fault!

This isn't really all that good of a story… more of a timing issue on my part…

I asked Michelle to marry me 2 years before we actually ended up tying the knot… both times I did a stealer job at it. And both times she said YES! That’s cause I'm such a great catch ;)

The first time was in a park - I was SO excited to ask her, down on a knee close to her face with the wind blowing her hair into my face. Problem was… (besides being brain dead) I wasn’t yet prepared to actually BE married :D(ooops).

Two years later I asked her again. A little cheesier… at Olive Garden with me on my knee(again). Lucky for me she still loved me after the two year delay. And she said YES! Again!

All 'Bout the Hubby

1. What is his name? Michael Shawn McNeely
2. Who eats more? Shawn
3. Who said, "I love you" first? Shawn
4. Who is taller? Shawn, he is 6'2" I am 5' 11
5. Who is smarter? Shawn because he knows something about everything ... even the boring stuff
6. Who is more sensitive? Shawn unless it has to do with the kids then I am more sensitive. Not that he doesn't ADORE the children ... I am just more sensitive when it comes to the kids.
7. Who does the laundry? I do
8. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you are standing at the bottom of the bed looking at the bed then I would be on the right side and Shawn on the left. Although, we have traded like 4 times since we have been together. We haven't traded in a LONG time though.
9. Who pays the bills? Me. Because Shawn doesn't want to and I would go crazy if I didn't know where all the money was.
10. Who cooks more? Taco Del Mar or Dragon Hill. HAHAHAHA. But we both cook at home and Shawn is much better at it than I am, I HATE COOKING!
11. Who is more stubborn? He would say I am I think. I don't know which one of us is really the most stubborn.
12. Who is the first to admit they are wrong? Never ME! Ok I say I am wrong when I know I am wrong, otherwise he is wrong.
13. Who has more siblings? I do. I have 3 younger brothers. He has 1 younger sister and 1 younger brother.
14. Who wears the pants in the relationship? I think we both do because it depends on the situation. He likes to say that he is the "owner" and I am the "manager" of the house. I make MOST of the decisions.
15. What do you like to do together? We love watching movies. We haven't had too much time to do that lately though with our jobs and callings in the church and kids activities going on.
16. Who eats more sweets? UMMMMM, right now he does.
17. Guilty Pleasures? Not sure if they are really guilty ... Shawn LOVES to read and I buy scrapbook stuff and preschool stuff.
18. How did you meet? Internet ~ ICQ.
19. Who asked whom out first? He asked me.
20. Who kissed who first? I think I may have kissed him first.
21. Who proposed? He did twice.
22. His best features and qualities? I love his personality, the way he loves me unconditionally, when he cries, and the thing I love most about him is that he holds the power of the priesthood and uses it everyday.
23. Tag you’re it. Who do you tag? I am not sure who hasn't done this. If you haven't then do it!

Temple Trip

Okay so today is temple day, and I LOVE temple day! Every time we have a temple trip planed I walk around before hand singing...

I love to see the temple. I'm going there TODAY to feel the Holy Spirit To listen and to pray. For the temple is a house of god, a place of love and beauty...

Today will be a special temple trip with our ward. It is such a treat to have so many people we love go at the same time. I only hope that Michelle is feeling good enough to come along. She is still feeling bad, but she has been on her medication for a couple of days now so she isn't contagious any more. I really don't want to go without her :( Hopefully it wont come to that.

Shawn

A sick Mom

What good kids we have! Michelle has been sick the past couple of days, last night I took her to the doctors and they said she had strep. Here I am at work, kinda worried about my sweet wife, so I call home - Kellie answers the phone, she is such a sweet girl taking care of Anna and Ashley and running water and medicines upstairs for mom. It is so nice to have kids that can step up and be such good kids. I love my kids they all have a sweet spot in my heart!

Get better sweetie!

Shawn

CRAZY KIDS!

I just love it when my kids say the craziest things. The most recent was a conversation with Anna this morning. It went as follows:

Anna: Mom, are we going to let that bee live in our house for days?

Mom: That is not a bee sweetheart, it's a fly and no we are not going to let it live here for days.

Anna: It's going to get me and hurt me.

Mom: No it's not going to hurt you. It just wants to eat our food. Flies don't hurt us. They just fly around our house looking for stuff to eat.

Anna sits for a few moments and then asks ... Mom, do flies have little forks that they eat our food with? (holding her thumb and pointy finger as close together as she can to illustrate how tiny the fork would be)

(((OH MY GOSH!!! It took every thing I had not to bust out laughing!!!!)))

Mom: No they do not eat like us. They eat their food just with their mouths, like a dog.

Anna: That's funny!! (giggles)

She thought that was the funny part! I LOVE MY CRAZY KIDS!

Trek Zombies!

The girls are HOME!!! I am so proud of my lil girls! They are both alright they both have some blisters on their feet Alaina has a little wind burn on her face and Olivia has a small scratch on her leg - I think that is doing pretty good for roughing it for four days! Welcome back Olivia & Alaina!

Weekend Chores

There is nothing better then the accomplishment of chores! Sure you can look at my little chores and say dang you really didn't do much (cause I didn't) but big or small there is no better feeling then finishing your weekend chores! The grass is cut the turtle tank is clean and the dogs are washed!
~Shawn~

BLESSED?????

I feel so blessed to finally be living closer to family now. We get to see them more than once or twice a year. We get to share in birthday parties and holidays. Kellie gets to see her dad every other weekend now. But the thing is .... my kids have been gone all week. Kellie is at her dads, Olivia and Alaina are at trek (lucky girls), Ashlee and Anna are at my mom and dads house, and Nolan has been with his mom (which is fine). You would think that I would be super happy to have the children out of the house for a while. OK fine I am happy BUT it is so quiet. The children FINALLY get back tomorrow after being gone ALL week. I told Shawn the other day that I am not sure I will be able to deal with our children moving out EVER! I have been doing day care/preschool for the past 11 years. I am use to noise and chaos. What will I do when they all move out??? When I was younger I always had this dream of sitting in my rocking chair on my porch with my husband, drinking lemonade, and watching the grand-kids swing on a tire swing hanging from our HUGE tree in our front yard. What the heck was I thinking? First off - I don't enjoy lemonade and second - what else will we be doing? Is that all there will be to do? No messes to clean up.
No driving back and forth to dance and sports or what have you. No breaking up fights. No kids to send back to bed, because as Anna would say in the middle of the night "my bed is not comforble". No one to fight over who gets to sit on my lap and love me. No one to call me from school because they are ill or forgot something. No one to help floss or brush their teeth. No one to scare as they pass the room I am hiding in. I just pray that Shawn and I remain the best of friends so that we don't ever have to try to remember how to be friends when the kids are all gone. I MISS ALL MY KIDS! ~Michelle~

My first Blog - being perfect

This is a monumental event; finally the day has come for my very first Blog post! Besides the obvious reasons for starting a Blog (Not wanting to be left out) I thought hummm what would/could I use a Blog for… Sharing information about what is going on in my family’s life(s) and mine OR posting my rants – ohh trust me I have rants – (ask my kids about China) OR I could actually make this a meaningful blog and talk about issues and things that touch me. Finally I thought shut up and just do it!
My first Blog…
BEING PERFECT…
As you can see I am perfect in every way just look at my full head of hair! How many times have you been told – “you’re the perfect person for this... (task/job/position)”. There must be something that person saw in you, right? In a way it’s both rewarding and daunting to have this compliment thrown our way. Yes we all strive to be perfect and we all find great joy in being thought of as the right person, but there is the other nasty side to this… now we have expectations to fulfill and the chance of coming up short. How do we overcome this? Let’s look at this from the view of a church calling. We get callings and we are trying to fulfill our duties. Can we ever say – I was perfect in my calling I did everything that the Lord wanted me to do when I was asked to do it. Or do we attempt to do our best, and at times procrastinate assignments until the night before? My point is that we try to be perfect but realistically we come up short. Perfect is not something we can actually achieve only something we strive to become. Only our savior is truly perfect. So how do we as mortals that are set up to fail move forward? Outside of our LDS religion this is recognized and promoted as being “Born Again”. How do we as LDS look at being Born Again? Is it by our saviors grace alone like most Evangelical’s believe? Or is it by you partaking of the sacrament like most Catholics believe? I feel that it is a combination of the two – By our Savior’s grace we have the opportunity and by partaking the sacrament and repentance we regenerate our connection to Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father can not be in the presence of anything that is not perfect, but being the loving Father that he is, he provided a way for us to be linked with him through the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost withdraws when we are not at our best and then through repentance we can regenerate, like a star fish will regenerate lost limbs, our connection with Heavenly Father. Yoda was wrong then – “Do or do not, there is no try” – to be perfect, we have to continually TRY to be perfect and to pick ourselves up and press ever onward. I am positive that not every blog of mine will be so pointed, (or LONG!) but this is what I was thinking about on my way to work, and I wanted to share it with all of you blog-ers?

Shawn

NEWBIES :) Our first post!!!!

So Shawn wanted a blog SOOOOO bad. He told me that if I wanted to I could surprise him with one. Well, honey bunch, here ya go - adorned with Broncos, pictures of our wonderful children, and well nothing else yet.

I am trying to figure this whole BLOG thing out. Marianne Duke told me - and I quote - "you get a blog and you will never shower again and the house will stay messy". Well I saw her house and it didn't look messy at all to me and she apparently blogs in her sleep.

I suppose this whole BLOG thing will be fun. It will teach me how to open up and let other's know about me/us. I think I tend to be too personal when it comes to "US". Oh, but I do love to talk sometimes. My Primary Presidency will tell you that I always have something to say about everything we talk about and even the stuff we don't talk about. They love me!