The Neely's Family Mission Statement

I have been casually reading the 7 habits of highly effective families and I LOVE IT. As much as I love it, i've been very lackidazical (is that a word and did i spell it right?) in putting what I've read into practice. But me and Chris finally took our first step towards "Highly Effective" tonight when we made (drum roll please!) our family mission statement.

I'd been talking about it for months... literally. But we'd never taken the time to actually do it. So earlier today, as my sick behind was laying in bed, I started writing down words or small phrases that I thought were important. Some examples are: compassion, charity, respect, responsibility, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, and integrity... I kept getting flash backs of primary and young womens in my head. Anyways, about 50 words later, chris came up and I asked him if he'd like to go on and write out our statement. He said sure, so he sat down and started writing too.

We found some examples too from the book and online and in scriptures (D&C 88:119 is my fav) and here is what we came up with!


Our family is one of gratitude and compassion, integrity and respect.
Our family is hard working and hard playing.
We find the joy and humor in life.
There are no wasted moments.
Our family will keep the promises we make, always be on time, and always say "I'm sorry" and "I love you."
As we study the scriptures and pray together as a family, we learn how to be more like Christ and always remember him.
We will honor our name and always remember where we come from, our earthly and heavenly parents.
We will never settle for less than our dreams.
Our home is a place where all who enter will be provided for physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
Our home is one of order, study and learning, prayer, faith - a home that welcomes the spirit.
We love each other unconditionally
... To infinity and beyond!


That last part is my favorite. It's turned into a little inside joke between me and chris and i think it's the perfect ending to our mission statement.

I think this mission statement will come in handy as we plan our family goals over the next few years (especially with all the changes in store.) Another extremely important part of this statement is that it's not set in stone. At any time we can change it, take away, or add to it as we see fit. And when the girls are old enough to understand it, and give their own ideas of what our family is about, we'll add their input as well. I can't wait til they can tell us what they think our family should be!

Next chapter... First things first! Now we'll see how long it takes me to prioritize!

2009

Alot has happened this year. It's been a bit nuts for us. We started out the year at my parents house, then we moved into chris's parent's. This summer, Chris decided to become a pharmacist and started school this past fall to get all his prerequisites started. I started work at the YMCA in September. Taylor celebrated her 2nd birthday and we celebrated our 5 year anniversary with a trip to Florida in May. Maddie celebrated her first birthday in September. We had a great summer with our neice Katie here. There's been plenty of excitement in our extended family too, with a new sister-in-law, health scares, graduations, births...

2009 has been a full year for us, in so many ways. We have been blessed beyond belief this past year. And I'm so looking forward to next year.

Chris will be working closer to home.
We will be moving in the next few months (not far... don't worry!)
Chris will be taking spring semester off of school, but starting again this summer.
Taylor is turning 3 this may - old enough for classes of all kinds (music, gymnastics, dance, soccer, cheerleading... whatever we decide)
Hopefully we'll be finally making the trek out to Utah to visit family. (I'm working my tooshie off to save for it!)
I'm hoping to finally get my stuff together and really buckle down on getting routines together, and a schedule, and doing the home preschool.

I don't like to set new years resolutions... cause they're usually broken in a couple months anyways... But we do have some great goals for us, as a family, and as individuals. And I'm excited for it all. I hope you all have a great new years and are blessed this next year!

To 2010!!!!!!

Merry Christmas

And A Happy New Year

Potato Candy

Can I start off by saying, "HOLY COW" it's been over a month since I last posted anything. Life has been nuts, and there will be lots of updates over the next few weeks. At the moment, everyone in this house is sick... very sick. Throwing up and pooping all over the place. Oh, except me and Maddie. So far we're the only ones who have not gotten sick. Weird, since I'm the one who's been cleaning up after Taylor since it started last week. But I'll think of it as a blessing, and try not to think about the fact that i'll probably finally catch it on Christmas eve.

Anyways - I thought i'd share a special Christmas recipe with everyone. When I was a kid, my Big Momma would make us Potato Candy. It sounds gross, but tasted delicious. I haven't had this kind of candy since my Big Mom passed away when I was 9 or 10. I always remembered the recipe... for the most part. It's simple. So last week, me and my mom got together to make some christmas goodies and baskets. We tried to make potato candy... but the potatoes would not turn into a dough... a very necessary part of the process. We'd try to cool them off good... add some instant potatoes... Nothing we did worked.

I came home VERY disappointed... thinking it might be the 2nd coming before I figure out what that recipe was. But I started searching online, and finally came across the recipe! It explained that the liquified potatoes were part of the process, and we just didn't add enough sugar. So i made some potato candy... Finally, After 15 years. It tasted just like I remember - it's a hard taste to forget, but delicious. So I thought I'd share the recipe with everyone. I'm interested to see who will ACTUALLY try to make some potato candy... cause it sounds so weird... But i promise that it is delicious and worth a try.

Big Momma's Potato Candy
1 small potato (I used a medium potato and cut it in half.)
Pinch of Salt
1 tsp Vanilla
2 lbs Powdered Sugar
Peanut Butter

Bake the potato (I cook it in the microwave)
Peel the potato and remove any miscolored(is that a word?) parts
Let the Potato cool off (I wrapped mine in paper towel and set it in the fridge for a while.)
Mash the potato with a fork, and add the salt and vanilla.(I actually forgot the salt and vanilla, and it tasted just fine.)
Slowly add the Powdered Sugar, a bit at a time. You won't need the whole 2 lbs... but probably most of it. LIke I mentioned in the post, the candy will liquify. Just keep adding powdered sugar and eventually it will become a dough. You want it to not feel sticky to the touch... Like cookie dough.
Once the dough is the right consistency, Roll it out like a pie crust to 1/4 inch thickness.
Spread peanut butter over the entire dough. Roll up like a jelly roll. Wrap it up and stick it in the fridge.
Once it has hardened a bit, take it out and slice it up into pinwheels.

The candy tastes better Cold I think, so I leave it in the fridge. It's super fast, super easy, super cheap, and super delicious. So let me know if you really try it. I'm interested to see who does.

Digital Predicament

I have recently joined an online scrapbook making thing. In order to do the scrapbooks that I want, I need to organize the images that are on my computer. Not a big deal, right?

WRONG!!!!!!

There are well over 10,000 images on my computer taking up 35 GB of space(Just from the past 5 years!) How in the WORLD am I supposed to organize that many pictures plus a hundred or so videos in the next week???

Needless to say, I'm overwhelmed right now.

So I've been googling (I love to google!) Organize digital images. There's tons of websites that talk about using the right folder names, and tags or keywords... all that jazz. But as nice as that is... I'm still a bit lost - maybe just from the mere SIZE of this project I'm about to take on.

I've read about Free image organizers that I guess you can download, or use different websites. But if you read the fine print, some of them "reserve the right" to use your images and pictures any way they want. No thank you.

There are programs you can buy too, that can make the job easier, but I'm already trying to save every little penny right now so Christmas will be nice.

Anyways - Here's how I "THINK" I'm gonna do it.

I'm going to arrange folders by Date The year... Then the month... Then the day - and then try to include a description of what the images in that folder are. Then I'll put tags on all my images - who's in the picture, where it was taken, any other special tidbit I feel the need to include. That way, the images will be easily searched.

Then I can just click on November from this year, search for taylor, and I can see all the pictures I took of her this month. I can even click on Taylor, thanksgiving, and I'll be able to find the pictures of taylor from thanksgiving.

This will definitely be a HUGE undertaking. It'll mean hours on the computer I'm sure. But It'll be nice to see these images of the past few years again. And it'll be nice to have this awesome system in place for all the new pictures I'll take.

So, I'm off to organize my pictures. I hope it doesn't take too terribly long. We'll see. I'll keep you updated!

For my Friend Tiffany's Comment about Picasa!!! Here's a little website I think you should read!
http://www.groovypost.com/howto/security/how-to-lose-face-with-google-picasa-literally/
Kinda scary if you think about it.

Now open to the public

That's right... I got a bit sick of not posting anything... and I was trying to figure out why I'm not posting anything anymore. I think it's the whole private thing. It made it harder for others to look, so I was wondering, Who's Looking? Also, some family members and close friends weren't able to see the blog even when they were logged in and after many invites to be able to read the blog. So i gave up. I did however make it so that my blog is completely hidden from the rest of the world, unless you specifically come to this blog! No searches can find it (I think) so we're pretty much off the radar that way.

Anyways... be on the look out for more posts. I've got lots of things here to talk about... and the next 3 days off of work!!! Woohoo