The Nelson Narrative

Here are my New Year's Resolutions for 2010: Lose 22 pounds.  I am already on day 4 of the 30 Day Shred and it's still 2009.  I'm going to shoot to do it 5 days a week for 6 consecutive weeks, just like I did this time last year. Read more.  Let's see...I think I read about 5 1/2 books last year, mostly in the summer, so I'll shoot for 7 this year. Get organized.  I still have to figure out what specifically I need to do but I just know I need to be more organized in all areas. Spend more time with friends. Now, here are some specific tasks that I want to accomplish in 2010: Paint the living room. Paint the hall. Hang curtains in the living room and our bedroom Put up shelves in the powder room (to put knick-knacks, candles, etc. on) Put up a shelf or shelves in the office/spare bedroom Organize the linen closet Sell some of my model horse collection on Ebay Take the girls to the Children's Museum

Well, I can say that one of my New Year's resolutions is to get more and better pictures!  As I rifled through all the photos of the girls I realized that we have hardly any of the two of them in the same shot, and the ones we do have they aren't looking at the camera, let alone smiling!  They're horrible!  How do other people manage to get good pictures of one-year-old twins?  This is the best I've got... January February March (Kayley) March (Olivia) April May June July (Kayley) July (Olivia) August Not a single picture for September! October November December

What a great Christmas we had this year!  It started way back at Thanksgiving when the girls got their gifts from my side of the family since we weren't going to see them for Christmas.  Then a few weeks ago my mom came down and brought them her gifts.  Then a few days before Christmas they got a package from my Dad and stepmom who are snowbirding in Arizona.  On Christmas Eve Paul had to work until 11:00 and when he got home we did our gift exchange with just us and the girls, and then we left to go to his parents'.  Their friend and her daughter came over (as they do every Christmas Eve) and we did a gift exchange with them, and finally, the main event on Christmas Day!  The girls have been opening gifts for a month straight, and they are pros!  Even after they were done opening their own they wanted to help everyone else open theirs!  They were really cute.  I wasn't expecting them to be very good at opening yet but I was surprised. And I can't believe how much stuf

Last weekend we made our annual trek to the tree farm for the Nelson Family Christmas Tree.  The girls had fun traipsing through the trees, and they got to see and pet a horse.  They kept wandering around the field saying "neigh" even though the horse was way at the other end.  It was really cute.  Anyway, we got our tree and have attempted to decorate it, but the girls keep taking off all the ornaments despite our numerous attempts to tell them "no".  So the bottom half of our tree is pretty much bare, other than the lights.  No telling what they're going to do with all the gifts once we get them wrapped and put under it. Wandering around the tree field Getting a picture of both girls in the same shot is downright impossible... Olivia watching daddy cut down our tree

I have recently discovered that other stay-at-home moms have adopted something they call a "cleaning schedule".  As in, Monday = laundry, Tuesday = floors, Wednesday = errands, etc.  My initial reaction was "whoa, a bit anal, are we?" but then I was actually very impressed with, and a little jealous of, their organizational skills.  When it comes to housework, I'm a do what I can, when I can kind of gal.  Then I realized that I hadn't mopped my kitchen floor in, oh I don't know, 3 or 4 MONTHS (hey, I sweep it several times a week) so I thought I'd give it a shot. So a few Mondays ago I tackled laundry.  Sheets, matress pads, bathroom rugs, you name it.  Never mind that it didn't all get put away until roughly the next Monday.  Anyway, Tuesday I started on floors.  Except the "plan" is to actually get down and dirty and mop them, on your hands and knees if necessary, not just vacuum and sweep, which aparently you should be doing every

Olivia loves to play with clothes.  Whenever I'm folding laundry she's grabbing underwear and putting them on her head (never mind that when I was little (but way older than her--like 8ish) I used to put my underwear on my head and pretend it was a chef's hat and I would be the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show) or grabbing some pants and trying to pull them on over the pants she's already wearing.  I totally need to get her a tutu and some cute dress-up clothes.  Yesterday she was upstairs playing while I was downstairs doing something with Kayley.  I had just done some laundry and there was a heap of unfolded clothes on the floor upstairs.  So while I was downstairs with Kayley, down she came wearing Paul's shirt but with her head sticking out one of the arm holes: