its been a long time....

but here I am again. (and look what I have to show for it!) I took a nice little trip up to Snohomish to work on family history with my grandma and mom. I am almost done with a book about my Grandma Cozette and got to scan in a whole load of very sweet and priceless pictures that we found of my Grandma McAllister. We also got to make a trip to the temple to seal my Grandma McAllister to her parents and to seal my Grandpa to his parents. Rachel got to be baptized for my Great Grandma Robinson and for another ancestor that she is researching right now in an attempt to find her parents. I have gone from needing information for genealogy to feeling a little overwhelmed by all of the information that I have. It doesn't take long to have a gazillion different directions that you are going in! The girls are all begging to work on genealogy, so we are about to fill out their pedigree charts and pass the genealogy bug onto them. I have a theory that there is a great need for youngins to learn more about genealogy. As I have required more help (I think I am going to need to tread this next statement carefully) from the missionaries at the Family Research Library, I have found them to all be sweet as pie and very willing to help. BUT you know how we joke about the technology learning curve for the older generations (I am not excluded from this as texting is something I still haven't learned!).....I think that if the younger generation could combine their knack for technology with a love for genealogy, the genealogy movement would definitely benefit. And seriously: Ancestry.com rocks. You can get sucked up into that site so easily!

A little announcement.

Since my blog has been a little neglected and will continue to be so in the future, I thought I would copy over my post from my photography site for you folks:

Two weeks ago my family and I packed up and headed down to Salt Lake City to hear our prophet and other church leaders speak to us. To keep us busy on the trip down, we listened to some inspiring talks. By the time the weekend was over, I felt like I had plenty of time to evaluate my life and decide on a few things to change. (Doesn't it help sometimes to just step back and look at the big picture?) The biggest change that I decided to make was to stop my photography business. And I guess all of the changes that I plan on making come back to this quote by Julie Beck.

"A good woman knows that she doesn't have time to do all that her heart yearns to do." {Julie Beck}

That pretty much sums it up. Ten years from now, will I care that I have photographed ____ families and ____ seniors? Nope. Will I care if I have neglected my role as mother or if I have done all that I can as a mother? You betcha.

Since Chris and I embarked on the journey of parenthood, we have always been blessed. He has always supported our family and with each additional kid (there have been a few, you know.) there have been blessings to help us make ends meet. I have started feeling a little ungrateful to Heavenly Father. Here he has made sure that I can be a stay at home mom and blessed us accordingly yet I am working for this extra money....just so I can have a little extra money. Quite silly now that I step back and reevaluate.

Now that this has turned into rambling...I will stop my jibber jabber. I am off to the tulip festival with my little herd of girlies to partake of this amazing sunshine that we have today.

traveling with a full load...

On the way to SLC, the kids were fabulous. We drove 13 hours in one day and the girls read most of the way, with Lilly and Elise playing, singing and eating a whole lot of goldfish, pretzels, oranges and string cheese. Lilly cried for a whopping 10 minutes of the drive down and this was only because her seat was wet. (from her pouring water on herself, of course.) This trip was made possible by having a house full of bookworms. There were no video games or movies and the most we did to entertain was having John Bytheway booming through the speakers every now and again. (and he IS entertaining.) Are you ready for true brilliance that only could come from a mother of 8? A dear friend of ours brought over some packages for our trip. They were wrapped and had tags on them reading things like "Open when you get to Le Grande." They weren't anything major, but little treats that definitely served as something to break up the trip. This was more than a gift for just this trip as I can guarantee you that it will be used on many future vacations.

Now, to the hotel....on the second night there, Lilly woke up and would not go to sleep. After being up with her for a good two hours, I fell asleep for a little. (I think about 30 minutes.) What would you do in a hotel if you were 2 years old and unsupervised? I know this much: When I woke up, she was in the fridge and had already gone through a few cheese sticks and had leftover strawberries on her face. She as tearing apart my purse and had also discovered my lipstick. No, she didn't call 911. She saved that for while mom was trying to watch conference the next day. I must confess that I did not prepare well for the hotel. Too much sitting and not enough to keep them entertained. I should have brought some playdough, coloring stuff (I know! I didn't even bring coloring stuff!) and handcuffs. :) (for them, not for me.) And my final word on hotels: If I can't watch conference at home, why would I be able to watch it with the younger of the bunch in a hotel with minimal toys (6 LPS) or chance at entertainment? I think Elder Bednar described my conference experience somewhere in his talk from last October.

And for the trip home? We heard the unfortunate announcement from the back that Hannah had finished Little House in the Big Woods before we hit Burley, ID. Yes, you would think that was good news, but Hannah is a mischievous one and books are amazing at keeping her...busy. I told Chris that she was going to have a hard time for the rest of the trip, but what I really should have said was "Let's stop at a book store and stock up!". She really did have a hard time, which meant that Elise and Rachel, her row partners, also had a hard time. She is our instigator and is frequently at the center of conflicts in the car. Pretty soon, I found myself in the backseat, bribing anyone who would take a nap with an ice cream cone. And 30 minutes later, Hannah was asleep and peace was restored in the Kangmobile. The ice cream bribe was really so I could take a nap, but Elise was pretty sure that spelling her name in pretzels and spotting every train and cow that we passed was way yummier than any ice cream cone around.

Our little conference vacation

Last Friday we drove down to Salt Lake City to take the girls to our church's General Conference. Conference is held at Temple Square every October and April and we normally visit our church building to watch it via satellite. (because they actually listen when we are in church and if we watch it on the computer at home, it is a zoo.) When Rachel turned eight, we told her that we would take her to Salt Lake to watch it in real life, but real life kind of got in the way. 2 new babies, a stroke....all sorts of things to get in the way and to make the trip a little difficult. And this year, things have calmed down enough that we decided to go for it. It was wonderful. We met Chris' sister and my nephew there and we each got to go to at least one session. There is really nothing to explain the feelings associated with being in a room (no matter how large or with how many people in it) with a prophet of God. Wow. Conference is always a good time for reevaluating your life and setting new goals so amongst my notes are a few things I am going to be working on. There were a lot of talks on motherhood that were so inspiring that one of my goals is to go back this week and listen to them again! My personal favorites from the session that I attended were by Julie Beck and M Russell Ballard. And here is a quote that I really need:

"A good woman knows that she doesn't have time to do all that her heart yearns to do." {Julie Beck}

los pantalones de fuego

Ok...so I am a big fat liar. Or, to quote Shawn Spencer, my favorite psychic detective, los pantalones de fuego. No picture of my beautiful shoes and just a poor neglected blog for you folks out there. This week I've been running around getting all sorts of errands done while getting ready for the big girls' conference trip. Make up piano lessons. Hair cuts. (what? Autumn wants her hair short? fabulous!) Oil Change. Easter party. (ok, that wasn't really getting ready for the trip, but it was splendid springtime goodness.) Packing. Costco-ing. Laundry. Oh. And the mandatory endless hours in front of the computer doing genealogy. If someone would have informed me that would be quite so addicting, I think I would have waited for two more weeks to start. Bad timing, but so much fun! Rachel got me started and we have loved making all sorts of ancestor discoveries together. BUT if I hear her say "It is so fun seeing you on Ancestry.com instead of facebook, doing something worthwhile...." one more time, there will be trouble. It is nice having a twelve year old who is helping me grow up, but can she be a little less of a sassafrass pants? ;)

Passing on the genealogy bug: Here are some links to get you addicted, too.

Who do you think you are?

Ancestry.com

This little book I picked up for my trip (I flipped through it and it looks like an easier read that the other, more laborious genealogy books)

And, por supuesto, we've added a day onto our trip to explore the Family History Library in SLC. Yippee! And I am packing my mom's History of Baxter County book. Jennifer: I will be coming to visit you soon!