Goal List...

So I started off the year with a "Goal List."  About six big projects that I needed to finish and hadn't been able to.

1.  Big bin of Family Home Evening Ideas and kits (started 11 years ago) that needed cutting, coloring, laminating, etc.
2.  Master Bedroom Quilt that I had originally made as a duvet cover, with coordinating pillow shams and dust ruffle.  I eventually took the left over fabric and made long curtains.  I turned the duvet cover into a quilt, but only got 2/5 of it tied.  My mom finished it for me.
3.  Publish blog into book starting from start of blog to when we left Georgia.  That is going to be started next week...or the week after?
4.  Parker's First Year Scrapbook
5.  McKenna's First Year Scrapbook (I used to "scrap" but haven't had time, I figured I could find the time to do both, together, and make it fair since Allison and Madison's are both done already.)  I think once school starts, this will be good timing, I just have to figure out how to keep McKenna out of everything.
6.  2 Christmas Shadowboxes  (see next paragraph)

My mom, her sister, and their mom had a very long-standing tradition that they started many, many, many years ago.  They each had a shadow box.  This was fascinating to my cousin, Carrie, and I.  I think we were also enthralled with each new trinket that one of them came up with each Christmas:

So somewhere between 12 and 18 years ago we decided to start our own and purchased our own Shadow Boxes.  Between then and now, we half-heartedly did anything about it.  Two or three years ago I had Carrie ship hers to me.  And then this week, I bought cardstock, cut it out, glued it to the backs of each box, purchased a few items and glued everything into place.  Of course, leaving plenty of room for future years, seeing as this has already taken a while, we shouldn't have to change things, right?

And the reason why things take so long?  Okay, aside from the schedule, cooking, cleaning, etc., which went a little by the wayside this week.  Because there are always other things that come up in addition to the schedule, cooking, cleaning, etc., remember?  Allison has been trying to figure out "The Family Tree" for about a year or two.  She gets confused on who is sister or brother to who...and lately has wanted to know complicated relationships, like "My mom's cousin is what relationship to me?"  For those who need clarification, the answer is "First cousin, once removed."  Any of my cousin's children would be "second cousins" to her and the rest of my kids.  After a while I began to realize I didn't have everyone memorized anymore.  So, I made a chart...of course.  Seeing that I put both my line and Jeremy's line on annnnnnd, included all siblings and their children for four out of five generations, things are "mostly" organized.

Starting at the bottom, my kids are the stack of four.  Next to them are stacks of their cousins and their second cousins.  Jeremy and I are next to each other, each with a line drawn down to our stack of kids.  Everyone next to us are our siblings and our cousins, with their spouses right below, before their stack of children.  The next generation up are only our parents, their siblings, and all of their spouses.  At this point I was thankful for small families!  The fourth generation only included the direct line family member and their siblings...spouses got kicked out.  And, finally the fifth generation were just the direct line couples.

I included everyone's middle name, mostly for fun.  In doing so realized that I didn't know absolutely everyone.  I also realized that we didn't have exact information on Jeremy's dad's mother's siblings.  I was able to research out exactly how many of them there were and what exactly their names were.

On a church note, I also went looking for Jeremy's side of the family in our Church's newer Family Search website.  I was able to find his mom's mom's dad.  Our Church extraction program had him as a child to his parents (but no other information).  It will be a sweet experience to finish this work.  

And life and projects will come to a screeching hault when Super Saturday occurs again.  It has already begun.  Projects for that have been decided and teachers are being searched out.  I will post all the fun things that we did!