Family History!

I absolutely LOVE learning about my ancestors.  About 9 years ago I started working on my family tree with hopes to make a "Heritage Album."  I got in touch with my great aunt, as well as a distant relative - both were in their 70's and they gave me so much information and shared stories and pictures.  Then life got in the way of my research - I was very busy with taking 15 credits per semester at GMU, working part-time, and raising a 1-2 year old, so all of the information I gathered was put away in a drawer.

Throughout the years the 'tug' to do research was always there, but I just thought it wasn't the right season in my life to start it again.  Then a couple of weeks ago I was reading the Ensign and told Sean that I felt I should start doing it again and expressed my concerns.  The next day was General Conference and one of the speakers said something that I felt he was saying directly to me... I can't remember exactly what it was, but in essence, I need to do my family history now!

So I pulled out everything from my drawer and have been busy typing it all into Family Search and the stories, etc into a Google doc (so I can have everything all together and also it will make it easier to eventually make a real "heritage album."  It has been so amazing to learn about my ancestors - I really, really love it.  Although I have hit some brick walls, I hope that with the help of ancestry.com I will be able to finally get more generations filled in!

Anyway, here is one ancestor of mine that I admire...

Meet Rosalia Hartman Hirn, born on September 13, 1862 in Germany.  According to the 1920 census she immigrated to NY in 1888.  I'm not sure if she and John Hirn were married in Germany or in NY, but I do know that she had 8 children, and 5 other babies who were either still-born or died as infants.  I can't imagine the sorrow she must have felt each time she had to lay one of her children to rest.  

She passed away in 1945 from a combination of old age, diabetes, and Alzheimer's.  I wish she could tell me her story-I would love to hear it.  

Rosalia and John Hirn

Rosalia and Dolores, her grand-daughter

I'm so glad that I started this project when I did... as the wonderful women who took so much time in writing me a lot of different stories that they remembered, sharing pictures (like the ones above) aren't able to do so anymore.  I believe that one of them has since passed away and the other one now gets extremely confused.  I am also so happy that I have started 'digging in' again and I really want to ultimately make a scrapbook of everything I am learning so that I can share it with my children, grand children, and (gasp!) great grand children.  

Our 2013 Family Yearbook is DONE!

I finished it a couple of months ago but just not got around to ordering it.  So here it is!!  Enjoy:)

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=1Abs2rhu4csnfg&cid=SFLYOCWIDGET

Oh, What An Evening...

Yesterday evening was too funny not to post about, so here you go...

Sean and I have been talking about joining the YMCA, so we decided that we would go yesterday evening to sign up and work out.  So I cleaned up dinner and then ran around getting diapers, jammies, Sean's work out clothes, swim trunks, etc into the gym bag.  As we were literally running out the door, Ben spilled Josie's water all over himself.  So I put all of the bags I was carrying down, changed him, and finally loaded everyone (and everything) into the van.

We pulled up to the Y just as I remembered that I had completely forgotten to grab Sean's sneakers!  He even put them in big capital letters and said "VERY IMPORTANT" next to them in the email he sent of the things he wanted me to pack for him to work out in.  Opps.  So I tried calling him and then texted to let him know.  I later learned that he was less than 5 minutes from the Y when he got my text, so he had to turn around and come home to get them.

The boys and I went in and as I was filling out the paperwork Ethan accidentally bumped into Ben, causing Ben to fall face first onto the hard floor.  Yup, he immediately got a nice goose-egg on his forehead.  Sean came in a little later and we were finally able to take Owen and Ben to the daycare and work out.  (which, by the way, it was awesome to run again!)  Since I forgot to pack towels we couldn't go swimming, but it was getting late for Owen and Ben anyway, so we got them from the daycare, changed them into their jammies and headed home.

As I was getting Owen out of the van I noticed one of Sean's black work shoes on the top of the van... I carried it in and told him...  He realized then that he put his work shoes on top of the van when he was buckling Owen in.  Obviously one had fallen off somewhere on the way home...  So he quickly left to go to DSW before they closed to get another pair while I put everyone to bed.

Whew - what a couple of hours it was! :)

Snow, Snow, and More Snow

So far 2014 has kept us buried under lots and lots of snow.  It seems like as soon as our driveway is clear of snow and ice, it snows again.  And again.  And again.  Right now, we have over 2 feet of snow in our backyard... And that is after it rained all day yesterday and this morning.   I don't think it will snow again for at least a couple of days, as our driveway is still covered in an ice/snow/slush mess - so as soon as that finally clears up, I am confident that Old Man Winter will blow more snow our way.  (I know, I know... I shouldn't complain, as it is because of me that we aren't living in sunny California right now...)

Ethan had SIX days off of school last week because of all of the snow!  So, since we have basically been housebound for the past week, we have had a lot of time for family bonding:)  We did science experiments, made cement stepping stones, painted, played Zip It (Bananagrams for two people-LOVE it!), had an indoor picnic...  I also made homemade pancakes almost every day... and tried a new recipe basically each day to find that 'perfect' recipe!  I can honestly say, that I miss Ethan so much when he is at school!  It was so nice having him with the littles (Owen and Ben) and me.  

Lots of reading, Bananagrams, homemade pancakes (made extra fun with our farm animals pancake molds), playing in the snow

Indoor Picnic... Featuring The Jungle Book

One of My Favorite Things!

One of my very favorite things of the holiday season is Christmas cards!  I love getting the mail to find holiday cards from friends and family, see their pictures, and see what they've been up to!  I love hanging them up and find myself looking at them multiple times a day.  Yes, it is the little things that really make my heart happy <3 p="">

Family Pictures!

Our wonderful and talented friend, Alissa, took our family pictures again this year... and of course they turned out amazing!

 

I love how she captured the boys' personalities and included Mr. Monkey:)  The one of Owen smiling while yelling is so "Owen" - being loud and happy!

Life Update September-October

Boy oh boy, I haven't been very good at blogging lately!  I guess I just figure that I don't have anything big to write about, when actually, I should be writing about big AND little things that are happening!  Anyway, here are some things that we have been up to lately...

Ethan turned TEN!  Yup, it's hard to believe that my little boy is officially in the double digits.  I am still having a hard time believing it - it seems like just a couple of months ago he was starting kindergarten and now he is 10 and in the fourth grade.  He had a birthday party at a go-carting place in Brookfield - he had so much fun with his friends!  On his actual birthday we decorated his bedroom door with streamers going all across it and stuffed 10 balloons between the streamers and door so that when he opened it in the morning the balloons would fall on him... he was so surprised!!  We also did our usual birthday decorating, cake, presents, writing on his bathroom mirror, etc :)

I turned THIRTY!  Again, hard to believe that I am 30... oy.  I remember being 17 and listening to Tim McGraw's song, 'My Next Thirty Years' thinking, "wow, thirty is so old!"  Well, here I am - the big 3-0.  I wanted to do something big (like go sky diving) but then chickened out because on the exact day I suggested my brilliant idea to Sean, someone died while sky diving, so that totally crossed that off of my wild and crazy idea.  I woke up to our bathroom mirror covered in pictures of me from a baby to now and 30 reasons why Sean loves me - what a surprise!!  My mom and dad came from VA the following day and spent a couple of days with us to further celebrate.  :)

Sean is scheduled to take the first C.F.A. exam!  (C.F.A. stands for - I think - Chartered Financial Analyst).  He signed up to take it last year but the exam date was 12/1/12 - 2 weeks before Ben was due, and it was in NYC... so he didn't take it because we were worried I would go into labor during his test.  SO, his new test date is in June...  Here is to a lot more studying ahead, but I know he can do it!

Owen - still keeping us laughing and on our toes!  He is starting to talk even more and doesn't really like how Ben can now crawl over and play with whatever he can reach!  He still LOVES Mr. Monkey (aka.  "OoOo") and likes to have both of them with him almost all of the time.  He always makes sure people take their shoes off as soon as they come in the house, and if you forget, he will be sure to remind you over and over until you take them off:)

Ben - Ben is SO close to walking!  He can stand for a really long time without holding onto anything and is so close to taking his first steps, I just know it will happen within the next couple of weeks.  We jokingly call him "Chubba" because he eats and eats and eats!  He loves to crawl around and be close to everyone.