Family HIstory class

Some of you know that I am a Family History Consultant for my church, (lds) As a family History Consultant I get to show members and non members that are interested in starting their family history. I have the opportunity to do just that in a class setting at the Story City Library! I am truly excited to show other "family historians" our church's website www.familysearch.org and why we do family history. I will post my notes/outline after the class.

Meanwhile, my little brain has been thinking lets get to work, I was lucky enough to get a whole binder from my Aunt full of names and tidbits from "that" side of the family during the Thanksgiving season. although I have thumbed through it, I have not combed through it yet and do what I do, to preserve the history that I have in front of me. (More on that later) As I was going through I came across some death records, and notes and a whole bunch of other really cool papers. I thought I would share one of the death records with you. Although I don't know much about this guy other than, that he is 3rd great grandfather! He was born in North Carolina, a bunch of questions flood my mind with just one small document, Like, what made his dad leave to live in Northern Missouri/ Southern Iowa?

It is my goal to get as much family history I can find to understand where "I" and "our family" came from. I love the idea of learning about my family history it's a blessing to understand where we came from, I feel a sense of gratitude to those that did pass before me, I mean I do owe my existence to them right?

Anyways I am here to help you find out who you are! everything is online, I love that you can do this work at 3 am when the house is so quite and you can really sink your teeth into it. email me I would love to help you, even if you think there is no way to start, I will show you how.

too those that are working on your family history, GOOD LUCK.

our Sweet Valentine

My heart melts everyday when I am with miss thing! So miss thing has enjoyed her new kitchen we got her, and loves pretending to make things, just like mommy! Although she still prefers her mother's kitchen. The other night, she played with dry pasta and made a mess, but picked up every single piece she dropped (thank goodness for the big shell pasta!) while she cleaned it up she was saying made mess made mess! what a good girl!

In the Kitchen

On a cold winter day, there is nothing better than fresh warm bread! our little miss loves to help mommy with the cooking, she usually likes watching the mixer, or tasting everything, she is wearing what I call pasty white flour on her cheeks, but so happy! We live in our kitchen and I love it! do you see my awesome cook-book stand? I think every good cook should have one, I got mine at a cute little shop in town, the Copper Cupboard. It's extremely handy.

Happy Valentines Day!

craftyness

Valentines Day is here, or just about and I need some festive decorations for our house, so since I have gobs and gobs of ribbon thought It would be fun to make a ribbon wreath out of all the pinks and purple ribbons I have, I think it turned out really nice.


I have always been imtimdated bu quilting so when I needed a project to keep my busy during the long month of January I turned to sewing, it's very relaxing and I get so excited just thinking about sewing! So with a tiny craft budget I though I would use what I already have, tee shirts, lots of tee shirts, this is just one of many I will be making, Gary has a ton of shirts I need to cut up. Although this isn't the finished product, you can see how the quilt is laid out. I put black fleece for the backing, and sewed the right sides together and then turned it right side out and then sewed the edge again to make it look finished and then the last step was to tie it with embroidery floss! it's supper cozy and was a ton of fun to make...


What's my next project you ask? well, after working on my scrap book for last year I am working on an Alphabet collage for Chloe's room, pictures of that will be coming soon and then making around 500 cards for mother's day, I am involved with a project called Cards for Soldiers, we make cards for the soldiers so they can send cards to their loved ones. currently we have three units deployed from our area, with about 600 soldiers in each unit. we have two women working on this project, and it's super fun!

My little Chloe is 2

it's hard to imagine that we have a 2 year old with an attitude already, but she has so much spunk and so much passion for dancing that she melt's my heart every day.

on a side note mommy forgot her real camera so she settled with her Itouch camera, good thing we had something!

coupponing

Yep that is right I have been clipping coupons wait did I say that out loud? Yep it's time I saved money, (Gary really likes this) and I like to shop, yes I admit I sometimes live for shopping days.. not at the mall, but at the stores that I can find good deals on things our family needs anyways. I think the thrill of shopping for me is finding a great deal and getting that deal when we need it. I could go on about how I get the deals that I do, but that would be bragging and frankly who really want's to hear about it on my blog isn't that what FB is for? So I would like to share some of my tactics (different than getting deals)
1. get every one to save their coupons for you, yep family and friends, gas stations, grocery stores I get about 10 coupon inserts each week, I have Hy-Vee hold their Sunday papers that don't get sold for me, so I get their coupons, I feel like I strike it rich each time I go to Hy-Vee Monday Morning, getting all the coupons from the left over Sunday papers is thrill! (can we say weirdo)
2. go through the adds you buy your grocery at, with a fine tooth comb. my adds are always marked up with the coupon and the unit price after the coupon. since I get 10 of the same coupons I can really stock up on the things that are on sale with the coupons, it's a great system.
3. keep all your coupons that you know you will use in a binder, yep that's right in a binder with folders, page protectors and base ball card page protectors, treat each coupon as if it's real money!
4. have a list ready of all the things you plan on buying at the store and don't buy something that isn't on that list!

still not convinced this is something worth while here are some great websites to cheek out
www.hip2save.com
www.thecrazycouponlady.com

so since I have started really clipping coupons (end of December) I have quite the stock pile, or what I like to say food storage. I don't think I could ever pay full price for any grocery item, except those never go on sale never have a coupon for, like Nutella, (which is high in carbs anyways)

I can usually go and take half off my grocery bill, if not more, since I started I have always gotten half off of my subtotal using coupons. Now that is truly a good thing!