Adventures of Slem and More!

I didn't think I had much to write about this week until I looked through the pictures on my phone and camera.  I'll try to make it quick :)

I heard through the grapevine that Santa is bringing us a new computer mouse.  The one we have is beyond annoying since it's really temperamental and rarely works.  You're lucky I'm even blogging since it's frustrating me so much that I almost threw it out the window!  What a sad life I live if the thing I'm looking forward to most for Christmas is a new computer mouse.  I guess it's the simple things in life, right?

Lane's working on four molars still :-/  I think that says enough.

The major lesson I learned this week was that Maggie's beaded socks cannot go through the dryer.  I've done this multiple times before with no problem, but this last time when I opened the dryer Maggie started crying, "My sock, my sock!  Get my sock!"  I was confused until I looked in and saw this:    

The beads had got sucked into the exhaust vent, with no way of pulling them back through.  Jonathan had to take the dryer part of the way apart to get it all unstuck.  I'm grounded from putting those socks in the dryer now.  I wish I was grounded from laundry.  It's my least favorite job ever.  It never ends!

I'm getting a kick out of Maggie finding Slem each morning.  The other night Jonathan told me that I'm having too much fun.  I say there's no such thing :)

 Maggie got a hold of some little scissors and cut her hair.  Actually I gave her the scissors (stupid stupid stupid).  She was cutting pictures out of her coloring book (supervised), but I got distracted.  Then I realized she was being awful quiet in the other room and I knew I had to prepare myself for something I didn't want to see.  She has bangs now, which I'm not a huge fan of, but I'm getting used to them.  They're pretty short because I had to even them out and blend them in.  I gave her some layers too while I was at it.  

 Story time.

 I'd call him a tree hugger, but I guess he's really hugging the star :)

 I was bored one day and Maggie let me curl her hair (carefully) with the curling iron.  I ended up being bored and jealous of her hair.

 We went to John Deere to see Santa again this year.  Maggie was still pretty shy and Lane wanted nothing to do with him.  Maggie was happy that Santa gave her a puzzle though, since that was on her wish list.

 I've been working on a family history project on an off for probably the last four years.  Each Christmas season I think how it would make a nice gift for Jonathan's parents so I get a little more serious about it, only to realize that I have so much information that I'm going to need a good chunk of time to finish compiling it all. Plus, I've already showed them the rough rough draft of it as a Christmas present, so if I'm going to give it to them again it has to be completely finished.

Jonathan's great great grandfather wrote out his autobiography and I've been dissecting it paragraph by paragraph using the wonders of the internet and modern technology to supplement the information in it.  I have a deep fascination with this man, probably due mostly to the fact that I know so much about him and he left a major legacy for the family.  I wish I had autobiographies from all our ancestors.  Anyway, his parents emigrated from England to the Salt Lake Valley while he was in the womb.  He grew up to become a prosperous and successful sheep (and cattle) man and built a beautiful home in the valley, which still stands today (along with a few others he later built in different locations).  I have always had a love for old pioneer homes, and this home is no exception.  I've driven past the outside a few times and I have always wished I could see the inside. I wasn't about to go knock on a stranger's door and ask if I could walk through their historic home though.  BUT, I found the owners' phone number online that was listed on the paper work for the home to be included in the historic registry.  After a few pep-talks to myself, I called the owners' and explained that my husband is a great-great grandson of this man.  I explained how I found their phone number, and asked if they wouldn't mind sending me some pictures of the inside of the home. I probably did it all in one breath, and they probably thought I was a crazy weirdo.  All that, just to find out they didn't even live there anymore.  Crumb.  But then they gave me the number of the people who do live there :)  So after a few pep-talks and re-explaining myself, the owners graciously agreed to my favor of sending me some pictures.  The inside of the house is just as beautiful as I expected it to be.  Most homes nowadays just aren't built with the same craftsmanship and detail as historic homes.  I didn't include any pictures of the outside for their privacy, but here is a sampling :)

Now I have some pictures to include in my conglomeration of info, but sadly I'm not even to his birth yet.  I have loads of info on their emigration and trek across the plains.  I'll get there someday :) 

I look forward to meeting this man one day and thanking him for the heritage he left this family.