Mother’s Day started out so sweet with my husband serving me breakfast in bed and giving me what I asked for: new earbuds for my iPod (a marvelous Mother’s Day gift he gave me four years ago) and a genealogy fan chart showing me and my ancestors back to nine generations. You can get your own here https://createfan.com/, as a pdf copy. You sign in using your LDS user account. Then, like magic, it pulls up whatever information you have for your family tree in new.familysearch.org. Then you, or your ideal husband, takes the file to Staples on a flash drive like my dh did so you can get it printed out huge and laminated. I love being able to see nine generations at once! I can easily see the “holes” or bare branches that I need to work on, although my tree is pretty much filled in, like the one above, which is not mine. By looking at the chart and doing some sleuthing I figured out that we are descended from even more Mayflower pilgrims, Francis Billington, and his parents John and Elinor.

My son gave a beautiful talk in sacrament meeting, giving tribute to me, and all the mothers involved in the Shakespeare play he was involved in, just the days before. He loves the theater and he acknowledged that he couldn’t be on the stage performing without all the homeschooling moms behind the scenes producing the play. I took photos but they aren’t very good. I couldn’t get rid of the glare from the bright stage lighting. I am going to have to post a lot more from my dad, because he took a ton with his fancy expensive camera, as soon as I can get him to send them to me.

A great Mother’s Day gift was my firstborn returning home from college after his first year being on his own. He spoke at the TJED Forum last week but couldn’t come back home with us because of his training with Youth for Freedom to be a youth counselor last Saturday. He now has his stuff parked in our front room because he is going to move to Provo soon. He has a job with a software company doing programming for the summer and then he will be off on his mission the end of September. I’m really proud of him. He also just got his braces off too!

That evening we went to my brother’s home to have a Mother’s Day barbecue with my siblings and parents. My kids love to play with their cousins there! They got to see both grandmas, as my mother-in-law attended as well.

My sister-in-law and brother showed us a beautiful surprise: portraits of my Swedish  second great grand father and great grand mother, JCarl and Ingar Nilsson. These have been stashed in my mom’s cousin’s basement for decades and finally have a new home with my brother and sis in law who have earned the honor of being the family genealogists and collectors of memorabilia. The portraits are water-damaged.  These ancestors were born in the early 1800s, so these portraits are not photos but something else, I’m not sure. Maybe hand-painted. My brother did his magic with photoshop and the results are beautiful.

My brother gave his wife as a gift for Mother’s Day this cool poster map showing all the temples in the world. http://www.byubookstore.com/ePOS/form=robots/item.html&item_number=40004292899&store=439&design=439#

My son who gave the talk in sacrament meeting did not attend the barbecue, because all of the sudden he felt feverish and chillish and achy at the same time. The next day, what should appear, but chicken pox. Yes, we have chicken pox at our house. He’s 14, so this is a really bad case! The youngest four will be getting it soon. Anybody want to have a chicken pox party?

Any suggestions for soothing the itch besides baking soda, lavendar oil, tea tree oil, and aloe vera gel? He has Shakespeare Showdown next week so we are working on speed healing this so his scabs form by Monday morning.

He’s smiling now, but he will be getting chicken pox soon, thanks to his brother!