catching up with Mark and Linda

What has been going on around here that has made it so hard to get to the NL? Life has been crazy busy for sure...but i just figured out/remembered the real reason.....I haven't been able to upload photos from my camera because i didn't have room for them on the computer. Brent just recently came over and freed up some hard drive space so i am finally good to go.

Most recently...Mark was just released from being the High Priest Group Leader after almost 5 years. He was just called to teach the 12-13 year olds in Sunday School. I have been busy with Primary and have enjoyed being part of a presidency and getting to see ALL the kids every Sunday, rather than just the junior Primary.

Here is a recap of the highlights of the last few months:

May-
Jeff and family and mom were here for Mother's day. Mark cooked pancakes i think!

I got asked by the Stake YM/YW to make the wristbands for Trek. I bought pre-made leather bands from Tandy and used a wood burning tool to burn actual names of 162 handcart pioneers. This was a HUGE project!!!!!!

We enjoyed going to Austin's coach-pitch games during the late spring.

 

 Eileen's mom, Yolanda visited for a month and we enjoyed having her over for dinner on the deck.

 I FINALLY finished our bedroom! We ordered new carpet which we love, painted the walls deep gray (which we also love!) and added new mirrors and lamps and a leather chair and fun pouf, as well as a cool side table and lamp, charcoal side panels, and an area rug. It feels so cozy and enveloping in here now.

In June we drove to Utah for Bryce and Amy's wedding. It was wonderful to have so many members of the family together. Annette's pre-wedding picnic dinner was amazing and fun! The wedding was beautiful. We thoroughly enjoyed it all. These pics are favorite memories:

We vacationed with Greg and family in California in June. We spent a week going to Disneyland, Calif Adventure park and Legoland. Of the 3, Legoland was the favorite and we had a ball there. The highlight of the week though was driving down to our stomping grounds in Mission Beach, San Diego. This was the 1st time the little kids had been to the ocean and it was a ton of fun. We had a heck of a time getting home...with a 12 hour wait in the San Diego airport, but we did get some free tickets out of it!

Baby Mark Ferguson was born on our 39th anniversary...June 21, 2013. Julie was induced and had a fairly easy and short delivery. The baby is adorable. Mark and i were so privileged to celebrate his birth-day along with our own special day. We both felt a special and spiritual connection with the little guy in his first hours here. Mark is very honored to share his name....

 I was back and forth to Omaha in the next 6 weeks helping out with food and baby. A special memory is of taking him outside for little walks and every time he would immediately calm down and usually fall asleep. I love the memories of cuddling him.

I've also been super busy designing things for my Etsy shop. I love to make quiet books but the patterns are killers....

 I have also had a ball creating 3 playmats....

Fairy Land

dino land

Mouse House

I also listed a new flannel board story set for "Jesus Loved His Mother." It is also available as a printable:

In the meantime I have several other new Bible stories that are done but need patterns: Jesus Calms the Storm, Jesus is baptized and Jesus Heals a Woman.

The summer is flying by! We are looking forward to our annual trip to San Diego with Jeff and Brent and families and we also have a major trip to eastern Europe planned for September.

FORMAN surname

 A possible meaning of the surname FORMAN:

 

English: occupational name for a keeper of swine, Middle English foreman, from Old English for ‘hog’, ‘pig’ + mann ‘man’.

 

Source: Oxford University Press. Dictionary of American Family Names

 

 

So were we pig farmers?

Stephensons July

July was quite a month for our family. Jacob started his new residency on July 1st and so far he loves it. The hours are a lot better than his old residency and he's enjoying the work much more. He usually has the weekends off, gets done early on Wednesdays and had both the 4th and the 24th off (not working on a holiday, how incredible!)

I was supposed to be induced on the night of the 10th but they were full that night. All the inductions and scheduled c-sections were being postponed. We finally got into a room at 7:30 AM on the 11th. My labor and delivery was a dream this time compared to Addie's! They got my epidural done early because of how busy they were going to be which helped a lot. After a slow start my labor progressed really quickly and I went from a 4 to a 10 in one hour! Neil Patrick was born at 3:42 PM and weighed 6 lbs 7 oz, 20 inches long.

We are so in love with our little guy. I wanted to get out of the hospital right away but they convinced me to stay 2 days. It ended up being nice to just rest and take in the baby. Jacob had time off work so he was there with me during the days.

Neil is a great baby. He cries a lot less than Addie did but he does grunt and groan a lot which keeps me up at night. He's cuddly and loves being carried in a baby wrap or carrier. He's a pretty great little nurser too. I can't imagine life without him!

My gallbladder surgery was 1 week after delivery. It was rough but boy was I so glad to get that tube out and get the whole gallbladder saga over. I was hoping for an early morning surgery so I could get home quickly to the baby but I was scheduled for 11:15-12:15 and it ended up being 1:15 before they even came to start the IV. The surgery went well and the pain wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. I had back pain more than anything which stuck around for a week or so. I honestly had much more pain after the tube placement in May than after the surgery.

Thank heavens for Mom. She keeps Addie taken care of and helps out with the baby in the morning so I can get a couple extra hours of sleep. My recovery from both the delivery and the surgery has been better than expected and I think that is definitely because I've had so much help and time to rest.

Addie is doing great with the baby. She has been a little slow to warm up to holding and touching him but she talks to him and about him a lot. She calls him "Baby Neil" and just today I heard her call him "Little Buddy." She covers her ears when he cries but luckily he doesn't do that too much. She's as sweet and busy as ever. She's doing great with her potty training. And she's so excited to start school at Auntie Heidi's, we can't wait!

Despite everything going on at home, Heidi and I are still busy busy with our business. We can't keep up with all the requests! But it's a good problem to have.

Thank you for all the well wishes for our sweet Neil.

Heidi June-July

Hello!  Have we all melted? 
I've got some catching up to do!
The school year ended on May 24.  I'd been pretty chill about ending my run as a 2nd grade teacher until the night before the last day of school.  Then I realized that  for the last time I'd be walking away from the school as someone with a name on the door.  So that set off about 24 hours of non-stop crying (and I'm not much of a crier normally!).  The last day was a half day.  I was doing pretty well in the morning until one little guy walked in carrying a dark blue gift bag.  This particular kid has Aspergers (related to autism) and had been a challenge.  He loves dark blue.  Any time there's a choice for color he had to have dark blue or he was not interested.  So when he gave me that dark blue bag I lost it!

After the kids left we had a faculty luncheon.  People said some lovely things about me and I blubbered through a speech.  As I was driving away, the 3:15 school's out bell started ringing.  **cue more crying** School really was out!  :`(

I was a wreck through Saturday.  Sunday Mom picked me up to drive to CA.  We stopped in Henderson and then onto Fresno (via Tulare, of course).  We helped Emily get things ready for their move.  Well, Mom and Em did that.  I entertained the munchkin.

We got back to Utah in time for the family dinner at Moulton's.  Annette really out did herself!  A gorgeous spread and such fun details.  I was sad that I was too tired to really take it in.  Grammy came home with me for a sleepover.  The next morning we drove to SL.  Bryce and Amy's wedding was beautiful and when Avery came in it was so special!

Marianne's baby shower was lots of fun.  Low-key (no games!) which always makes it more enjoyable.  Stephanie and Annette did mini-breakfast foods which was perfect because you got to have lots of little tastes (and those muffins were to die for!).  The nautical decor was darling as well.  Annette even got a ship's wheel!  It was also fun watching the triplets (Sophie, Addie, and Avery) pal around.

After that I promptly got sick for a week.  Then a week of treks into school to finish packing and cleaning my classroom.  Then frantic days of revamping the 2nd grade morning work book.  Then plowing through the 1st grade homework.  Now it's stress about the 3rd grade morning work.

Business is going well (thankfully!), it's just hard to get products out quick enough to meet demand.  Also, some of these big products get pretty tedious.  They sell REALLY well though, so it's worth it.
I celebrated the 4th at Mom and Dad's (we introduced them to Thai food).  When Emily had the baby I went up to visit a couple times.  Lots of fun holding the little guy.

I'm enjoying learning about our connections to early America.  I've been to the cemetery in Plymouth where Edward Doty is buried.  If only I'd known!  I guess I'll just have to go back...

At any given point my house is in 7 kinds of disaster.  I get one thing dealt with and 4 more things crop up.  Right now we're in the middle of painting.  I've moved bedrooms and started setting up my office, but I just decided that I want to put down laminate flooring because it will be better for preschoolers.  So that blows a bunch of other plans out of the water...Some day (soon???) it will all come together.

Preschool is getting close.  I've got several people signed up, so that's good news.  Now to just get the house ready so they can come!  I'm feeling like a first-year teacher again.  Not good!  12 years in one grade level gave me a false sense of security.  I have no idea how to map out a year's curriculum for preschool because I don't know how to pace it yet.  So September is planned and the rest will just have to come!  Argh!!

This is the first August I haven't dreaded in a long, long time.  My friends are already talking about class lists and faculty meetings.  I'm not missing it!

Van Natter JULY

We've had a full month. Lots of joy and happiness.

Addie has been our delight every day since she got here. She is a busy little girl, starting her days much earlier than her grown-ups would like, then begging for bed by 8 - pointing at the clock when she sees the hand anywhere near the 8! She paints and colors, plays in her sand/water table on the deck, loves her little Princesses, her castle and her farm, rides her little bike (when someone will take her out in the heat), loves to go to Nursery on Sunday, loves to go in the car, loves the iPad (she has her choice of 3 or 4 at any given time!), Disney TV (Octonauts, Little Einstein, Doc McStuffins are her favorites and the rest of us have the theme songs stuck in our brains!) She is mostly potty trained, loves to wear dresses so she can twirl, and happily, loves her baby brother! She hasn't seemed to have any jealousy or anxiety about him being here, and she asks about him if we ever leave the house without him.

Neil Patrick arrived on July 11. He is almost 3 weeks old now and it's hard to imagine a time before he came. He's mostly a good baby, still sleeping a lot, eating well but very efficiently. No dawdling for him! Enjoys napping in his swing during the day. Will occasionally keep his mommy up during the night when he decides to stay awake! It has helped Emily to be able to hand him to me in the morning so she can go back to bed for awhile.

We celebrated the 4th of July with Heidi here. The men all had the day off. There was a lot of work going on outside and in the garage. The females mostly stayed in and chatted. We had Chinese and Thai food for dinner. It's tradition! Emily put together a really fun S'mores Bar with lots of fun choices.

We were really surprised when John was released as Finance Clerk after serving under 7 Bishops for nearly 24 years. Our Bishop had not wanted him released but the Stake President felt that callings should be passed around so others can learn and grow. He has still had to be back helping in the office since his release. He was hoping to make it to 25 years, so he was disappointed. It's been his identity in the ward for so long that he is feeling a bit lost. Fortunately we have our Sunday School calling, and those kids keep us on our toes.

Clinton has a Heritage Days celebration every summer. This year they changed the parade route so it went along the main street just one house away from us. And we had a perfect view from our covered deck!! Addie kept going to look for the parade for days afterward!

Emily had her gall bladder surgery one week after Neil was born. She ended up being gone for 11 hours because they were so behind at the hospital. Heidi came up to help me with the kids that day, which was a tremendous help. Thanks again, Heidi! Emily's recovery has gone smoothly. She saw her surgeon for her follow-up today and all is well.

Jacob was the only one to have Pioneer Day off. It felt like a regular day around here since John and Ian were at work. We didn't do one thing festive, except order sandwiches for dinner. I even missed watching any of the parade on TV since I didn't want to mess with Addie's TV-watching. Calm Addie is much easier than running-around-crazy-Addie!

Pretty shocked and amazed to realize we are direct descendants from a Mayflower Pilgrim - Edward Doty. (next to last signature on the Mayflower Compact) He was pretty much the rabble-rouser of the group, so we have enjoyed learning about this young servant who probably came along for the adventure. All these Thanksgivings we have celebrated, talked about, and taken Pilgrims for granted. Never again!!

Also enjoying learning about the Puritans who came ten years later from whom we also descend. I am reading the book Insubordinate Spirit: A True Story of Life and Loss in Earliest America, 1610-1665. It is a non-fiction book, very well-researched, and only published last fall. It is fascinating reading about the time and place, and especially our 10th and 11th great-grandmother Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feakes Hallett. I also have The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seaton, which is a fictionalized account of Elizabeth's life. I thought it would be better to read the non-fiction first.

Sunday School continues to delight. And challenge. Last Sunday we ended up with the class older than ours joining ours (never did hear why) and with that many kids (plus our 14-15 year old boys being star-struck by the older girls!) it was like HERDING CATS!!! Crazy day. Love these kids so much though.
Thanks to Heidi for the following video:
Herding Cats
Life is good at the Van Natter's. Hope you all can say the same.
John & Kathi

Priesthood Line of Authority

In case some of you didn't see this in the June 2013 Ensign, or elsewhere, it is possible to request your line of authority from the Church now.

Send an email to lineofauthority@ldschurch.org with PLA in the subject line.
You will receive a form to fill out, or you can simply reply with your answers in the email itself. It is very simple and fast.

You need full legal name, birth date, membership record number (if possible), name of the individual who did the ordination (if possible.)

I ordered them for John and Ian and they were emailed to me in less than 2 days!

Another book!

Heidi found this book that deals with the same time period, places and people.

Insubordinate Spirit: A True Story of Life and Loss in Earliest America 1610-1665 by Missy Wolfe

From the Back Cover

The traumatic life of Elizabeth Winthrop, one of America’s earliest founders, challenged her family, her society, and her own soul. In response to intense pressures, she helped forge some admirable and some quite uncomfortable new directions for our country.

 

Insubordinate Spirit explores Elizabeth Winthrop’s life in 1600s America with the utopian English Puritans, the merchant Dutch, and the inflamed native Munsee. Her violent and troubled Eden springs to life through newly translated correspondence, previously undiscovered documents, and a wealth of recent scholastic research. Elizabeth’s remarkable story provides fascinating insights into the physical and intellectual hardships, dangers, and conflicts faced by all three cultures at this time, and their tragic combustion within New Netherland.