Grandma Nellie's Apple Cake

 Handwritten recipe from Scott's great-grandma via familysearch.org

You guys!  My family history project is WORKING!!!!   Hahaha.  After hanging the family tree up on our family room wall last Sunday, I made it my goal to get the kids involved in helping me fill in the blanks for pictures.  Scott's side had nothing on it yet, so I decided to check out familysearch.org for some help.  Ethan and Sophie were the only ones interested when I logged in on Saturday, so I gave them a list of names and let them do their thing.  For any of you who haven't checked it out yet, the photos and memories feature on familysearch.org is awesome!  I was able to find quite a few more pictures from my dad's side of the family along with a life history of one set of my great-grandparents.  Scott's family also had some pictures, and one of the jewels we discovered was a photo of this handwritten recipe from Scott's great-grandma, Nellie Ross Robinson.  Her daughter -- Iris -- was Scott's grandmother who lived to be almost 99 years old and was actually still alive when Sophie was a baby.  As a result, both Ethan and Grace have very faint memories of "Grandma Grandma" {which was somehow easier for the kids to call her than Great Grandma} and caught on to my excitement and enthusiasm at finding this recipe that she had probably enjoyed as a little girl.

 A photo of Grandma Nellie -- via familysearch.org

I'll go on a slight tangent now, but don't worry -- I'll make sure it connects back up!  Haha.  Yesterday morning was church once again.  Since I like to keep things real, I'll make a confession here and let you know that reverence practice didn't happen AT ALL this whole past week.  Since they did so much better last Sunday, it clearly wasn't as pressing an issue as it had been in the past and our practice just slipped through the cracks.  By Saturday, however, the kids were in full-on deterioration mode.  Lack of sleep, over-exhaustion, etc. had caught up with them all, and they were a melting down mess for a large part of the day.  Because of this -- and worrying about the fact that the morning would bring us another sacrament meeting that they were in no way prepared for -- we made them sit down and practice being reverent for about 10 minutes on Saturday night right before whisking them off to bed.  Early.  Hahaha.  As we were getting ready to head out the door yesterday morning, and Ethan was still refusing to pack anything to keep him quiet and occupied during sacrament meeting, I had a brilliant flash of inspiration to grab one of the blog books that I've had printed up so that he could bring it along to read.  Well, that sparked a revolution.  In a good way!  All of the kids started clamoring for the book, too, so in order to appease the masses,  I ended up bringing all of the blog books that have been printed up to this point.  Color me SHOCKED and tickled pink, because years 2006-2011 of "a little lagniappe" kept all three older children completely and totally enthralled for the entire sacrament meeting.  I kid you not -- there was not ONE little peep out of ANY of them.  And with only Jane and Alex to manage, the whole entire meeting was easy, peasy, lemon sneasy.  Jane had a notebook and pen and colored her time away and Alex played with his action figures, only needing to be taken out once. 

Once we were home from church, the kids continued to pore over the books and -- since I told them the pages can count for their summer reading -- they have hardly put them down.  They are SERIOUSLY into these books!  Hahahaha.  It's hilarious to hear them retelling each other funny stories that they have just read about from their life.  Especially since they don't remember a whole lot from the earlier years.  Grace is especially tickled and has mentioned on more than one occasion that they were all really crazy little kids.  I told her she doesn't have to say "were."  Hahahahaha.

Anyway, my point in recounting all this is that I have a strong belief that we are seeing the spirit of Elijah in action.  Their behavior -- while still having the occasional issue here and there -- has been REALLY great for the last 48 hours.  Reading all about our family's life story has already started to bond them a little closer, and I know as we learn more about our extended family and ancestors, the bond will become even stronger.   Once we were home from church yesterday, I suggested that we try out Grandma Nellie's recipe for "Apple Cake," and everyone jumped right on board.  Sophie and Ethan were once again my helping-est little helpers and when the cake was done, EVERYONE was excited to dig in.  {Except for Sophie.  Poor little supermuppet and her allergies.  Even though we cut out the walnuts -- they probably would have killed everyone but me and Scott -- and skipped the raisins because none of us like them, there was still butter in the recipe and Sophie was worried it would make her tongue itch if she tried out the finished product.}

 Final Verdict?  Delicious!  Everyone loved it.  :) {Not pictured -- the buttercream frosting that Ethan created because he was insistent that the cake needed a topping.  It was really good, too.}

I'm excited to see what else we discover as we work on this family history project together!  I'll close with a picture that I took this morning when the majority of the kids were engrossed in the blog books, once again, after scripture time.  Happy Monday!

Love it!