Sunday, January 29, 2017

A place for the babies...

Larry found a vintage baby crib at an estate sale yesterday for FREE!  He brought it home thinking we'd fix it up and sell it to an antique store to hold dolls or something but once I saw it, I wanted it to hold MY dolls!

So we sold the little twin bed in the guest room and rearranged the furniture in there to make room for it in the corner. 

I put all my dolls in there today and it all just looks so cute!!


Babies from my childhood, babies from my teenage years and a few babies I've picked up as an adult.  All together in one place.  They look so cozy! 
 

The bunny decal on the side is so sweet.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Valentine Tea Cart Time!

I put together a little Valentine tea cart tonight and I think it turned out just LOVEly!



I just love the pink pom pom trim!! 


Larry put a little book in my stocking at Christmas called What I Love About Us and inside, he filled in the blanks.  I thought it was just perfect for the tea cart.  Some of his answers were funny...


And some were oh, so sweet.

Monday, January 16, 2017

The love of thousands...

I got my AncestryDNA results back today!  Since the process began on December 17th, it only took a month to get my results.  I was a little surprised that my ancestry is a mix of a lot of different folks.  

This was the breakdown, in percentages:

79% Great Britain
10% Scandinavia
  3% Iberian Peninsula (Spain)
  4% Europe (East: Germany, France, Switzerland, West: Poland, Ukraine)
  2% Finland/Russia
  1% Ireland
  1% South Asia (India, Pakistan)


This is how they did it!  When they calculate your estimate for each ethnicity region, they run forty separate analyses. Each of the forty analyses gives another estimate of your ethnicity, and each one is done with randomly selected portions of your DNA (that was a LOT of spit!).

They use forty analyses because ethnicity estimation can be variable from comparison to comparison — different combinations of DNA gives them different information, so doing multiple analyses can give them a more accurate estimate, as well as the likely range.

This is the map they sent me.  This is me right here!  :)

 
As part of my results, they matched me with 1,148 people who are my fourth and better cousins.  I've started a family tree (for the Halls, Clarks, Schneiders and Webbs) and that's gonna be my hobby over the next few months.  I'm really excited to see what I can find out about my folks and meet my new cousins!

This was a lot of fun!  If anybody out there wants to do it, too, or has done it, I'd love to hear from you!  You can buy the kit directly from ancestry.com and it's $99.  It was a Christmas gift from Larry for me but I think it's well worth it, especially if you don't KNOW for sure.  I've always been told we came from England (and we do) but I had no idea we came from all these other areas, too.  India??  Spain??  Those two surprised me the most.

I found this little ancestry quote online and I just loved it:

Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me
"Be still", they say. 
"Watch and listen."
You are the result
Of the love of thousands.