Our Family Tree

We had a new babysitter recently.  The girls LOVED her and are already talking about "the next time she comes".  We are especially excited because this particular babysitter is not from our church. (Church girls - we LOVE you too, don't worry!!)  But since most of the events that we need babysitters for are church activities - we use the same pool of sitters as four or five other families.  It can get kind of competitive as to who gets the babysitters first!

Our new sitter is my aunt's niece . . . . get it?  (If not - here's the skinny:  My aunt married my mom's brother and the new sitter is the daughter of my aunt's brother.  So she's not related to us - but we do share mutual cousins and an aunt and uncle.)

During the evening the girls were showing Lizzie their scrapbooks.  They happened upon a picture of one of the shared cousins.  Lizzie says, "Oh look - it's Jessica."  Imagine the shock . . . my girls were quite confused as to how Lizzie could possibly know Jessica.

HELLO worlds colliding.

Lizzie told the girls that Jessica was her cousin too.  Stop. the. presses. . . . how could this be?

We came home to this note, written by our 7 year old who was clearly shaken by the revelation:

For those who don't fluently read 1st grade print & spelling, let me translate:  "Lizzie is in our family.  I am embarrassed, not Grace.  Did you know before we told you.  Sign here . . . .yes . . . no . . . Circle if you know and write the word."

As you can see, we followed the instructions - by circling yes and writing the word.

The next morning we were discussing Lizzie's relationship to our family.  I was explaining this seemingly complicated relationship.  The discussion included why Lizzie isn't at most of our family events.  I explained to them that Lizzie was, in fact, at cousin Jim's wedding.  And we would most likely see her again when/if Jessica, John, & Nolan get married.  The girls were quick to assure me that we would see Lizzie at her own wedding . . . . . see I told you they loved her - they're already inviting themselves to her wedding.  So once I thought everything was understood, I asked for a recap to see if they had grasped the concept.  This was the answer from our 4 year old:

"It's like this - we have the same family, but she's not on any of the branches of OUR tree."