Janae – Page 13 – Terry Family Shenanigans

Christmas Day 2021!

Countless times throughout the year anyone of our children is known to sleep through their alarm, purposefully not set an alarm, or have to be dragged from their bed kicking and screaming that they are tired and don’t want to wake up for one reason or another.

However, for the last ten years without fail or deviation of even one minute on Christmas morning, without an alarm, they all pop up like daisies at the predetermined earliest allowed to wake up time of 6:30am. Let that be an example of what the human brain can do with the right motivation.

This year was no different, they all woke up and then came in to get Ryan and I. Grandma and Grandpa Terry also came over to open presents with us at 6:30. Once the adults are in the living room and ready with their cameras the kids can come down and see the presents and stockings from Santa. Stockings are fair game and anything found in them can be immediately opened or eaten. Once everyone has had a few minutes to look through their stocking we take turn opening Santa presents one at a time. Once those are opened everyone starts opening presents at the same time. The wrapping paper goes in a general large pile and occasionally someone will take a break from unwrapping and stuff it in a trash bag. If Grandpa is there and you need a knife or scissors he loves to whip the one out of his pocket he carries with him at all times. If Grandpa isn’t present Ryan will whip out his pocket knife that he carries one day a year for a few hours on Christmas morning.

It was a very happy, blessed, fun Christmas morning for everyone this year. Once everything was opened we started breakfast. This years options were a breakfast casserole or all the favorite high sugar cold cereals. Grandma and Grandpa stayed a few more hours while we checked out our new stuff, did puzzles, watched a movie, listened to Christmas music, took a nap, or enjoyed relaxing.

Christmas Eve 2021

We were on our own for Christmas this year. My family did our Christmas get together in October in Florida. Ryan’s family was spending it with the other half of their families.

Roger and Rhonda were planning on going to Texas but then changed their minds and stayed here. We invited them and the McDonald family over. We have done Christmas with them before and it has been a few years.

We decided to go and see the new spider man movie in the theatre. Emilee didn’t want to go so she hung out with Grandma. Matthew and Allison invited Campbell and Caylin. It was 40 minutes late starting because there were projector issues but once that got figured out we all enjoyed the movie.

We had a yummy ham dinner together. Ryan smoked the ham, Rhonda and Roger made the rolls, I did potatoes, corn and green bean casserole, and Lori brought coconut cream pie. It was a delicious festive dinner.

We sang some Christmas songs together, read and acted out the Christmas story, Emilee read a book, and there were several piano, cello, and clarinet musical numbers played. It was a great evening with friends and family. After we were all done hanging out and visiting everyone went home we opened our matching pajamas and took our Christmas eve family picture. Then we hurried off to bed so Santa could come!

It was a very wonderful day. I love Christmas time. The Christmas Spirit permeates everything and everyone is happier and friendlier and you take the time to appreciate family and friends. I am grateful for the birth of the Savior and His life. It isn’t just a nice story. He is real. I know because of Him and what he did for each of us we can have eternal families and be together forever. I am grateful for the atonement to repent and improve ourselves. I am grateful for my family, and the very blessed life we have and all the amazing friends and family we have in our lives.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!!

December was a fun, busy, wonderful month! We usually put our decorations up the day after Thanksgiving but I did it right after Halloween this year- and I don’t regret it! 😁 We paused the Christmas festivities and were thankful and grateful at Thanksgiving then we were right back to the Christmas spirit!

We tried to focus on service this month so we did something each weekend to do service. We brought Grandpa along with us as much as we could.

The first week we did The Giving Machine at Crown Center. Each Christmas season our church does a #LightTheWorld. They have a few vending machines called Giving Machines that they have in a few places around the country. You can go and punch the number in for the item you want and just like a vending machine it drops the card to the bottom but instead of taking something you leave it there and they distribute whatever people donate to the different charities. There was local charities for food, clothes, and blankets or a safe place to stay. There were also world wide charities you could donate a chicken or water or things like that. This year we got to have a giving machine in Kansas City. They placed it in Crown Center, it is an area downtown that lots of people visit and do festive things for the holidays. We were all really excited to go and see it and pick a few things to donate. We did a few of the festivities while we were there too. We walked through the train and light exhibit, ate lunch at Spin City Pizza together, and some of us window shopped while the rest of us went ice skating. We of course visited the giving machine and donated some chickens, an acre of sweet potatoes, some food, blankets, and a goat. The kids loved it!

The other weekends we volunteered at the Johnson County Christmas Bureau. We were supposed to be there for 4 hours but we were only there for about 30 minutes and they told us they were done for the night. We told the kids it still counts for service and we will volunteer again next year and hopefully have better luck. We made a lot treats and then delivered them to friends and neighbors the following weekend. We also tried to volunteer at Harvesters food bank but they changed their age requirement to a minimum 16 years.

Allison had two gymnastic meets within the past month. One was here in Olathe, the other was in Columbia Missouri. We drove there and back in one day. She didn’t say this but I think she loved having a travel meet that took the entire day like her brother has travel for baseball sometimes. She did great at both meets. Her best event was the beam at our home meet and the bars at the Columbia meet-she nailed her kip. She also added a few back hand springs to her floor routine and did great at those too.

We did a lot of puzzles this month too. Something about Christmas makes me want to put puzzles together. If it is a Christmas puzzle even better! Matthew was my most frequent helper but everyone joined me at some point for a bit. We would watch a Christmas show, or listen to Christmas music and drink some hot chocolate while we puzzled away.

This was the first one we did. Brand new and missing 3 pieces! Kenny googled it and said that apparently that particular puzzle is usually missing a piece or two. Grrrr!

Allison had a Christmas concert for orchestra. She did great. I had a hard time getting a picture of her because she was behind another kid but it was a well done concert and they sounded great. Her favorite part was going to dinner with Caylin afterwards.

Grandma Jones’ Thanksgiving

My Grandma had Thanksgiving with her family that visited her and came to her for Thanksgiving in Utah. She has some good days and bad days and can’t do very much anymore. She was having a good day on Thanksgiving and she told her son Jared she wanted to go outside on a walk and have some fun. He obliged her. Even when she hurts a lot and is 89 years old she still has a great sense of humor and loves being around her family as much as possible.

Thanksgiving 2021

It has been a few years since we had the entire family together for Ryan’s side of the family. It happened at Thanksgiving! The Bourne’s made it from Idaho, the Lee’s arrived from Texas, and the Ross and Ryan Terry’s made the trek across town and down the street.

Rhonda had a few weeks to recover from chemo before everyone arrived. She was feeling a little bit better. It was a happy vibe that we were all together and she was healthy and done with cancer.

We were able to get the traditional mani/pedi trip in for the moms that wanted to go. Some of our daughters are now old enough to want to join us. It is getting hard to find a salon that can take us all at the same time!

There were many games played, feasts made and devoured, visiting and movie watching in abundance. The grandkids all loved seeing each other again and picked up right where they left off. That is the wonderful thing about cousins. A group of us went to see the new Disney movie Encanto together and another group of us went to iFly indoor skydiving. Lauren and I took turns playing the piano a lot. The picture of her playing and everyone on their device listening soon became everyone napping.

Grandma and Grandpa wanted a family picture of everyone so we made it happen. Lauren was our photographer. The other nine adults were her helper and advice givers. She tolerated us pretty well. I think we got some good pictures too.

Kris, Jake and Ross were all directing from the sidelines too but they saw me right before I took the picture and played it cool.

It was a fun, happy, successful Terry Family Thanksgiving!

Matthew thought ‘nice casual’ meant wearing sweat pants instead of shorts with his hoodie.

My Mid Life Crisis

In an earlier post, I eluded to something that I was going to do for myself for my 40th birthday. Well, I did it! A lady at work mentioned she was getting her eyebrows done-microblading. I was talking with her about it and decided that I wanted to get mine done as well. So I had a consult and booked the appointment. I basically got a tattoo on my face!

Ryan happened to call me on my way home from the consult appointment and asked me what I was doing. I told him I had just gotten a consult for a tattoo…on my face. After a pause he asked me if I was serious and when I told him I was he said, “Well, this is the first I am hearing about this so why don’t you wait a month or so to make sure it is really something you want to do.” I laughed and told him that it was microblading for my eyebrows and explained what that was. He was relieved to know I wasn’t having a tear drop or the kids names put across my forehead. LOL!

I had my appointment and got it done a few weeks ago. They are still changing a little bit color-wise. It takes about 4 weeks for them to heal completely. Then I go in and have a touch up appointment and get any little spots fixed that I need. It took a little getting used to, I was a little nervous because the first two weeks they are really dark and seemed pretty harsh but I am really liking them now. They are supposed to last 1-3 years. Then I would need to get them redone because they fade.

I saw a patient at work the other day that got a lip tattoo when she was 18 that was only supposed to last 6 months (it said bitch👀😂🤦‍♀️) . When I met her it had been 20+ years! I am really glad I like them in case they end up being permanent! I will have fancy eyebrows when I am 90.

Here it the before and after that the person who did them took. You can see the completely healed after pics in any future pictures of myself!

Emilee’s Last Year of Single Digits

Emi turned nine this month! Nine years since that little girl joined us two weeks early and and scared me to death by not making a peep when she was born. Once the doctors were convinced she was ok just content then gave her to me and she snuggled right back into a ball on my tummy like she had been for the last nine months but now was in the outside world.

She is a fun, joyful girl. She loves to play, work is always for later. She has been asking for a horse for the past few months. I told her that she wouldn’t be getting a horse for her birthday but she could pick a fun non-living present and still have a great birthday. She said, “That’s fine, I’ll just ask Santa for the horse next month for Christmas.” 🤦‍♀️

She voted to have spaghetti and three kinds of ice cream for her birthday dinner. She had a horse riding lesson the day of her birthday which couldn’t have worked out better. After her lesson Reese came home with us and ate dinner and they played the rest of the evening.

She decided to have a sleep over with a few of her friends to celebrate that weekend. There was six girls total including Emilee. Two of them stayed late instead of sleeping over and it felt like no less than 10 girls at all times. Emilee thought it was a fun successful party which is what counts. Grandma Terry let her pick a few crafts that the girls could do. She had a painting project, an ornament project and a diamond dots project. They were all a big hit. They had pizza for dinner and watched Space Jam while eating as much popcorn as they could. Emilee voted for ice cream only instead of cake and wanted one candle. After all that they opened presents and then played games and entertained themselves until 12:30 in the morning. I know because I was in the next room waiting for them to fall asleep. The next morning while we ate pancakes they talked about how awesome it was that they stayed up all night long.

Yes, those are my Christmas decorations in the background of the pictures. We needed some Christmas early this year!

The Annual Race

The yearly race between Matthew and Ryan usually is on Matthew’s birthday. This year was delayed a few weeks due to one or the other of them not being in the optimal health they wanted to be in to participate in the race. Finally they both had a day with no tweaked muscles, lingering coughs, enough sleep the night before, and their lucky pair of socks were clean. Their excuses were a little ridiculous.

There was a bit of an upset this year. They had the first race and Matthew won. Uncle Ross happened to be filming them at the start and after Matthew’s celebration at winning showed that Matthew had false started and the race was thrown out.

They waited a few minutes until both agreed they could expend the full amount of energy needed for a second race. With explanations of what a false start was and was not still going between them they lined up again for the race that the winner gets a full year of bragging rights as the fastest Terry.

The second race ended with a photo finish. Ryan was half a step ahead and his knee crossed the line first. Matthew was a semi- gracious loser and told him to enjoy his last year of beating him because it won’t happen again. I don’t have the video Ross had of their start, I did see it though and it was a false start.

This is the official race.

It is ALREADY November!!

We started November off by going to a Chief’s football game. They had a Monday night home game so we got tickets and went and had fun. It was my first professional football game. The environment is a little rough at football games so we didn’t take the girls. We met Ross and Ethan and Steve and a few other people there and did some tail gating with Q39 BBQ. The weather was pretty cold but the rain and wind stopped so it wasn’t to bad. They started the game with a team of paratroopers landing on the field. It was pretty awesome.

A friend at church sent me this picture of Matthew and his buddies at church. They are a good group of kids and have a lot of fun together.

This is a picture of Ryan and Sherrie from Austin’s wedding that he went to in August.

Emilee had her 3rd grade musical at school. They sang pirate songs. Emilee requested to not have a speaking part. She was also insistent that she was not going to dress up. We tried a few different times to convince her to wear even just an eye patch but she wouldn’t budge. She was excited to sing the songs just not feeling the dressing up part I guess.

Allison had her first 6th grade orchestra concert. She was thrilled that the whole family and Grandma and Grandpa Terry came to watch her. She started playing the cello this year. She is picking it up pretty well and has a lot of fun in orchestra. She likes being and “Orch Dork” as they all call themselves.

Matthew cut his chin open while he was wrestling with some friends. The mom called and told me she thought he would need stitches. We called a friend who is an oral surgeon and asked him if he could stitch him up for us instead of going to an ER at 10pm at night. He is an awesome friend and had us meet him at his office. He numbed Matthew up and 9 stitches later we were done and back at home in less time then it would have taken to fill out the paperwork at the ER.

Several years after we were married, Ryan asked me why I thought it was so funny to mismatch his socks all the time. I had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently, I am not good at matching white socks together and more often then not, I put wrong socks together. Over the years I have tried to work on this issue but haven’t had a huge improvement according to Ryan. It is funny. I always think I matched them all correctly but every now and then he shows me the pair he pulls out and they are clearly not a match. I fold socks last so maybe I am just done with laundry by the time I get to them. The other day Ryan was out of town for work and sent me a picture of the socks he put on that morning at the hotel. HAHA! I guess general color was my only criteria when I was folding socks last week! My sock matching disability has spread beyond just white socks.

All of us took turns passing a cold around that took a few days to recover from. Emilee is always cuddly but even more so when she is sick and dad loves it when he gets extra Emilee snuggling time. He was reading a book to her to help her rest and she fell asleep.

Allison didn’t make it because she was at gymnastics but for the last activity of the year, the primary activity girls went to Main Event and went bowling together. Emilee was the bowler to beat!

Halloween 2021

We had another successful Halloween at our house this year. As our usual plans we had the McDonald’s over. Our cousins joined us this year too. Ryan made the witch’s brew, I picked up pizzas the day before from Papa Murphy’s. I went rogue and got a hamburger pizza instead of our usual cheese. It didn’t go over well. Hamburgers are good, hamburger pizza is not. It was a good thing we had trick or treating to distract us.

We had a slow, medium, and fast group again. Our fast group is old enough to go ahead on their own. The dads keep track of the medium speed group and the moms stay with the slowest group. It was a fun evening with family and friends.