To help you remember, last year Allison brought me the plan for her birthday party she wanted to have when she turned 10 a few weeks before so I had plenty of time to prepare. Her original party spanned several days and two nights with several outings planned each day. After some negotiating we chiseled it down to a full 24 hour party with two outings, and just one night of sleeping over.
Usually we do a bigger party every other year and then keep it to a little smaller family party in between with a little bigger present. Allison came to me with her birthday brainstorming before getting to into her planning to determine what I considered a ‘big party’ to be. I believe she clarified by saying, “What is the number of days difference to you for a big party or a small party?” She is a funny girl. I told to keep it small and she would get some cash for her present. Nothing motivates Allison more than cash money.
She was happy to oblige and she helped me plan a pool party with a few friends. They ate pizza, opened presents, had a silly string fight, swam while listening to music, then everyone went home. Except for Leah, she spent the night. I think it was a very successful birthday for her. The next day we went to a few stores to release some of the heat from Allison’s pockets because she had money burning a hole in them. She added to her pop it and fidget collection that is getting pretty large.
Avery, Allie, Allison, Hailey, Leah
We had a family dinner with local Terry’s on Sunday as well, which she loved. She is now 11. Going to be starting 6th grade and ready to take on the next year of her life. Happy Birthday Allison!
This girl keeps our life from being dull. Allison just started 6th grade this year and she is loving it. She is one step closer to being an adult which she has been looking forward to since she was 2 years old. Allison sees the world differently then the rest of us. She is creative and smart and keeps us on our toes.
At the end of last year we had her tested and moved to a more advanced Math class. Her brain loves math and she incorporates it into anything she does from planning her day to doing the dishes. She is learning the cello this year in orchestra. She is still doing gymnastics and moved up to level six this summer.
She can be one of the wittiest and funniest people I know, or one of the grumpiest. Whatever emotion she is feeling is level 10. There is no lower gear for her. For a while it seemed like her and I just butted heads constantly but I see more and more of Allison’s pleasant and reasonable side lately.
Allison loves a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich. She is my only kiddo that will eat a fruit or vegetable without any prompting-just because she likes them. She is amazing at making cookies and brownies. She usually keeps our house stocked with them, which is awesome. She has a tough outer shell but her inside is sweet and caring and very thoughtful. When we are driving around if we see any cat or dog without a leash on-even if it is most likely in it’s own yard-she wants to stop the car immediately and save it from whatever it needs to be ‘rescued’ from. She is very responsible when she wants to be. She takes care of Peanut her guinea pig everyday without any reminding. When we go out of town she arranges for someone to take care of him and leaves them copious amounts of notes on the proper way to feed him.
Crafting is another thing Allison enjoys doing. She is often decorating or creating some art for her room (or Emilee’s if it doesn’t meet her standards when she is done 😂) If I have something I need to make or get ready for Primary she is always willing to help and does a great job at it.
It is a treat to watch her grow up. Allison will be a mountain mover in whatever she decides to invest her time and energy in.
Matthew, Matthew, Matthew…what can I say about Matthew. I could say he is the spitting image of his dad is looks and personality. That would be the quickest way to describe him. Every year those two become more and more alike. Matthew tries to deny it sometimes but he can see the similarities. They are a fun pair and I love watching Ryan guide and teach a younger less mature version of himself. So do his parents.
Due to Matthew getting a little older and closer to adulthood we picked a few activities to help him develop his more mental, emotional, and spiritual side, disguised with lots of physical fun too of course. One of them was High Adventure with the boys at church, and the other was FSY (For Strength of Youth) a church camp with most of the boys from church. They were both very fun activities and very good for him. One was a little more obviously fun to him but he did enjoy both. High Adventure was boating, zip lining, and camping. He has told us no less than 5 times week since he has been home that we need to go boating, get a boat, or make friends that have boats. Along with our trip to the beach where he body surfed as much as possible he tells us we can move to a beach at any time and he will support it. Since those activities he has loved going to YM activities and a lot of the boys hang out together on the weekends.
Getting checked in at FSY.
He is almost 15 so he does have some teenage brain development going on but so far I still really enjoy him and his company. Along with the teenage stuff he also has his dad’s iron will, and it does show it self more and more often. Just. Like. Ryan. His voice takes on a certain tone, and his jaw sets and his eyes lock and there is nothing you can say or do at that point to change his mind. Ryan will look at me and say something about how ridiculous and stubborn he is being and I say, “Yes you are, I mean, yes he is.” Also like his dad when he gets like this he usually goes off somewhere and mulls over whatever the issue is privately then comes back and is more reasonable. Until then you will have more luck paddling upstream with a fork.
He really enjoys watching and playing sports. His favorites to play are basketball and baseball. He likes watching football too. Most of the time when Matthew is talking to you it is frustratingly quiet. The exception to this is when he is watching sports or playing video games. Then you can hear him anywhere.
Matthew is quiet and a little shy when you first meet him but once he feels comfortable he is a fun kid, he likes to joke and tease. We like to joke and tease him too. Being a teenager he is a little more concerned with appearance and ‘image’ than the average person. Ryan often likes to get photo evidence of him looking like a dork to pull out when its convenient. These pictures of Matthew playing with the VR glasses is a good example. He has a pleasant and witty sense of humor.
He starts 9th grade at the High School this year. He says he is excited and looking forward to it. He has always done great at school. Last year with stupid online learning and his particular math teacher (she was fine just taught differently than Matthew learns) he struggled with math. Since kindergarten I have never had to check his work and make sure he turns stuff in or even remind him to do his homework. He stays on top of it and keeps things organized. When he started middle school he came home overwhelmed about keeping track of so many different classes. I showed him what a binder and dividers are and he has continued to do great since then. He has a good singing voice but doesn’t want to do choir. Or theater. He has taken several art classes and enjoys them. He also humored me by taking a cooking class/sewing class. Right now he thinks he will go into something sports related like a trainer or physical therapist. He can’t handle even talking about blood so I wonder if he will change when he realizes how much anatomy and physiology there is.
He takes drivers education in a few weeks. It is still a while before he gets his drivers license but I am looking forward to it. Him being able to drive himself to weights, practices, seminary, and everywhere else he goes will be awesome.
A new hobby he just discovered thanks to his buddy Carter is fishing. They have gone a few times together and Matthew caught a fish within 2 minutes the first time. He hasn’t caught one since but he still really likes it. He even asked for fishing stuff for his birthday.
It has been awhile since I wrote about each kiddo individually so I thought I would do that. They like reading about themselves when they look through these blogs so I’ll catch up on what they are like in their lives right now.
She has changed from a little girl into a young lady the past several months. I love watching her grow up but it is also a little bitter sweet with her because each time she finishes a phase it is the last of my kids to go through it. Sometimes it is nice- like potty training. Other times it is a little sad- like losing her first tooth, or holding my hand when we go places. I can still talk her into holding my hand for now.
She is finishing her last week of a two week trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa Jones in Florida this Summer. She has been having a great time. She told me some of the highlights have been watching movies with grandma and grandpa, going to the zoo, playing with her cousin Aubry, swimming A LOT, and her cousin Hannah coming to stay too. They even had a Pioneer Primary Activity while she was there. She was a little nervous about flying on the airplane by herself to get there but she is a pro now so she isn’t worried about the flight home.
Grandma picking her up at the air port.
Hiking with Hannah
Zoo with Aubry
Sherri said the swam for 4 hours and were still going strong but they had to go.
Taking a selfie with Aubry.
Pioneer Primary activity-they were making leather bracelets.
Grandma and Grandpa took over shaking the butter.
Playing with Grandma’s animals and singing.
Emilee is 8 years old. She loves being the youngest kid and tries to take advantage of the ‘I don’t know how’ excuse any chance she gets. She is a master at getting what she wants right under your nose. I have to really watch myself or before I know it I am doing everything for her or having her brother or sister do it for her. The saying, you catch more bees with sugar than vinegar is her motto in life, if it doesn’t work she is fully prepared to back it up with crying or even the occasional tantrum. Those tactics are easier to spot because they are more annoying obviously, and she usually over does the theatrics a bit so it is almost comical. Overall she is still a happy easy going girl for the most part.
We often hear her singing either a real or made up song while she plays. She is the best at using her imagination and will entertain herself for hours with her stuffed animals or her little animal toys or legos. She has an amazing stuffed animal collection. It is almost like her journal. She remembers each of their names and where or why she got them. They rotate on her bed so they all have turns sleeping with her at night. There are 10-15 stuffed animals in her bed at any given time.
She is very tall for her age. Dad still tries to get her interested in sports. She is very fast and has a fair amount of natural athleticism. She has tried basketball, soccer, softball, gymnastics and will be trying volleyball this Fall. She could be very good at any of those but so far she hasn’t loved any of them. Her love is animals. She started riding lessons with one of her besties Reese about a year ago. She loves riding the horses and helping take care of them each week. She did a horse camp this Summer and has been telling us she wants a horse for Christmas ever since then. I am hoping she will be my kiddo that does some theater and choir in school.
She likes to color and draw. If I let her she would keep every single piece of paper from school, church, restaurants, and anywhere else she gets it. She wants to color every single space on the paper and then display it when she is done. She has a good memory and if one of her papers comes up missing she quickly checks her bed room garbage, then the kitchen garbage and the big dumpster in the garage to retrieve it. She has followed the chain of where I throw things away that she hasn’t approved. Paper is not the only thing she likes to keep. She likes to collect almost anything. She has her stuffed animals, sea shells, sunglasses, chap stick, rocks, dragons, anything she can think of. She loves collecting and prefers to have all of her collections on display, not neatly put away.
She loves having a friend to play with. Her besties are Reese Dunn, Summer Beashore, Cambrie McDonald and her cousin Jovee. If she is with any of them they can entertain themselves for hours. Reese and her share a love of animals and swimming. Summer and her love coloring together, Cambrie and her love Lego dragons and Jovee and her come up with all sorts of games to play.
Reese and Emilee playing at Reese’s house with her dog Poe after horse camp.
She has loved dragons since she was very little and still loves them. She collects all kids of dragons-stuffed, plastic, action figures, but her most favorite is Dragons out of Legos. Her and Cambrie line them up for hours and play endlessly with them. She loves the How to Train Your Dragon movies and all the spin off shows from them.
Emilee is a sweet girl and has brought joy to our home from day one. She is the best cuddler. She loves to be tucked in every night. She enjoys going to bed when she is tired and looks forward to good sleep. She does not like getting up in the morning and the thought of having to get up early stresses her out. She is the pickiest eater you will ever meet. I think the biggest culprit to her pickiness is texture but it is a constantly changing, ridiculous list of what she will and won’t eat. Her food of choice is mac n cheese, cheese quesadilla, yogurt, carrots, apples, cereal, PB and honey, bagels with brown sugar cream cheese and water (unless root beer is an option which it usually isn’t but she likes to double check). She has been slowly getting better at broadening her list of foods she will eat with the exception of berries. Strawberries in particular. She will do any chore, go to bed in the middle of the afternoon, sit at the table for hours, go without any food before she will eat a strawberry or anything she knows has a strawberry in it. With the exception of strawberry milk which she calls pink milk and doesn’t know is strawberry. Technically it is just added flavored sugar so it isn’t really strawberry. As picky as she is she has a giant sweet tooth and we have to really watch what treats we keep around the house because she will eat all of them. Don’t think her inconsistent though, her sweet tooth is pretty picky too.
Emilee is a beautiful little girl but she doesn’t overly concern herself with matters of hygiene. She used to prefer to change into the clothes she was wearing the next day the night before instead of pajamas so she could roll out of bed and be ready. She now prefers to wear her pajamas and change in the morning like the rest of the world. She grabs whatever is at the top of her drawer and puts it on. Luckily she matches most of the time. She rarely shows a preference on what to wear and is fine with me picking out clothes for her at the store. She will brush the top layer of her hair and pull it into a pony tail. If she grabs shorts and it is cold she will put on a sweatshirt and wear knee high socks. If it is warm and she grabs leggings or long sleeves she will pull or roll them up if she gets hot. She would wear tennis shoes all the time even to church if I let her. One of her nick names is ‘Dirty Pigeon’. If you haven’t read the book by Mo Willems called The Dirty Pigeon, you should. It is about a pigeon that really needs a bath but doesn’t want to take one and makes a big fuss about it. When he finally gets in the bath he is in it for hours and won’t get out. That is Emilee. She will try and go days and days without taking a shower. When she is caught and has to take one she stomps and pouts about it then gets in the showers and literally stays until all the hot water is gone, or takes a bath and keeps adding hot water and stays for hours.
Emilee will be starting 3rd grade in a few weeks. School is not her favorite. The eye doctor is wondering and keeps checking her for focusing issues because reading is not her favorite. I think it is just that reading is not her favorite. She loves being read to but isn’t a big reader on her own. She does fine in school but is much more into the hands on active learning then sitting and concentrate learning. Her biggest hang up with school is she has to get up early (her definition of get up early is waking up anytime before she wakes up naturally on her own and can’t lay in bed for 30 minutes) but once she is there she does fine. Her teachers always say she is a sweet girl and a good listener.
Well that is kind of a hodge podge of things about Emilee. She is a happy fun girl and we love her a lot. She has been a happy easy going girl from day one. I am glad she is in our family and I love watching her grow up. The 5 words that pop into my head first when I think of Emilee are happy, fun, loving, silly, and kind.
Our much anticipated adults only vacation finally happened! We had a cruise scheduled for last December that was cancelled due to COVID. We rescheduled it for April this year and is was cancelled again for the same reason. We decided to push the cruise to next year for our 20th anniversary. Hopefully in a year cruises will be back and running. In the mean time we decided to go to an all inclusive resort and see if we liked it verses a cruise better. We went to Playa del Carmen and stayed in the Fairmont Mayakoba Resort. It was pretty swanky. In my head I pictured it like a fancy hotel room but we had our own little apartment and traveled around the resort by walking or golf cart to do the different things we wanted. There were lots of lizards. Tiny ones and big iguanas that we saw. We had a family of them that we saw around our bathroom. I told myself that they liked to stay in the bathroom where it was the most humid and wouldn’t crawl in my bed at night. We named them Larry, baby Larry, and Lizzy. When we were home and showing the kids pictures and talking to them about our trip they were the most jealous about our mini bar/fridge that was stocked daily with sodas, candy, chips, and a bunch of other snacks.
Eating breakfast at one of the restaurants before heading to the pool.
This little guy sat by me at the pool one afternoon. There were a lot of pretty birds, butterflies, and flowers.
I took this picture from the restaurant. It is the infinity pool we spent a lot of time swimming in.
View from the gold cart on our way to some place.
There was lots of little rivers like this through out the resort. We had one that went along the back of our little apartment.
Every morning they had someone walking around with this hawk. It was his job to keep the other birds away. As soon as he went around a corner there was always some brave/stupid bird that would dive in and try and grab some food.
In the US we have to stay 6 feet apart. In Mexico it is safer I guess so 5 feet is good enough. Stupid COVID.
We don’t know what these are but they were common to see around the resort. There was a family of them at one of the holes Ryan was trying to putt into. They were in no hurry to get out of his way.
Ryan golfed one afternoon with his new clubs. It was beautiful weather.
The weather was about 50/50 rainy and sunny while we were there. The day we had a tour around some of the places in Mexico, including the Mayan ruins was overcast and cloudy but no rain. It was still hot but no where near what it would have been if the sun was out. It was perfect. Some friends that were there a few months ago recommended we do an LDS tour with a family that has been running their own little business for group or personal tours. There is 8 kids if I remember right and all of them have a middle name from the Book of Mormon. The youngest is named Lemuel. His mom told him it was his job to make a new path for his name from his name sake. 🤣 Our friends tour guide was Helaman. My parents actually did a tour with them years ago on their cruise, their guides name was Alma. Our guide was Mosiah. It was a pretty awesome tour. He picked us up at our hotel and took us to Chichen-Itza, a cenote, and Ek Balam. He had lots of information about the ruins and pointed out ways that indicate the original religion was in God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost and then over time when they became wicked turned them into multiple other Gods.
Inside the arena. You can’t see in this picture but up on the second level wall there is a small circle with a hole in the middle attached to the side. The players had to bounce a rubber ball through the hole using any part of their bodies, except their hands. The WINNERS were given the honor of being sacrificed.
We saw two arenas that they used to watch teams compete in with a rubber ball. This was the smaller one. We are standing up where people would watch.
This is considered a smaller temple but it is still massive. It is 107 steps to the top from the ground.
This is part of a temple that is being restored. When they were built they were all white and smooth because they were covered with plaster.
107 steps. They are very steep and narrow. Mosiah taught us to walk diagonally to save our knees. It made a huge difference.
This tree is called a Tree of Life. The trunk is hollow and the bottom 4-5 feet is full of water. People could drill a small hole in the trunk and clean drinking water would come out. Pretty amazing.
Another Tree of Life. Once you knew what to look for, every now and then one would just appear in the middle of all the other trees.
These pillars represented the warriors. Mosiah said possible a memorial to the stripling warriors
The pillars all lead to this temple. The top has a statue in the middle that represents the leader of the soldiers. Mosiah thought possibly Helaman.
They built one tier on the temple every 50 years. They have discovered their are NINE more tiers under the ground that are not seen.
There are three Gods in the top of this building. They say it was the rain, sun, and I don’t remember the third one. Mosiah said it could also be God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost.
The corners of the building make shadows on the sides of the stair pillars that start in March and are at their fullest on April 6th. The shadows make it look like the snake is slithering down the temple.
Mosiah said other tour guides tell people these small circles were probably baths, or aroma therapy/steam areas. If the leaves were cleaned out you would see four stone steps in the side area that lead into the circle that is about 4 feet deep. There are several spots at the bottom that would drain water out too. Possibly for baptisms.
Mosiah told us what a lot of the ruins on these building meant but of course I can’t remember it all now.
This was the observatory. Like many other buildings and temples it was built so that on April 6th the sun would shine through the windows perfectly.
Between the two ruins we went and saw, Mosiah took us to a small little town and we ate lunch at a very authentic Mexican store/restaurant. Ryan thought it was pretty awesome. It reminded him of Bolivia. The food was really good. We had black bean soup and tacos with various kinds of pork and sauces. After lunch he took us to a cenote. They are really common there. It is basically a giant hole or cavern underground that gets filled with water from under ground rivers. They come in all different sizes. He took us to a smaller town with one that is pretty quiet and for most of the time we were the only ones there.
This is where we ate lunch.
I was a little nervous about going into a hole in the ground. Ryan said it wouldn’t even really feel like that. When I got there and looked down the spiral stair case I started to doubt him.
…still going…
…it feels like I am going pretty far down.
Then we go through this tunnel for a while that you can’t stand up straight in.
It did open up into a big area with beautiful water.
You can see the ceiling and were the hole that you can look straight down into the cenote from the street in this picture.
The water wasn’t as cold as we thought it would be. It was refreshing.
I struggled with swimming out in the open. It felt like some cave monster would come grab me.
Ryan didn’t have any issues though.
He guessed it was about 12 feet deep right here.
We headed to the beach to spend one of our days. We had heard there was a bit of a seaweed issue. We were fine with that. We thought we would go and sit in a chair and enjoy the view and eat lunch. When we wanted to swim we could come back to the pools. It turns out a ‘bit of a seaweed problem’ means ten foot tall mounds as far as you can see in either direction and crews of people netting and raking it up out of the ocean and not even making a dent. The smell was what we couldn’t handle. We had dinner reservations on the beach one night but after our visit we decided to cancel them and eat at a different restaurant.
Boardwalk out to the beach.
The sand was beautiful, white powdered sugar feeling. There was dozens of little huts to sit under and sleep, read, visit, and eat.
This is after a giant tractor came by and removed the top of the mound. So sad that this is ruining their beaches.
One of the days we went into Playa Del Carmen and walked 5th avenue. Right after we got there a guy came up to us and said he was our waiter from the hotel and he wanted to show us his shop. He totally swindled us. We both thought he was an actual waiter from the hotel. We bought a few things from him and left. About ten seconds later, another shop owner came up to us and said he was our waiter. That is when we realized we had fallen for the number one tourist trick on the whole street. Amazingly we ran into 40 waiters that happened to work at our hotel. We figured out the umbrella we were carrying from the hotel was drawing all the attention. Despite that we got some good souvenirs and had fun walking around and seeing everything. The beach by the shopping area was covered in seaweed too.
We had a wonderful vacation and enjoyed ourselves very much. I got my first stamp on my pass port. We both decided that the resort was awesome and we had a great time but all things considered we like cruising a little more. There is a bigger variety of activities to do and you see more places with out having to do the traveling yourself once you are on the ship. We had fun and made some great memories together that will get us fueled and relaxed until our next trip together.
Allison went home with Grandma Jana for a few weeks after she came to watch the kids while Ryan and I were in Mexico. She loves going to visit Grandma and Grandpa and had a great time. They went swimming a lot, watched lots of movies, did art projects, she played with Aubry and she met her cousin KJ for the first time and held him for a bit while they lit of fire works for the 4th of July. She loves the one on one attention and enjoys getting to be an only child for a bit.
Matthew had a lot more baseball. They won several tournaments and came close to winning in several as well. He and Campbell like to go and watch each others games when they don’t have their own to play in. Towards the end of the season he finally started getting some of his speed back that he lost when he broke his leg.
This is some more random Summer pictures.
We helped watch Margarita’s dogs one weekend. They are more of the lounge and relax type then the play and move type. Emilee was trying to convince them to do something with her. She was not successful.
Not our usual July 4th now that Grandma and Grandpa are here. We all ate a yummy dinner together and there were a lot of fireworks to watch. Next year we will make better plans to be somewhere that we can light our own fireworks off.
Allison was quite pleased with how high she was able to stack her free ice cream cone at Jason’s Deli.
Emilee watched her friend Natalie’s hamster for her while they went on vacation. Between her and help from Allison, she was able to keep it alive and remembered to feed it. I think it also clarified for her that she might not really want the full time responsibility of a pet.
This is Matthew and Ethan’s idea of hanging out together. I think they are at least playing the same game as a team.
Allison’s chalk art.
The last two pictures are to help Allison remember that we love her and this is why she isn’t always in the pictures with us.
Allison was being a little grumpy and we were giving her a hard time about refusing to be in pictures or not showing her face or smiling. We told her when she gets older she is going to wonder why she isn’t in any of the pictures with everyone else.
This is why Allison. When we try to take a picture we have to take what we can get or we would never get a picture. We still love you, and we love the back of your head!
Dad wanted to have a family dinner and game night with all the KC Terry families for his birthday. He smoked some meat and Ross and him played several games. I played one too, since it was his birthday and Father’s Day he said I had to. He spent most of the day on Saturday golfing with his new clubs. He stuck with his traditional birthday cake request of “mom’s chocolate cake”. It was a great weekend. We are all very happy that he is in our family.
Despite the month of May having an average temperature of about 65 and 3 of the 4 weeks rainy and gloomy, we are all ready for Summer to start!
One of our first activities was celebrating Grandma Terry’s birthday! She turned 69, and is doing pretty great! She has finished 4 of 6 chemo treatments and the cancer is responding like it should and going away. She has been handling it all like a champ and taking it day by day. We are all proud and happy for her and continue to pray that she will make a full recovery. We were happy with her choice of birthday cake too-strawberry jello cake-Yum!!
The girls went to Girl Scout camp to kick of their summer. They have both been a few times and don’t look forward to it per se, but seem to have a great time once they are there. Emilee went two days this year and then got sick with a stomach bug so missed the last half. Allison was old enough to stay over night one of the nights and saw way to many large bugs and spiders in her perma-tent. I don’t know if they will go again next year but it was good for both of them to enjoy a little outdoor time.
Allison having no fun at camp.
The girls and I were planning on joining Matthew and Ryan at a baseball tournament in Arkansas immediately following their camp, but since Emilee got sick and Allison wanted to go the last day instead of skip it we stayed home for the weekend and the boys went with out us. There first two games were kind of a bust. Matthew said they were probably the worst two games they had played since the famous ‘grand-slam bunt’ disaster 5 years ago. Things improved after that though. Matthew had some person best improvements and good contributions to the team and overall the team did better and won a few games. They all had a fun weekend and made good memories together too. Including adding a sign next to the hotels “pool closed” sign that caused a little confusion. If you can’t read the sign it says “The pool is open!” It may or may not have been added by one of the parents on our team.
Next week Matthew is going on his first High Adventure trip with the Young Men in our ward too. He needs some good outdoor time just like the girls.
Our 2021 Summer has officially begun. This will definitely be remembered as one of the weirdest school years ever I am sure. Of the three big school districts around our area, I am glad our kids were in the district we were in. They handled COVID the best as far as keeping kids in school as much as possible and getting things back to normal as quickly as possible. There was a lot of frustrations. Matthew was doing school virtually from home almost half the year and his grades and psyche struggled a lot because of it. The girls principal was ridiculous before COVID and used this as an opportunity to control and regulate EVERYTHING she could possibly think of. Compared to other districts I am glad I was in the one we were in though. I hope next year we can put all this behind us and have a good year.
Emilee finished 2nd grade this year. She had Mrs. Trimble. Allison also had this teacher and I specifically requested Emilee NOT have her. As I mentioned earlier though they have a special principal and her and I are not…fans of each other. Anyway, despite having a teacher that doesn’t seem to like kids or teaching, Emilee made it through the year without her anxiety getting to out of control. We were able to help curb her stress in the morning before going to school with a straight up bribe. A dollar each day she was able to not panic and cry about going to school the day night or morning before school. Best dollars I ever spent. The last week of school I went to a nail appointment and guess who I ran into?! Mrs. Trimble getting her nails done in the middle of a school day because she “just had to take a break from it all.” She didn’t see me, I just overheard her talking to the person doing her nails. I digress though. Emilee is done with second grade and is looking forward to 3rd!
Award day.
Field Day
Last day of school.
Allison finished 5th grade this year and is moving onto middle school next year! The dollar bribe worked so well with Emilee I bribed Allison a dollar each day that she got up in the morning and ready and made it to the bus on time without blowing up on anyone. We had a 50/50 percent success rate but I will still count it as a win. As per usual Allison had a love/hate relationship with her teacher, Mrs. Brown. I liked her though and thought she understood Allison pretty well. She also helped us realize that Allison was literally ‘gating’ her performance instead of performing at her top potential. She talked with us about this and we ended up getting her tested and she is now in the gifted program for math, science, and reading which I think will improve Allison’s attitude toward school a lot as she will not be bored out of her mind anymore. We had several meetings and talks with teachers and counselors (oddly never the principal) and were able to get her evaluated without her knowing-and purposefully sabotaging herself. After the fact, when we were discussing all of this with Allison and trying to explain what the phrase ‘shooting ones self in the foot’ means, I would say we didn’t get a full representation of her capabilities but enough that she is now on the school radar and we can challenge her better. I am hoping she will thrive in middle school with a little more freedom and more variety to her day. She is looking forward to it a lot.
1st day of 5th grade
Graduation Day!
Graduation Day
Award Day
80’s Day
Hawaiian Day
Matthew finished 8th grade this year and will be starting his first year of high school next year! Between mask requirements for school sports, and breaking his leg Matthew didn’t play any school sports this year- which is very unusual for him. Luckily he still had baseball and basketball outside of school (before he broke his leg) but he is excited to be able to be more involved next year. Despite COVID changes and no matter how ridiculous they got at times, he was able to finish the year on a positive note. I am nervous and excited for him to start high school. He is a good boy. If I can help guide him through the next 4 years of his life without huge mistakes or permanent scars and a strong testimony of Christ I will be a happy momma.
One of my co-workers lives on a small hobby farm. She has a pig, lambs, calf, donkey, turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, bees and probably a few more animals I am not remembering. We were talking at work one day and decided that we should all go visit her farm. Emilee was the only one of my kids that was able to go, she brought her friend Summer. They loved it. Emilee is an animal lover and isn’t afraid to jump in and do whatever when it comes to animals. She loved the baby lamb and the baby ducks and chicks the most. One chicken in particular took a liking to her and followed her around and wanted her to hold it. Sandi let her name it, she decided to call it Ruby.
