It is way past time for us to get our pictures updated. Here are a couple of my favorites from our session.
Top pics from May 2015, bottom pics from May 2019 
Author: Janae
May-cember
The new trendy word this year I have been hearing a lot is May-cember. Meaning that May is crazy busy and packed full of end of the school year stuff and it feels like December because so much is going on. It is true, its a busy month. I find the word a little obnoxious though. I feel like it will perpetuate the craziness and people will start making things bigger and more elaborate to live up to the word. I am a little grumpy and cynical today though so maybe it’s just my negative attitude. We have had plenty going on this month though. I have put some of it in other posts but there are a few things I think are worth mentioning that I haven’t yet.
Ryan and I celebrated our 17th anniversary. Wow. It seems like forever and 5 minutes at the same time. The kids spent the night at their cousins and Ryan and I went downtown and stayed at a fancy hotel in the Power and Light District. We ate at a fancy steak house, and walked around afterwards for a bit. We found a place called Insomnia Cookie. They had giant delicious cookies that were served warm and they were open and delivered until 3AM. AAAhhh! I have never met a cookie I didn’t like so I tried a few. They were YUMMY! It was a fun little find but probably good that they are far enough away from my house that I can’t just pop in whenever I have a cookie craving.
The last time we had family pictures taken was four years ago. I have never gone that long between pictures but I really love the ones we have up now. I have been saying every Spring and Fall for the past two years that we needed to get new ones so I finally made myself make an appointment. Part of the reason I was postponing was because I was going to ‘lose 10 pounds first’ but mostly because it is a lot of work to get clean, coordinating outfits that fit everyone and haircuts, schedules, and the weather to all cooperate. It finally got done though. Instead of losing 10 pounds I gained 10 more, we had to reschedule once for rain, and Allison got a giant purple popsicle stain on her yellow shirt hid from me until we got there because she wasn’t supposed to eat it in the first place, but thanks to photo shop, we still got them done. I haven’t seen them yet, I am anxious for them to come!
I have been working on a few projects, or encouraging Ryan to work on a few projects around the house that we have wanted done for a while. It is nice to be getting a few of them checked off. Ryan put a screen door on our back porch which is awesome. I love being able to leave the door open and get fresh air with no bugs. Assuming everything lives I finally have the rock beds planted we put in last year and everything replaced that died last year and our front yard is done and can just grow and be pretty. Sherri helped me figure out the back yard while she was here so I can start on that…next year. I decorated our bathroom and master bedroom. We have a nice, pretty, relaxing space for Ryan and I to go hide in when we want to now. I also completed phase one of two in our garage re-organization. I designed some custom shelves that would hold and organize all the sports stuff in our garage. Ryan was willing to build them but I was not willing to wait until he had time to do it so I did it. It took me longer to do it, but it got done sooner that way and I was pretty impressed with myself. Power tools make me nervous but I got over it and used drills, saws and all kinds of power tools to get it done. The next thing I am currently working on is putting a new sink in our main floor half bath. It has a pedestal sink in it now which is completely useless and drives me crazy. I ordered an unfinished cabinet and I am sanding and staining it to match the rest of our cabinetry, then Ryan will put it in. Oh, we got our house tested for Radon as well and it measured at unsafe levels so we had a Radon pump put in. Ryan is convinced and I am on the fence that the whole Radon thing is a farce but we got a pump anyway. They left a PVC eye sore up the entire side of our house when they put it in. Ryan was not happy. The next day I climbed up to the very top of our 30′ ladder while Matthew held it with enough focus that made me feel only slightly more secure then if he wasn’t there at all but he promised to call 911 if I fell. I painted it all the same color as our house. Ryan hasn’t said anything since so it worked well enough that he doesn’t notice it anymore.
Matthew finished up 6th grade! He said it was the fastest year of school he has had so far. He also admitted that it school ‘isn’t that bad’. He had Field Day too but I didn’t make it to his so I don’t have pictures. He said it was a good time though. He always enjoys when he gets to test his speed skills. He is looking forward to not having to ride the bus for 45 minutes next year because he will be at the new middle school by our house. He picked art, cooking class, engineering and I can’t remember the last elective for next year. I was impressed with his variety when he showed me.
I did make it to his award ceremony. He was on the Principals Straight ‘A’s’ Honor Roll and was also recognized for participating in Mathletes and being the representative several times for their school for the events throughout the year. He is such a good boy. He just takes care of what he needs to have done and does a good job and is a good person. I am glad I get to be his mom.
Continental Math 
Principal Honor Roll 
Good job Matthew!
Emilee finishes up Kindergarten!
Emilee had her first Field Day this year. She didn’t really understand what it was but it was talked up enough by everyone and her teacher at school that she was very excited for it. She had a really fun time. She ran super fast in her relay. Her class was not the strongest at tug of war but they were the fastest in the mat pass. She loved the hamster ball and blow ups too. She tried the slip and slide but didn’t want to get to wet. I had a fun time sitting on the sidewalk drinking our lemonade and eating our snack. She is fun to just hang out with. She smoked everyone at the rope and net climb. She was pretty amazing on the pull up bar too. her gymnastic teachers always tell me how she is super strong. I don’t really notice it until she is doing more pull ups then the 3rd graders and climbing the rope in 3 seconds.
Playing Jenga with Carter. 
Running in the hamster ball. 
Zipping up the rope. 
Racing the other kids up the net. 
Getting ready for the class relay race.
For our end of the year celebration for Girl Scouts we went to a swimming activity. We had pizza and cupcakes and the girls swam their little hearts our for two hours. It was a fun time. Emilee says she wants to do it again next year so I guess I am in for another year as her Troop Leader. I still can’t believe I signed up to be a girl scout troop leader.
Emilee is getting really good with her reading and writing. I find lots of notes around the house that she has written. This is a picture she had laying next to her the other night when I checked on her before I went to bed. I loved it! We had just taken our family pictures the day before so she had drawn one of the poses we did. We are all lined up holding hands. I love the details she included too, all of our hair is correct and Ryan has his beard. Hehehe! So cute.
Ryan has been trying to take the girls out on a daddy date for some one on one time lately. Emilee was very excited and was watching like a hawk for Ryan to come home on their date day because she was very excited to go her Daddy Date. A friend came over and asked her to play and she said she would have to play another time because she didn’t want to miss her date with her dad. Emilee has the worlds biggest sweet tooth. For her date they started at the donut store with the best milk every made-strawberry flavor. Then they headed to a park and ran off some of the sugar.
My youngest is done with Kindergarten! It seems like just yesterday we were taking Matthew and Allison to Kindergarten! Emilee was excited to go to school this year but she struggled with the separation in the morning. She got braver each day and before long was jumping out the car door and skipping to class. She really likes her teacher. Mrs. Pahl is very nice and very organized and does a really good job making everyone feel special and important. I don’t think Emilee realizes yet that she won’t have Mrs. Pahl for 1st grade. We can worry about that later though.
For Kindergarten Promotion the kids sing a few songs for the parents. They all have a cute little graduation cap and tassle. Afterwards everyone goes back to their own class and the teacher hands out awards. Emilee got the Butterfly Award for her amazing colorful art work.
Promotion Songs 
Emilee is not shy when they sing as a class. She loves it! 
Heading back to class for awards after the performance. 
Getting her Butterfly Award. 
Emilee with Mrs. Pahl. 
Only one more day of Kindergarten! 
Mom and Emi selfie. 
Emilee and her friend Bennett 
Emilee and her friend Stella 
Emilee and her friend Alton 
Emilee and her friend Laney.
Allison wraps up the school year!
Allison has had a busy last month of school. Her teacher’s name this year is Miss Coovert. It is her first year teaching and she is pretty awesome. Allison has loved having her. All the third grade teachers have made this a pretty fun year. They always had fun projects when they learned things and Allison loved being able to use her creativity. One of her favorite projects was making a bottle buddy of a famous Kansan out of a soda bottle and a foam ball for the head. She picked Bob Dole because his name was Bob.
They have gone on several field trips the last few weeks too. They went to the Topeka Zoo and toured the Capitol building. They went to the Fire Station, and last week they went to the Mahaffie Stage Coach Stop. I went on that one with her. We panned for gold, road in a stage coach and learned a lot about the different trails pioneers used to travel around. I am glad that I got to go on a field trip with her. She won’t want me on to many more probably. She is getting to where she wants to be around friends more and more.
Panning for gold, we didn’t have any luck. 
Stage Coach ride! 
Mahaffie Stage Coach Stop
Allison has been learning the value of honesty the past few weeks too, and is still working on it. She asked me to sign her planner after school one day, which is very normal. The ‘planner’ she brought me was not normal. It was a stack of lined paper taped together with “Do Math” written on it. At the bottom of said stack of papers was a suspicious orange piece of paper sticking out that said “Parent Signature”. As you might have guessed she wanted me to sign her ‘planner’ on the orange paper. I looked at her and said, ‘You want me to sign your planner, is this your planner.’ She looked back and said, ‘Yep, my real one is missing so I made one.’ I picked up the pen she conveniently had ready for me to sign with and signed the white paper, she of course said I should sign at the bottom where the orange paper said. I told her is she wanted me to sign the orange paper I would have to untape it and read what it said first. I wish I could have gotten a picture of her face when she realized that her plan had not worked. I remember coming up with ridiculous plans like that as a kid and wondering how my plan could have possibly failed. Allison quickly disappeared when I started un-taping her ‘planner’. I told her when she wanted me to sign it she could come talk to me about it. It was a think sheet from school. They have to fill one out when they do something they are not supposed. It says what they did, why it’s wrong, and what they are going to do to fix it. All the teachers have tickets at the school and hand them out to kids when they see them doing something good. When they get so many tickets they can turn them in for a prize in the office. Allison had decided that she would make her own tickets at home with our color printer and then turn them in at school and told her teacher the substitute they had the day before had given them to her. Again, how did this brilliant plan fail?!? I of course did not fail to point out the irony that she tried to get me to sign her think sheet about being dishonest by trying to trick me and be dishonest again showing she clearly had a lot to learn about being honest. After a long repetitive talk about honesty and trust, several drafts of an apology letter to her teacher before one was approved, and the punishment of being grounded from friends and all electronics for two weeks, I signed her think sheet.
One of the best days of the year in elementary school is Field Day. It was a great success this year. It was 85 degrees and sunny. Perfect weather to play outside. They had the younger kids do Field Day in the morning and the older ones in the afternoon. I went and helped out with both of them and had some fun one on one time. Allison helped her class win the relay race and the tug of war. She had a few turns in the giant hamster balls and blow up obstacle course and slide. They had fun water activities and lots of rope climbs, net climbs, hula hoops, dancing, pogo sticks, and topped it off with lemonade and popsicles.
Water games 
Alli in the hamster ball 
Allison and Paighton waiting for the hamster ball. 
Running her leg of the relay race. 
Nice job Allison!
Allison finished her second year of Girl Scouts this year. She bridged from being a Brownie to a Junior. She joined a new troop this year and has really liked it. They do a lot more outdoor stuff. She went on a campout at the Zoo a few weeks ago. They went on a night hike while they were there and saw the animals while they were sleeping. Then they slept in one of the exhibits. She has a few good friends in her troop too. I am glad she has found something that she looks forward too.
Allison with her Girl Scout Troop 
Walking through the rainbow bridge. 
She is now a Junior Cadette instead of a Brownie.
This week at school they had the talent show and awards ceremony. Allison and her friend Hailey started working on a cheer routine at the very beginning of the year. Somewhere along the way it got changed to Hailey and Paighton doing the cheer (I think because they had matching cheer outfits) and Allison was the comedic relief/judge for the cheer leaders. They were all pretty excited about it and had fun doing it.
Allison was awarded the Student of the Month for P.E. and Miss Coovert gave her the Helping Hand Award because she is always willing to help in the class room. She is a very helpful girl when she wants to be.
She can also be thoughtful. The past week or so she has been learning to sew a little bit. She made a few pillow cases for herself to use. Then she decided to make little throw pillows for each of her Grandma’s so she picked out some fabric, I helped a little but she cut, sewed, stuffed and then decorated them pretty much on her own. They turned out pretty cute. She definitely has talented crafty side. In between sewing projects she decided to make a snack serving platter for her chips, salsa, and fruit. It actually worked quite well.
Mother’s Day Weekend
For Mother’s Day weekend Ryan and Matthew decided that I would love to watch baseball. Just kidding. The coach asked if the moms were on board for a tournament that weekend and none of us were going to be the one that poohooed the idea so the coach decided that’s what we would want to do for Mother’s Day. The boys probably put him up to it though.
I do very much enjoy watching them play though so I wasn’t put out. The rain decided to come down almost nonstop for the whole weekend though so instead of playing baseball we spent most of it waiting the rain out in the car, or under an overhang somewhere. One of our games was close to one of the players homes so we went and had a little Mother’s Day celebration there while we waited for a bit. The boys each gave us a red carnation with a card that they wrote a little note to us on and it had a team picture and an individual picture of Matthew for me. There was brownies, donuts, and chocolate too so it was a pretty fun time. While the moms hung out and relaxed the boys and the rest of the kids decided to have a game of wiffle ball in the cul de sac. I think we only ended up playing one game the whole weekend. We all went to lunch together while we were waiting too. We do enjoy this team and the families. Everyone is nice and friendly and for the most part gets along. We have fun times together.
Emilee and Allison love being around the boys. Allison plays is cool and tries to act like she could take them or leave them. Neither one of them is supposed to be in the dug out but Allison will casually meander in there and try and go unnoticed as long as she can. Emilee is much less subtle. She knows better but occasionally I have to haul her out of the dug out or an after game huddle. She likes to give the boys more attention then they usually want with hugs, jokes, sharing toys, tickling, stealing their hats, offering one sunflower seed at a time, asking them for sunflower seeds and anything else she can think of. Some of them don’t know what to do with her so they just pretend she isn’t there. A few start calling for Matthew to ‘fix her’ and a couple are sweet and play a little bit with her. We remind Matthew that they will never admit it (at least Allison) but they watch him like a hawk and want to be like him and with him as much as they can so when he can he needs to include them. Sometimes I get an eye roll but most of the time he is good about letting them hang around when they can.
Team lunch waiting for better weather. 
Matthew running the bases in wiffle ball. 
All the moms and the boys on Mother’s Day. 
Emilee spending a half inning on dads lap. 
Matthew forgot how to wear a shirt. 
Emilee giving Cam the run down on how many flowers she collected so far.
Tiger Sanctuary
Once baseball gets started it is not very often that we find ourselves with a free Saturday but a few weeks ago we had a few hour stretch on a Saturday so we decided to go and check out a Tiger Sanctuary that we heard about that is only a few miles from our house. We actually heard about it from a guy that Ryan works with. He lives right across the road from it and he wakes up to the lions roar every morning. I think that would be pretty cool. Lions roars are pretty awesome sounding, way better than an obnoxious beep from an alarm or rooster crow. Not that either of those wake me up every morning either I’m just saying that seems like a very invigorating, get up and get going, sound to wake up to in the mornings.
It was a pretty cool adventure. The kids all liked it. While we were waiting for our tour guide to get us we walked around the little shop and they have a giant beehive with plexi glass for walls so you can watch the bees inside their hive and see what they do and what it looks like. The were even able to find the queen bee that was laying eggs.
When our tour guide came and got us we walked around the sanctuary and got to meet all the animals. They have around 37 animals there in all. They were all animals that had been rescued from situations or injuries that won’t allow them to be in the wild anymore on their own. They had 6-8 tigers, a few lynx, servals, a pair of foxes, a leopard, a lion and a lioness, and a handful of other animals that I had never heard of before that we saw. Our guide told us a lot about each animal and also told us each of the animals individual stories and about their personalities. The tour was almost an hour long and the kids were interested the whole time, and new most of the animals by name when we were done. One of the things that stood out to me the most that I didn’t know before we went is that a fox makes oil on its skin that smells just like a skunk. It is a self defense mechanism. That is of course why the people that thought it would be ‘fun’ to have a pet fox got rid of him when he started making that smell. Boy did he stink!!
The last two animals we saw were wolves. They were both losing their winter coat and there was wolf fur all over the place back in their area. Our guide grabbed a handful of it and let the kids feel how soft it was. Emilee immediately started running around collecting as much of it as she could. She was very disappointed when her dad said she could not bring it home. She went from disappointed to mad when she looked at me to see if I would over ride dad and let her keep it and instead I said not only could she not take it home, she could not take it in the van. Gross. That is all we need, a giant ball of wolf hair spread all over the car and house.
Despite the wolf fur set back, we all had a good time and it was a cool place to see.
The animals were much more active then in zoos, the kids liked seeing them up and moving around. 
This tiger was rescued from the circus. 
Emilee begging to keep just a little wolf fur, oh and the really cool stick she couldn’t live without too.
Easter 2019
Somehow I missed these pictures when I was blogging so they are a little out of order but these are the family pictures we took on Easter. This year for Easter after we went to church we went over to our cousins house for dinner and Grandma and Grandpa Terry were here for the weekend too, so we all had a yummy Easter dinner together and then spent the day relaxing and playing games.
April’s Memorable Moments.
Opening day for Spring Baseball! These two were skipping out the door with a big smile at 7am on a Saturday. 
2019 Spring Baseball NBA Adams team 
First home run! 
Matthew’s most memorable moment this month has been the start of baseball. After months of off season practicing and boost workout sessions it was finally time to start playing again. It was harder to say who is more excited between Matthew and Ryan but I will give Matthew a slightly higher mark for excitement. He played in a couple tournaments right off the bat. The first one was a bit of a let down. They played great the first game and then it went down hill from there. The next weekend they played awesome and ended up taking 2nd in their division for the tournament. More exciting than that was Matthew hitting his first home run! He was pretty pumped obviously. He has been envisioning that moment for years. He loved it and had a permanent grin on his face for several days after that. There has been a stretch of bad luck for us since then in having everyone healthy on the team. The weekend of his homerun Cam got hit by a pitch and had a concussion. I got hit by a foul ball from another field and got a concussion. During the following week at school Derrick and Caden got concussions at school in recess and PE. We had a few fills at games while everyone was recovering. The first game everyone was back Frank got hit in the head with a weighted warm up ball and got a concussion. It is a little ridiculous. I hope we are done with injuries and we will be ready to go for the season. The new Avenger’s movie-Endgame-came out so we all went to the movies together to watch it. We figured that would be a safe activity that no one should get a concussion at.
Making yummy smores 
She made it all the way to the top. 
An act of kindness coupon from Allison…
Allison’s most memorable moment was going on the Girls Scout Unit camp out. She likes to camp. She enjoys being able to run wild, eat smores and sleep outside. She had a great time. They had a choice to sleep in a cabin or in a little outdoor hut thing with three walls and a curtain for the fourth wall. She picked the outdoor hut thingy and was next to the curtain so she was a little chilly all night. She forgot to use the hand warmers she took to help keep her warm along with her sleeping back, flannel pj’s, two blankets, and a hat. She is a tough girl though and she survived and had a fun time despite the cold. Her age group was scheduled for the rock climbing area, which she was very excited to try. She made it to the top of the tallest wall they had.
The last picture in her memorable moments is more of a memorable moment for me about Allison. For the lesson in church one week they made coupons to give to someone to remind them to do nice things for people. All of Allison’s coupons said ‘might’ or ‘maybe’ in them. Ha! That is so Allison. You know where you stand though.
Bus ride for Emilee’s fieldtrip. 
Emilee’s Paradise Park field trip 
The car in this picture is the pace car, not the race car. 🙂 
Emilee had her kindergarten field trip to Paradise Park this month. She asked me to be a chaperone for it so we got to ride on the bus together. It was her first bus ride and first time to Paradise Park. There were lots of different stations that they rotated through like cooking, art, face painting, water play, outside play, science, theater, and planting a plant. It was a fun time.
Later in the month Kenny, Sherri and Aubry came for a weekend visit. Sherri gave Kenny a Kansas City Speedway driving experience in a Lamborghini. Emilee and I went with them to watch him drive it. We got to be down in the pit and see them get in and drive off. Emilee liked the sounds the cars made, and of course the different colors. We are not a big race car family but it would be fun to go see a race sometime.
Love notes from Allison
I have shared a few of Allison’s not so nice notes that she has left for me, but a little while ago when Ryan and I went to bed and found a nice note on our closet doors for us. It is even laminated with contact paper so she can erase and write something else occasionally. Our Allison has a sweet little heart.
Great idea, stupid name.
After a lifetime of making my own fry sauce anywhere outside of Utah or Idaho. The ketchup people have finally realized they should make this stuff to buy in the store. Woohoo! Many things are better with fry sauce but it isn’t even worth eating a fry without it. There is still room for improvement-the mayo to ketchup ratio is not quite there, they need a little more ketchup. The name is ridiculous too, but they are on the right track!
