March – Page 2 – Terry Family Shenanigans

Spring Break

We stayed home this year for Spring Break. We are toying with the idea of building a house and have some things going to see what we could get approved for on a loan so we didn’t want to do anything to extravagant. To help add a little bit of fun to the week, I agreed to watch our friends dog Po. He is a Berna-doodle, at least 100lbs, a fluff ball, and very playful. They had a lot of fun with him.

Matthew took him to the dog park a few times and he slept with him at night. Emilee fed him and took him on a few walks. Allison catered to his every need and whim. She barely left his side. They all played with him and had a good time. He is a pretty smart dog. He knew how to play hide-n-seek so they played that for hours.

They were hoping it would change my mind about wanting a dog but I told them from the start that wasn’t going to happen and this was just for a week. I thought he was a very good dog but he made everything smell like a dog, scratched my floors and required a lot of work that I don’t have energy for.

He brought a lot of fun to our Spring Break, and now when we see him at our friends he is very excited to see us. We fit some other fun stuff in for our Spring Break too. Emilee did horse camp, we saw several movies together, had lots of play dates, went to lunch together, the zoo, and stayed up to late and slept in to long. It was great.

The last part of the break Ryan went on his 15th annual March madness trip with his BFF Mike and Sam.

We Work Better Separately

Allison was given the assignment of writing a paper on Gabby Douglas for school. In class they switched papers and peer edited it for each other. They were given a specific form with items to check and give feed back on the paper they edited. Allison was sick this week and wasn’t able to get her paper edited, so her teacher suggested she have a parent edit it and fill out the review form. Ryan was out of town so she asked if I would edit it for her. In hind sight I should have had Matthew do it but I wasn’t smart enough to come up with that at the time. Allison has a lot of amazing strengths and talents. She is a very smart girl. She has been working really hard on her moodiness and responding to emotions on the same level as the person she is talking with (instead of always responding with a 10).

In general we have been getting along a lot better. So much better that I completely forgot that one of Allison’s many strengths is not taking constructive criticism well. Especially from her mother.

She left me in my room with her computer and the review sheet and I started editing. I followed the review sheet and highlighted, noted and marked whatever it told me to do. After about 5 minutes had passed Allison returned to get her paper. I told her I wasn’t done yet. She left and came back 5 minutes later. I still wasn’t done. She looked over my shoulder and asked what could be taking so long. When she saw that I had actually made edits to her paper (that she apparently thought was unimprovable) she show cased another one of her talents. She is pretty incredible at quick thinking and has a quick wit to match. Unfortunately, she sometimes uses this ability to ring someone up and down on a level that makes you feel like it was scripted for a movie if she feels wronged. Looking back now it was comical, at the time not so much. She was truly flabbergasted that I could have found anything wrong with her paper beyond an accidental grammar error. Allison also has an incredible way of pushing my buttons and one of my weaknesses is that I let her. We both started arguing and ended with me telling her to edit her own paper, her taking her computer and storming out and yelling, “All you had to do was put your name on the editing sheet-THAT IS IT- three seconds to do something and you screwed it all up!”

A few hours later she came and found me and with the enormous amount of grit and determination Allison has coursing through every cell in her body she swallowed her pride and told me, “I changed some of the things back and ignored most of your suggestions. BUT you actually did have some good corrections that I kept. Thank you for editing my paper. Oh, and sorry for yelling at you.”

I picked my jaw up off the floor and gave her a hug. Not to long ago this would have gone a totally different way and been dragged out for days. While I could have tweaked her apology a little, the fact that she apologized on her own without any prompting is a big step. Huge steps have been made.

Irony

According to my children, I am an obsessive compulsive cleaner. According to me my children are messy lazy slobs. Of course we both disagree with each others perspectives of the other, but as I love to tell them I am the mom, the adult, the owner of the house, and maker of the rules so for now they have to do it my way. This opinion of each other leads to a constant debate in our home, as I am sure it happens in many homes, when a chore is given between “I did do (fill in job requested)!” and “You did not do (fill in job requested) well.” A simple task that if done immediately and correctly would take 5-10 minutes can be dragged out for hours. It is truly exhausting.

The other day when they were doing some of their jobs, several of them needed to use the vacuum. I was doing some things of my own and also needed to use the vacuum. As all of us used it and passed it around I noticed this;

According to our usual MO’s the loosely wrapped cord would be my kids doing, and the neatly wrapped cord would be mine. However, many years ago I decided it was annoying to wrap and unwrap the cord every time I used the vacuum that I keep in the closet and never look at. I started wrapping it as shown in exhibit A. A little bit messy but that is the way I prefer it. Such a slacker, I know. You would think my children-that cut every corner they can when doing their chores-would be all for wrapping the cord this way. Honestly, I’m surprised that it gets wrapped up in any way at all but all three of my children- every single one of them- neatly rolls the cord up as soon as they are done using the vacuum. They don’t put it away of course but they wrap the cord and tuck it in all nice and neat. AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I will say nothing though. I am not willing to find out what happens if I suggest my kids do something less… thorough. All my ‘harping and nagging’ over the years has taken root in their heads to wrap the vacuum cord. I can only hope that one day it will spread to throwing their trash away, or putting their dirty dishes in the dishwasher with out being told. Maybe it will spontaneously pop into their heads one day to put their dirty socks in the laundry bin instead of leaving it wherever they take them off. That hope keeps me from telling them, they don’t have to wrap the vacuum cord. That is irony at its finest for you.

Things That Made Me Smile

These two besties are just like sisters. Reese and Emilee were due within a few days of each other but Emilee came early so they are two weeks apart. They have been besties since then. They went to pre-school together but are in different school districts. They see each other at church and church activities and take riding lessons together and squeeze in as much play time as they can in between. They both love horses and talk about them for hours when they play. They both have similar interests in clothes (they grab the first thing they touch in the drawer regardless of if it matches or not) hairstyles (brush it just long enough to get it in a pony tail) and sense of adventure (they always climb, run, jump or fling themselves in, up, or down whatever they can). They are both the youngest and are often left hanging out together on Friday or Saturday nights while everyone else is off doing things with friends and their parents go out to dinner together. They are easy to have together and fun to watch. This picture is from the other day when they were at our house and decided they would practice putting ponytails in each others hair.

Allison has a very witty sense of humor that catches me off guard sometimes. She loves to make people laugh when she isn’t being a grump she is fun to joke around with. A few months ago I got a little to attached to a stupid farm game on my phone. The kids took notice and gave me a hard time about spending my time on something else besides them. Allison is also a very crafty and artistic person. She started making funny stories or pictures with stick figures. I am not very artistically gifted so I was impressed at how funny and detailed she could be with just stick figure drawings. One morning I found this funny little picture left for me next to my sink in the bathroom. It made me chuckle.

As mentioned a little earlier in this post, Emilee doesn’t concern herself to much with looks when getting dressed. Her first priority is comfort. Last week she attempted to add a functionality component to her Sunday outfit. Luckily her dad caught her before getting to church. When he asked her why she was wearing what she was wearing, she logically explained, “I put my clothes on that I want to wear after church under my church clothes so I can change faster when I get home.” When the look on her dads face looked like it was heading towards “I don’t think so” she quickly added, “And it keeps me warm.” He told her to trade her socks and pants for tights and get in the car to go.

Emilee is making the blog a lot this week. Another quirk of Emilee’s is her love of popcorn. Emilee is a ridiculously picky eater and has a HUGE sweet tooth so popcorn is one of her more healthy choices of snack. It also falls into the category of easy and fast for her to make by herself. Over time her love of popcorn has gotten to the point that she will eat nothing else if we don’t monitor or limit her popcorn intake. She eats all of the popcorn too, kernels included. I don’t know how she hasn’t cracked half her teeth chomping the un-popped corn. This popcorn trait is inherited from her dad. He likes his burned, she will eat it burned but prefers it not. Anyway, I digress. Most days when Ryan gets home Emilee has done her chores and home work and whatever else she needs to get done so she has popped herself a bag of popcorn and is sitting down to enjoy it while watching a show. He of course wants to have some and reaches for a handful. She turns into the equivalent of a dog that has possessive food issues. It got to the point that it was causing contentions between the two of them and we had to talk with Emilee about realizing there is plenty of popcorn to share. So far she doesn’t agree there is enough. So, the other day we were watching a movie together. Emilee popped some popcorn and came to snuggle me. A bit into the movie I told her thanks for sharing her popcorn with me and she was doing a good job at sharing. We continued watching and eating. I happened to glance over and realized that Emilee had been mining our popcorn the whole time! She had taken out all the butter pieces and put them in a separate pile on the other side of me so she could eat them after she ate what she left in the bowl ‘to share’ with me. Little stinker!

March Madness Gymnastic Meet

Allison had her second to last meet for this season, this month. She had her best meet yet! She placed first in her division on bar and floor, second on vault, third on beam. She won 1st place All Around for her division.

It was really fun to watch her and see her excitement at doing well. She puts a lot of time and effort into gymnastics and it is fun to see her enjoying it. She has one last meet at the end of this month. It is in Manhattan Kansas and it is a big event with multiple areas for each event happening at the same time. She is pretty excited.

Firsts

In our church the year you turn twelve you graduate primary and move to the youth program. Allison started Young Women’s. Each class has a presidency to help plan and run the activities. She is the secretary for her class right now. Allison loves growing up and being in charge of things so she is loving it. Most of their activities are on Tuesday night and she has gymnastics that night, so for now she won’t be able to go to a lot of them. She is still enjoying planning and going to the ones that aren’t on Tuesday’s.

The year they turn twelve is also the year they are old enough to go to the temple and do baptisms. She was able to go for the first time last week. It is fun to see her growing up and getting more responsibilities.

Matthew is turning 16 this year so he moves up to the Priest Quorum in our church. That means one of his new responsibilities is to bless the sacrament on Sunday. He did it for the first time a few weeks ago and his dad and grandpa did it with him. It was cool to see three generations blessing the sacrament together.

Allison’s Art Work

Girls Trip!

Sherri is having a baby boy at the end of April so we decided to have a girls get together while we had the chance. We kept it close to her this time. DeAnna and I flew out to Tampa and stayed at Sherri’s and my mom lives there now too so we got to all hang out together.

I was the last to arrive so the three of them picked me up and we had a great lunch at a Cuban restaurant when they picked me up from the airport. We caught up on all the latest happenings in our lives and walked along the river walk afterwards.

Love these lovely ladies!

We went on an air boat for a swamp tour, did some shopping, got our nails done, and painted some pottery. The time in between we spent getting some sun around Sherri’s newly finished pool, playing games, watching a movie, and talking. It was a wonderful weekend. The weather was 85 and perfect the whole time, I am so excited for Spring to get to Kansas. Their company was what made the weekend though. It was a great time as usual.

Captain Jack in the back. He has a perfect deep gravely voice like a Captain should.

March Madness

This post has nothing to do with basketball. The title is just referring to our regular lives and happenings.

Allison has wanted to have colored hair for a while so we finally got around to it. She loves it and the attention she gets with it.

We caught Grandpa surfing his phone…I mean taking a nap while he thought he was surfing his phone.

Ryan and I booked our 20th anniversary cruise for next May 2022. We are pretty excited! We decided on our 10th anniversary this is what we wanted to do. It is going to be awesome!

I was out of town and Ryan had the pleasure of taking the kids to church on his own. Whenever this happens he makes a point of getting the kids there 20 minutes early and rubbing it in my face because we usually screech in right on time. He did it again this time, but stepped up his game by having the Bishop send me the picture of my smiling family arriving to church 20 minutes early, instead of him. I think he is implying that I am the reason everyone is late but that is a bunch of garbage. He also sent me a picture of Emilee and her decision of what to wear to church that day. The girl rocks her own style.

I met Ryan at a parking lot the other day and noticed a new addition to his car. This is his required license plate cover for the next month or so. He forgot to mention it to me, but like I said, I noticed, and have made sure it is now documented. What a good sport he is! I will also note that it had recently snowed and there was still snow on the roads so that is the reason for the atrociously egregious filthy condition of his beloved car. Under usual conditions it is spotless.

Another first for our family. Matthew went into have some tests done to check out his growth hormone levels. He had to get an IV that he was trying to play cool for but he was pretty nervous. When he was six and had to have some blood drawn it took me (7 months pregnant with Allison) and two male nurses to hold him still enough for the third nurse to draw the blood. His self control and braveness have improved a lot in the past 8 years as you might expect. He handled it like a champ.

I saw this little meme somewhere on my phone the other day and screen shot it because it is true and a good reminder.

Allison and dad got their garden started. They planted a salad/salsa garden. There will be lots of peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and pea plant just for me.

Survey Says…

Ever since I did the questionnaire with the kids answers the other day they have been asking to do it again. They loved it. So I am working on finding another one for them to do. In the mean time Lauren posted one for spouses today on Facebook that was fun to read so I am copying it for Ryan and I to do. You have to write EXACTLY what your spouse says for their answer.

Ryan’s answers for me:

How tall am I? 5’6″ (nope 5’5″)
What is my favorite thing to eat? chocolate lava cake
What do I do when I’m not with you? read a book, take naps (read yes, I rarely nap unless it is Sunday)
What is my favorite movie? The Notebook
If I could go anywhere, where would I go? Anywhere with my sisters
How do I annoy you? You don’t…Make me take these dumb quizzes.
What is my favorite show? Seal Team (Yep!)
Who is my celebrity crush? Chris Hemsworth (Very good guess , but it is Ryan Gosling)
You get a phone call that I am in trouble, who am I with? DeAnna
What do I hate? Being cold (very true)
What is my favorite drink? I don’t know, milk? (Vanilla Italian Soda)
What gets my temper going the most? Something with the kids, them not listening.
What is my shoe size? I don’t know, 7? (7-7.5 depends)
Describe me in three words. Loving, good mom
If I became famous, what would it be for? Your organizational skillzzz.
What makes you proud of me? When I see your influence on our kids. (Awe)
Where can I most likely be found? In our house.
What is my favorite restaurant? Bonefish Grill (Yes!)
Who is my favorite person? me
Where would I go for a long weekend alone? In our room on our couch with a book.

My answers for Ryan:

How tall am I? 5’11” but you will say 6″
What is my favorite thing to eat? You are a foody, anything yummy, but you love burned popcorn (kind of the opposite what a foody would eat) and Extreme Moose Tracks Ice Cream (Ok, I like Sushi)
What do I do when I’m not with you? Hang out with friends, play board games (Probably golfing)
What is my favorite movie? I don’t know, you like the new Star Trek movies and Avenger movies a lot though. (Probably one of the Star Trek movies)
If I could go anywhere, where would I go? A cruise
How do I annoy you? making ‘noise’ when you are sleeping
What is my favorite show? Seinfeld
Who is my celebrity crush? Scarlett Johansson
You get a phone call that I am in trouble, who am I with? Michael Aaron Johnson
What do I hate? Pickles
What is my favorite drink? Lime or vanilla coke, smoothies
What gets my temper going the most? being woke up from a nap
What is my shoe size? 10.5 (11, my feet are growing)
Describe me in three words. Driven, intelligent, dramatic-I mean passionate.
If I became famous, what would it be for? Some business idea
What makes you proud of me? You are a very good dad
Where can I most likely be found? Watching or playing sports-specifically baseball
What is my favorite restaurant? K-Machos, Sake, or The Thai Place
Who is my favorite person? Me
Where would I go for a long weekend alone? Las Vegas and you would meet Michael Aaron Johnson there.