I bought a set of bells many years ago with the hope that we would have a little family bell group. It didn’t really come to fruition the way I originally envisioned it but every few months or so someone pulls them out and they play a song for something. I love it. A few weeks ago it was Jovee, Emilee and Ethan that remembered them and gave us a performance.
Category: November
Matthew’s Mission Plaque
Each missionary that goes on a mission has a plaque made with their picture and scripture of their choice and their mission on it. It hangs in the church on a wall while they are gone and they get it when they get home. Matthew’s had arrived and was hanging on the wall when I checked a few weeks ago.
Pictures From Salgueiro
Matthew stayed in Salgueiro when his mission had transfers a few weeks ago. Every six weeks they shift people around. Sometimes you stay in the same area for a few transfers sometimes you go to a new place. One of the four missionaries left and they got a new Elder from California. So Matthew is now the second newest missionary in the apartment instead of the newest. He seems to be getting into his stride. The older two left for a few days to some meetings so Matthew was ‘in charge’. He was pretty excited. He hasn’t gotten to decide what he is doing for a few months now, so he loved being the one making all the decisions for a few days. Where he is at right now there aren’t any other missionaries around besides the four of them so on P-Days they don’t really have a lot to do. That means that we get to talk to him a lot more. It won’t always be that way so I will enjoy it while it lasts. Another thing he was really excited about last time we talked is that they just got an air conditioner installed in their apartment. It is just big enough for their bedroom so they moved all their desks into their bedroom too so they can be in the air conditioning as much as possible when they are home. He says he sleeps so much better now.
He has been teaching a few people. One of them is a 12 year old boy that really wants to get baptized. His parents weren’t sure about it but after a few weeks they changed their minds and let him do it. His name is Enzo, and he is the first person Matthew baptized on his mission. He was pretty excited about it. He said he is a really cool kid.
Last week on their P-Day they went to the store to get some groceries and the store had set up their Christmas decorations. They ended up getting a small tree for their apartment. I mailed his Christmas package through a courier service a few weeks ago and they should be getting it to him at the beginning of December. It is a few small gifts and mostly some of his favorite treats. I also sent a few small decorations for them to hang up. I am glad they found a little tree to make their place feel like Christmas.
Here are more baptism pictures from Salgueiro that Matthew added to his photo album this week.
November Fun
Ryan traveled a lot this Fall for work. He was in Omaha, Wichita, Vegas, Lake of the Ozarks, Branson, and Denver. He works hard for us. He gets to do some fun stuff when he travels too. When he was in Denver one of his clients took him to the Chiefs and Broncos game. The Chiefs unfortunately did not win.
Our church had the Relief Society Christmas dinner. They like to do it in November because December is always pretty busy. It was a nice dinner and they asked us to dress up as fancy as we wanted too. They also invited the teenage girls to come. Allison had a wrestling practice so she didn’t come but Emilee came with me. She dressed up by putting her hair up. 😜
Emilee’s 13th Birthday
Emilee became an official teenager this year! She decided to have a sleep over with her friends to celebrate. They came over and had pizza for dinner. She had cupcakes and we sang to her and opened presents. Emilee wanted to do a craft with them so after dinner we loaded up in the car and went to Hobby Lobby. They each had a frame and picked out little things to decorate the frames with. Once everyone picked out their stuff we stopped by Andy’s Ice cream on the way home. They decorated their frames and we took a picture of everyone together for them to put in their frames. Then they watched a movie, painted their nails and stayed up late talking. Emilee requested her dad make cinnamon rolls for breakfast the next morning. It was a pretty successful birthday party.
We went to K-Machos for dinner on Monday, which was her actual birthday. She loves her some K-Machos chips and queso with chicken nachos. After dinner we went to Grandmas. Instead of a cake she wanted donuts, and grandma had some brownies that we ate with them. Emilee loves sweets so she managed to get as many different ones over the weekend as she could. While we were at grandmas, Matthew called so we face timed with him while we sang happy birthday and she blew out her candles and she talked with him for a few minutes…that is why I didn’t get any pictures of the blowing out candles…we were using my phone to talk to him on. I will do better next time. But we did celebrate and have a fun night. Dad and I gave her a bow and arrow for her birthday. She went to a church activity and they shot some bows. Ever since then she has been saying she wants to get one so she can practice.
It was a fun weekend celebrating our Emilee. We are very happy that she is a part of our family and we love her a ton!! Happy 13th birthday Emilee!
The Thanksgiving Family Reunion
It has been a few years since my entire family has been together. Last Christmas we decided that we would all get together for Thanksgiving. We were debating on having it at Sherri’s house or ours. After a little discussion, Sherri said that she would, “rather host a holiday that wasn’t about food because its not really her thing and it might not live up to everyone’s expectations.” It would have been just fine at Sherri’s but that tipped the scale to have it at our house. So the plan was set for 5 families, 6 couples, 11 adults (we will count Matthew as an adult now), 12 kids, and one baby, for a grand total of 24 people to gather together for a Thanksgiving Holiday Family Reunion. Matthew moved to the workout room, the girls moved to the basement living room and that left a room for each married couple. A few kids slept with their parents in their rooms but most of the kids slept in the basement living room and had a big sleep over together each night.
The Cazier’s arrived Sunday before Thanksgiving. My parents and the French’s arrived on Monday evening, and my brother and his family came Wednesday evening. Ryan and I had to work Monday and Tuesday so my family entertained themselves during the day. They played lots of games and ping pong. DeAnna organized a baptism temple trip for everyone that wanted to go on Tuesday. That was a good experience for the cousins that got to go together.
The rest of the week we spent hanging out and having fun together. We did our traditional white elephant party. The kids had one and then the adults had one. They were both lots of fun. DeAnna and Emilee ended up with matching white elephants. Allison was the amazing entertainer of all the cousins. She organized several group games and contests. She prepared the giant living room sleep over each night. One of her biggest hits was a dance party in our basement. She strung lights along the walls in our cave (that is our unfinished area under the garage. Someday it will be an epic entertaining room.) and then made each person an invitation and person ticket. Once the doors opened they had to get a secret password from Grandpa Jones and then they could give the password to get into the dance and dance their hearts out. It was a pretty cool party.
Thanksgiving morning several us were getting ready for our Thanksgiving feast. Sherri recruited Allison and Tyler to help her make an obstacle course for anyone that wanted to do it. They did it relay style so when one person finished an obstacle the next person would go until a team one. When they were all obstacled out anyone that wanted to run in the family Turkey Trot ran a mile route that Sherri had mapped out through out neighborhood. The Cazier boys finished in a pretty impressive time. Tyler, Nathan and Michael can have a nice track or cross country career in their future if they want to! It was a VERY cold day so I was impressed with any of them that went outside to participate in the outdoor activities.
Everyone had lots of Thanksgiving food. It was a delicious feast. After we ate a lot of us took our post meal nap and then woke up and ate pie for dessert. It was a fun day. The whole week was fun. We went to a few movies, put puzzles together, played lots of games, visited and enjoyed each others company. My mom helped me put up my Christmas tree too. We were up until about 1am on Friday morning. Everyone was leaving the next day so we were playing until we were exhausted. We all went to bed healthy but between then and morning almost half of us came down with a stomach bug. We were so close to a sick free get together. It was brief but violent and by the time it was done a little more than half of us had it. A little bit of a sour note to end on but I had a great week and I am glad we could all get together. I think everyone else thought so too.
Of course we updated our family picture since we were all together. It has been maybe 5 or 6 years since we have done that. We are blessed with a great family. I wish we were all closer and could see each other more often but I am grateful for the times we get to get together.
My dad does a good job at taking lots of pictures when we get together. He was the official photographer for Thanksgiving. Aubry and KJ participated in the kid white elephant but there pictures were accidentally videos so I couldn’t get them to upload. Aubry got a cheeseburger mug and KJ got a toothbrush ornament.
Wrestling
Allison decided to do wrestling again this year. In October she went to the middle school after school and helped there for a few weeks. It helped her get a little extra conditioning in too. Then in November her high school season started. It is a lot of hard work. I think she will do good at it though if she wants to. She made varsity. Campbell is on varsity too and helps us get Allison to and from practices a lot which is awesome. It is fun to watch her wrestle, even though she tries to get us not to come most of the time. We still attend and love watching her. She won one of her three matches at her first meet.
Birthday Wrap Up 2024
Starting in June and continuing with one person in our family each month until September we have a birthday to celebrate. Emilee wraps up our families birthdays each year in November. This year was her 12th birthday. It was on a Sunday which is not the greatest day to have a birthday. She thought of ways to celebrate all week to get the most out of it. She had friends come play, got an early birthday present, had a family over on Sunday for dinner. We made individual pizza’s on the grill and had a double stacked cookie cake to blow out her candles. She got some Palm Pals and parts to her Harry Potter Lego castle for her gifts. It took us a while but when we were all home on a week night we went to K-Macho’s for another birthday dinner. We love having Emilee in our family and it was fun to celebrate her!
November…it was…then it wasn’t.
The title for this post is referring to our house. Once things got underway with building it, November 1st was the finish date we were hoping for. Well, it was six months before that but our ‘realistic’ finish date was November 1st. Or I would have settled for any day in November. Our year lease on our rental ended and it would have been a smooth transition to get into our house before the holidays and get settled. However, do due weather, deliveries, availability and everyone not making building my house their top priority 😜 November 1st came and went…along with every other day in November and we did not move into our new house. There was a lot more leg work for me to arrange staying in our rental month to month and getting renter insurance renewed and other never ending menial tasks but we didn’t really have a better option so I did it. Grumpily.
Emilee finished off the family birthdays for the 2023 year in November. She turned 11 years old. This will be her last year in elementary school, she starts Young Women in church in January, and she is still growing like a weed.
She wanted to have a family dinner at a place that throws rolls at you. It is called Lambert’s and it is 4 hours away at Table Rock Lake. We convinced her to go with Texas Road House because they have delicious rolls, and we tossed them to her when she wanted one. ALL the Olathe family was able to make it (except Grandma Terry but we ate cake with her later). Texas Road House doesn’t take reservations and we had a party of 11. They thought splitting our group in half and putting us at opposite sides of the restaurant was the best idea. Even when we pointed out the giant open table next to the one they sat us at that we would have all fit at. So we had an adult and kids table which I think everyone was pretty happy with. Sunday we had cake and ice cream at grandma and grandpa’s house. She wanted dolls and legos for her birthday. It was a successful birthday weekend!
The house wasn’t done in November but it was close enough that the girls could start seeing how they wanted to do their rooms. Emilee wanted to have a wall with triangles all over it with her favorite colors so we did that. I had to reach the tall areas but she did as much of it herself as she could. It turned out very cute! Allison was going to do a blue accent wall in her room but after trying a few samples she decided to go all white.
Emilee was one of the student of the months for November. The school changed it to something a little different this year. They call it “Showing Strength of Character” and they have a few different qualities they are focusing on for the year. It is basically student of the month though. We were very proud of her for being a good student and a good person. She also performed in her last Veteran’s Day Performance for her school as well. Emilee loves to sing and sings a lot at home or church but she does not like school performances-especially if they involve singing. We always give her a hard time because she looks like she wants to disappear when she is up there singing.
https://youtu.be/-fVVLxGqtdU (Veteran’s Day Performance)
Ryan was promoted this year to VP of Sales in his company. He has worked very hard and we are very proud of him. He is awesome. Shortly after his promotion, he moved to a new office. He asked me to come help him organize it so we went and did that one Saturday afternoon. Here are the before and after pictures. He still needs a plant and another picture or two but it looks good!
This year was a Terry Thanksgiving. We ate at Grandma and Grandpa Terry’s house and Becky and Jake and their family came from Idaho. My parents were going to be in Oklahoma with my brother for Christmas because he was having a new baby so they decided to join us for Thanksgiving. We were hoping to be in the new house by then but it didn’t happen so they squished in with us at our rental for the week. We played games and watched movies together. Grandma and Allison made lots of yummy treats. It was pretty cold so we didn’t do to much outside. We were able to fins a few of our holiday puzzles and put them together. We love doing puzzles in November and December. Right before we ate Thanksgiving dinner the cousins that were there decided to put on a Thanksgiving performance for us. Allison and Leah helped organize them and they all did a great job sharing their parts. Here is a link for the video.
https://youtu.be/p6NRBpi_0-E (Terry and Bourne Cousins Thanksgiving Program 2021)
Thanksgiving
This year was a quieter Thanksgiving. It was a great Thanksgiving. We switch off families each year, it was my families turn. Sometimes we have a get together sometimes we don’t. Everyone ended up doing their own thing this year. We stayed here in Olathe. Roger and Rhonda were here too so we ate with them. Roger did the turkey, Rhonda did the rolls and pies, I did the rest of the sides. It was a delicious meal followed by good visiting, naps, games, and leftovers. The rest of the weekend was low key too. It isn’t very often that we have nothing going on and can just relax and enjoy hanging out together. We played games, did a little Christmas shopping, put up Christmas decorations, and made some holiday treats.
Allison and I were making hot chocolate mixing spoons to hand out to people. She found a mold for teeth while we were doing it and made some pretty realistic looking chocolate dentures.
As usual once Thanksgiving is here the holiday season takes off and there are parties, events, service opportunities, and holiday traditions to do almost every night. It is a wonderful time of year.