November – Page 3 – Terry Family Shenanigans

Life in November

First up is a flash back from 2012. Ryan had this picture pop up on his Facebook feed and he sent it to me. This is our little family the day after Emilee was born. This is the first time Allison and Matthew saw her. Pictures are so awesome. Literally a frozen piece of time that you can look back at and remember forever. They remind you of all kinds of other moments at the same time also. This was a fun day. Those days were physically exhausting but sweet and gone to fast. The picture next to the hospital one is fast forward eight years to Emilee mucking up horse stalls. Ryan was waiting in his car for her to come out because he was cold and it was almost thirty minutes past time for her lesson to be over. He went into get her and she was just helping get the barn shut down for the evening. The girl will go to any lengths at home-including going to bed at 5:30 in the evening to avoid chores but will happily freeze her bum off to shovel poop and dirt because it belongs to a horse.

The girls and I were comparing our genetics the other day. Being able to roll or wave your tongue (I have since learned it is called a clover leaf tongue) is a genetic trait. All of us can roll our tongues, the girls can make the clover (Matthew can do both as well), I can’t. A lot of people in my family can also roll their tongue but no one else can do the clover. The girls don’t share any DNA with Ryan’s side of the family because he is adopted but I don’t think any of them can do it either. Ryan can not do either one. So most likely it comes through my side of the family, I just got the rolling but not the clover gene, or my tongue has not reached its full genetic potential. Fascinating stuff here!!

In addition to a report on our tongue rolling skills, I have some more exciting news!! Allison found my bells in the closet and got them out the other day. She has been playing them a lot. She really likes Christmas music so there have been a few very good performances with the bells the past few weeks. Emilee and Matthew will join in sometimes but Leah and Allison have been the main players. When they get together they practice a few songs and then perform them for everyone. My hopes of a Terry Family Bell Choir have been renewed! I was a little ambitious in getting it started years. Now everyone is old enough to play and most of the time I would say half of us are willing to participate without coaxing. The other half can be bribed to play for 5-10minutes. Woohoo!

Matthew is wearing shorts, not just socks😁.

The past several years when I have asked the kids if they want to go see Santa at the Bass Pro shop, Matthew has rolled his eyes, Allison said “meh” , Emilee tears up and asks if she has to talk out loud or touch Santa, and Ryan says, “I don’t think the kids really care.” This year events unfolded a little differently so my girls were happy to go and I got a cute picture of them with Santa. First, their cousins invited them which makes everything more fun. Second, their brothers stayed home so there wasn’t a constant stream of snarky comments from them. Third, “thanks to COVID” instead of talking to Santa and sitting on his lap, there is a giant clear plastic screen between you and Santa and you get to ‘touch fingers’ through the screen then sit in front of the screen and take a picture. The screen makes it pretty hard to hear so most people just leave a letter or mime what they want to Santa, or just skip the talking part all together. It sounds ridiculous but my girls loved it, and honestly I think Santa loves it too. He seemed more authentically jolly then in past years.

I was thinking of waiting to put decorations up for Christmas after Thanksgiving but I didn’t make it. After all the stupid COVID crap this year I think I needed Christmas to come a little earlier than usual. If I remember right I have put my decorations up mid November for three years in a row so maybe it is just my new normal. This year I don’t think I am alone though, Christmas lights and decorations started appearing several weeks earlier around town and our neighborhood then they usually do. I have spent many a night reading a book snuggled up by my fireplace with just the Christmas lights on. My mom helped me redo my tree decorations when she was here for Thanksgiving. I’m feeling the red this year so I went to a red and white and I LOVE IT!

Allison had one of her big 5th grade projects this past month. They have to pick a Native American tribe to research and write a report on and then build an example of their homes. She picked the Anasazi Tribe. Allison is very detailed and willing to focus as much time on a project as she needs when she gets focused. She had a vision in mind and didn’t care how long it took to make it happen. She did this ALL on her own and did a great job. Her report was VERY THOUROUGH and researched too. It took a few conversations and showing her emails from her teacher for verification to convince her she didn’t need three separate sources to verify ANY fact she put in her report. There are some time management skills that need some polishing with that girl-she will not be rushed- but her creativity, attention to detail, and building skills are pretty great!

Allison’s Chalk-Up Meet

Allison started gymnastic when she was about 4 years old for fun. A few years ago she decided that she wanted to get a little more serious with it and start competing. We switched to a different gym and she had to get to a certain level before she could compete in meets. She worked for almost a year and made the team to start competing. The week before she started her team practices she broke her arm and wasn’t able to compete that season. When she was cleared she was a little behind again and had to do some catch up again. She was almost caught up and then COVID put a hold on everything for a few months. Even though she couldn’t go to class for a few months she worked at home to stay limber and work on getting better at her stuff. Once they started back again she made Team 4, she worked really hard again and in August right before school started they asked her if she would be interested in competing and moving up to Team 5. She was pretty excited and she has worked really hard and gotten a lot better. After 2 1/2 years of setting her goal to start competing in meets with a team, she had her first meet this past weekend! She did a great job and it was fun to watch her. Dad and I were the only ones aloud to go in person and watch because COVID is still raining on everyone’s fun, but I was able to record it and we watched it with the family when we got home and sent it to grandparents and other people. Dad and I are both proud of her for working hard and accomplishing her goal. She thought it was pretty fun and wants to keep doing more and getting better.

Hair glued to her head so it won’t move at all.

Emilee’s 8th Birthday

Well, Emilee-whemilee turned 8 this year! She has been counting down to her birthday for the last 7 months and after “taking forever, and no days going by” her special day finally came!

Her actual birthday was on a Tuesday so we opened presents and had a cookie cake and went to dinner as a family. Emilee picked Sake Lounge for her dinner. She stuffed herself on her favorite sushi roll, called The Shaggy Dog. She has been wanting her very own hover board so that is what she got from her family. She got some snuggly jackets, candy, and a stuffed animal or two as well. She had treats at school with her class and overall it was a happy day for her.

Left to Right, Peyton, Cambrie, Reese, Jovee, Emilee, Anna, Anna, Summer

She wanted to have a birthday party at Main Event with a few of her favorite friends. She picked bowling and the ropes course after stuffing themselves with pizza and a sundae special birthday treat and opening presents with her friends. I think she had a great time. We are glad Emilee is in our family. She is a happy little caboose, and we love her!

Matthew vs Dad Race-Age 14

On his actual birthday this year Matthew was to cool to race his dad. He was sulking a little bit about not having grown as much as he wanted to for the past year. A week or two later he changed his mind and challenged his dad to their annual race. They actually did three races this year. Matthew won the last one by a smidge but we told him the only one that counts is the first race, and he lost. Dad gets to keep the bragging rights for another year at least.

Just in case the video leaves any doubt, here is the photo finish.

Thanksgiving 2019

We headed to Thanksgiving dinner in Lincoln Nebraska this year. Ryan and I had to work a half day then we drove up Wednesday afternoon. Jake and Becky came but had to be back for a wedding so we celebrated Thanksgiving Wednesday night. It tasted just as good as it would have on Thursday. Actually better because I didn’t cook it and food always tastes better to me if I don’t have to make it myself. I don’t think the only reason for this is that I wasn’t the cook. 🙂

We played games and hung out as much as we could with Becky and her family before they left.

The rest of the weekend was very laid back and relaxing. None of us went Black Friday shopping. At least in the beginning of the day. Some of us may have wandered around a bit in the afternoon to see if there was any amazing deals left.

We had our traditional dinner at Pizza Ranch when we were all tired of eating turkey leftovers for a few days. I don’t get tired of eating leftovers but everyone else does. I am still an advocate for making one big meal at the beginning of the week and eating it the rest of the week but I am alone in this amazing idea.

The movies were the center of our entertainment. There has been a dry spell for a while on good movies but they are coming out at least weekly now for the next month or so.

Lauren and I took the girls to the new Frozen movie. It was great. We all loved it. The story and the music was great.

The boys went to Midway. It was given a good report. I wanted to see it but will watch it later because Lauren and I went to a movie called JoJo Rabbit instead. I had no idea what it was even about but Lauren said she had heard good things. We were both very concerned after the first 10 minutes of the movie. It had awful written all over it but then there was a little bit of a plot/view point explanation and it got much better. I actually ended up liking it.

Ross, Lauren, Ryan and I went to Knives Out. It was also a good movie. I like mystery/detective movies and shows and this was a nice spin on that genre.

Lauren and I took the kids to a fun trampoline place for a few hours one of the days too.

There was a threat of snow all weekend long but it didn’t happen between us and home so we were able to get home without driving through a blizzard like we did last year.

Thanksgiving was later in the month than usual this year so Christmas started coming fast as soon as it was over. It is a busy but fun time of year.

Friendsgiving 2019

Last year four families from our baseball family got together for a Friendsgiving. We did it again this year. It is a fun time. The kids like it because there is a group of them to play and all of them have at least one buddy. We are all very different families but we get along really well and enjoy each others company. Everyone brings a few appetizers and we visit and hang out for a few hours then eat a dinner together. Then play games and visit some more.

This year there was minute to win it games that we all did. We divided into five teams and each team rotated between five games. There was potato rolling, apple stacking noodle fishing, cotton ball flipping and cookie eating contests. The winner of each team wrote their name down on a paper. After all the teams finished we went to each game and the five winners from each team played the game. Those people earned a laminated turkey medal. Then the winner of each of those games played against each other in a final championship game. The final championship game ended up being Cam, Matthew, Jake, Allison, and Frank (his mom actually one but requested a proxy for the championship game). They each had a paper plate with 10 candy corns on it that were covered in whip cream so you couldn’t see them. Whoever found all ten and put them on a napkin next to their plate-without using your hands of course- was the winner. The kids loved it. Jake was the winner and he got another laminated turkey medal for his efforts.

It was a nice relaxing enjoyable evening. The friends that have done it every year are moving to Poland this summer for a couple years. One of the rest of us will have to try and live up to the Friendsgiving tradition while they are gone.

I have been waiting to post this post to add some fun pictures to it…long story short-they aren’t coming. So take my word for it, we had a fun time and looked ridiculous doing it.

Allison’s Cheer Competition 2019

Allison’s squad did the dance and cheer competition this year. They did a great job! It was fun to watch. The smile on her face when she was doing it showed that she loved it too.

They ended up placing third for the dance. I really think they were better than at least one if not both of the teams that took 1st and 2nd but they got docked a huge amount of points for the way they tossed their poms to the side when they were done with them…I will refrain from the snarky comment I have about judging competitions getting way out of hand. I have no problem being in competitions that are judged. I think it is can be good for kids actually. If it is logical with clear objectives. When it is convoluted and subjective. All the teams were fun to watch, the judging was just a little obscure and hard to predict.

I don’t know what happened with my pictures. The first few are fine and the last few are fine but the middle ones came out way to dark. I lightened them as much as I could. I feel awful they turned out dark. I also put pictures from her last cheer game on here. They performed the same routine they did for the competition during half time so I got a few good pictures from that. After they last game they switched gifts with the football players too.

Emilee’s 7th Birthday!!

After counting down almost daily for the last 6 months Emilee’s birthday final came! She was so excited. She has been asking for some lego dragons fora long time. I was able to find some on ebay since they were not sold anymore and she got her little family of lego dragons for her birthday.

To celebrate she wanted to have a few friends over for an all day play date. She spent the night at Jovee’s on Friday and then I picked her up and Jovee, Reese, Cambrie and the rest of our family went to a movie together. It was cheesy, bad acting, and pretty ridiculous and they loved it. They giggled and laughed through the whole movie. After the movie we went home and had pizza and rootbeer, opened presents and then blew out candles and ate cake. The weather was great so Emilee picked a park and we went and played for a few hours. After her friends went home we met Jovee’s family at Sake Lounge and had Emilee’s favorite food- a Shaggy Dog. It is a sushi roll.

I think she had a fun birthday. She said she feels a little bigger but not much. We have lego dragons all around our house.

Giv-er

To explain this title. I will need to back up a little bit and go back about a three weeks ago. I wanted to give the outgoing Primary Presidency and small gift as a thank you for their service so I went online and found a website call Zazzle and ordered my gift from them. They do personalized gifts, so you design it and then they put it on a picture or shirt or whatever you want. So I ordered something it came and I delivered it and was done with Zazzle.

Fast forward a few weeks an I find a box in my mailbox from Zazzle. I was immediately confused because I had already received the order I placed and hadn’t ordered anything else. I open the box to find this little item featured below. This leaves me more confused. Then I think, maybe it is a promotional item (a very tacky bad one but still) and they just sent them out to a bunch of people. I then find the receipt in the box with the hat that says I designed and paid for this tacky thing.

I go to the website and login and look at my orders…nothing. So I somehow designed this ugly hat, ordered it, paid for it, and had it shipped to my house and there was no record of it on my account. I thought maybe it was another persons order that had been delivered to me but it had my name and address on it too. Slightly annoyed now thinking about how long I am going to have to spend on the phone to get this figured out, I start looking for a customer service contact number.

At the same time I was texting with Ross, Lauren, and Ryan on a group text about some random stuff. I sent them a picture of my perplexing hat. After I send the picture Ryan texts back, “Hey that is mine!” I thought he was messing with me. After some very confusing but now hilarious texts I found out that he had decided to order a hat from a movie for a friend for Christmas. Coincidentally he came across the same Zazzle website I had used a few weeks previously, made his own account and ordered it.

So we actually did pay for an ugly hat! Luckily it has a purpose though. Also, luckily he let me know it was his before I got ahold of Zazzle customer service and got irritated with them. It was pretty funny.

Found My Stockings

It is important to appreciate the small things. I had a small victory the other day that I have been waiting for years to get done.

When Ryan and I got married we got stockings for us that were just the standard basic fluffy stocking. I didn’t know for sure how many kids we would have so I didn’t want to get some nice ones then have a kid and not be able to find a matching one (I am a uniform decorator). I wasn’t sure what stockings I wanted to commit to either. When we had kids I just got the same kind at the store. They changed the color of the red slightly each year so none of them really matched that well.

When we were done having kids I wanted to get matching ones for all of us that were a little nicer than the 99 cent basic one. For the last 5 years I have had my eye out for the perfect stocking. I didn’t want anything elaborate, but I wanted them to have our initials on them and I did want them to be red. I found a couple that were cute but they didn’t have enough, or the right letters, or they were to fancy or something.

The other day I was walking through a store and I saw some cute knitted red stockings that were perfect-except they didn’t have letters on them so we could tell them apart. I kept walking and when I got around the corner there was the exact same stockings with letters! I was so happy. I tried not to get to carried away because I didn’t know if they had all the right letters. It turned out they did though so I was finally able to get my cute little stockings!!

They are hanging up on my fireplace now and I love them. It makes me happy when I look at them. Yay for matching Christmas stockings!