This year our Halloween ended up looking a little different than it has for the last 10 years. The McDonalds kids and ours all made individual plans with their friends so we didn’t get together like we usually do. We still made pizza and home made root beer for people to eat as they came and went to get ready or stop in on the way to their party. Our houses in our new neighborhood are spread out pretty far so we didn’t have any trick or treaters.
Matthew dress up as Dr Duffensmirch from Phineas and Ferb. Campbell was Harry the platypus. They went to a party with a group of their friends from school. They actually went trick or treating for a little bit too.
Allison and her friends assembled matching outfits and were gangster minions together. They went trick or treating in Grandpa Terry’s neighborhood and then spent the night at our house.
Emilee was a witch this year. She went trick or treating with Reese and a few other girls. They picked a neighborhood that is known for handing out full size candy bars and they were not disappointed. They found a few haunted houses people were doing as they trick or treated too.
Ryan rediscovered his Joe Dirt costume from almost two decades ago and proudly wore it to work. He gave himself a goatee to go with the costume.
The night of Halloween Ryan and I shuttled the girls around were they needed to go and then enjoyed a quite night at home. We did go to a Halloween party with Dani and RJ Halloween weekend. RJ is a pilot so he provided Ryan with an outfit to borrow and Dani and I got First Officer costumes to go with them. I think we were a hit. Ryan LOVED being a pilot too.
As I mentioned in a previous post, this was Matt’s last season with his competitive team. They started playing tournaments on the weekends right after Labor Day in September. He has been on this team since 4th grade. There have been lots of changes over the years but at the end of this season there were three boys, plus Matt, that were on the team when he started. Coach Jimmy was the head coach and there were several others that were awesome coaches. Coach Kent, Coach Uhl, Coach Robby. Ryan helped coach most of those years too. If he wasn’t actively coaching he filled in and was helping in some way. He had a hard time just sitting in the stands and watching. There were some tricky times but overall it was a great experience and I am really glad that Matthew was able to be a part of this team and make good friends. The boys and their families on the team were all good kids, good people. That makes a big difference when you are spending the whole weekend together for months at a time during Spring, Summer and Fall baseball. We traveled a few times and had good times and memories from that as well. We went to Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Gulf Shores. I have posted many pictures from his baseball over the years and that was another blessing from being on this team. There were several parents that great photography skills and they took so many pictures and shared them with everyone. I wouldn’t have very good pictures if it wasn’t for them. Matt had his arm back in top form for this last season. He had the highest batting average on the team most of the time. He hit triples and doubles pretty often and was robbed of a home run or two by inches several times. He had good plays at short stop. Watching the boys play and read each other from playing with each other for years was a lot of fun. I will miss it next Summer when it is time for baseball season to start. We all will.
At the end of the season we had one more get together at a restaurant to say good bye to everyone and give appreciation to the coaches and recognition to the boys for their hard work. It was a fun night. One of the parents made each of the boys a poster of them in their uniform for their rooms. There was a slide show of all the boys, and lots of pictures on the tables to look at while we visited and ate dinner. I am sure we will run into them and keep in touch over the years but it is an end of an era for sure. I have really come to love baseball and appreciate it. I love a quite baseball field in the morning with the sound of the team warming up and the sun shining on the grass.
Here are some pictures from the season.
Coach Jimmy and the original kids he started with. Matt, Aiden, Jake, and CamWe had lots of meals together between games.Lots of gorgeous sunrises and sunsets.Campbell had a tournament at the same place we were and came over when she was done.This is the day Matthew wore the wrong uniform. He called and told me he didn’t look like the other kids.This is the core group that we spent our weekends with.
Here are some cool action shots, thanks to our photography parents.
Turning a double play.
Running the bases, trying to catch Ramey.
Catching the pop fly.
Getting the out.
Making it look good. 🙂
This is getting on the field in position first.
Getting runs in. His speed was top notch this season too.
Beating the runner.
Crushing it.
And…stealing bases.
For one of the games we were so far ahead of the other team, the coach let everyone pick the position they wanted to try for a few innings. Matt went with pitching.
If it doesn’t feel like time is flying by in September, by the time October gets here is really picks up the pace. School, activities, holidays, more birthdays, and all the things that go with those make it hard to stop and enjoy everything that is going on.
Matthew’s last baseball season with his FBC competitive team was in full swing for September and October. They played pretty much every weekend. There was a weekend in October that off and that was it. I have a lot of good pictures from this season. I will share them in another post.
The biggest event for October was our family trip we have been planning for a while. Unless something changes it is our last big family vacation together before Matt graduates and goes on his mission and the family dynamic shifts into a new era. We talked about what we should do and asked Matt for his input a lot because it was also over his 18th birthday so we wanted to celebrate that too. Matt loves beaches, sunshine, warm places, fishing and food. After tossing a few ideas around like Hawaii, Alaska, cruise, and all inclusive beach resorts, we decided that a cruise would check the most boxes on the wish list. When we went on a cruise in 2019 for Christmas with the kids we had a great time but we thought it would be fun if they each had a buddy. Since then we have tossed the idea around with Ross and Lauren to come on a cruise with us. Matt asked if that could happen with this trip so we invited them too. Each pair of people ended up with their own room.
We settled on a cruise in October that was the week of Matthew’s actual birthday. A few weeks before the cruise there was some issues with Ross and Lauren not realizing they had other priorities the same week. I don’t really want to get into all the details but I was pretty upset about it. They were going to send Ethan and Leah home alone half way through the cruise, but luckily the cruise required them to have an adult accompany them. So Ethan, Leah and Lauren left half way through the cruise which was dumb. Allison and Matthew were on their own the last two days but we had a great time still.
A few days before we left all the girls went to the nails salon together and got a manicure for the cruise.
Matthew felt left out so he showed us his nails to take a picture.
To include Matthew’s love of fishing and for part of his birthday present, our family drove down to Galveston Texas a few days before the cruise left. We drove to Dallas and stayed night with Kenny and Sherri. Then next day we drove the rest of the way to Galveston and that afternoon we Ryan booked us a deep sea fishing boat.
Our traditional family picture to start a trip off.
Matthew and Ryan went ocean fishing a few years ago in Florida for Matt’s birthday. They caught probably 40 fish in a few hours. This time…we caught one fish…in five hours. It was a good one though. Matt caught a 4 1/2 foot long black tip shark. Once we got it on the hook Matthew wrestled it until we got it up to our boat. He did a good job, he said it was a little awkward because the pole the shark bit was right handed and he usually fishes left handed. I was the video/picture person. I tried to get fancy and take photos while I was videoing and at the point when he pulled it out of the water the most instead of taking a picture I stopped and started the video. 😢 Total mom fail. I still got some video and pictures though. The captain asked us if we wanted to keep it but we had no where to store it because we were getting on the boat the next day. So we let it go. It was a fun experience to watch him real in the shark. Pretty exciting. The other 4 hours and 50 minutes was a little slow, that is the lot of a fisher. I thought just relaxing and floating on the waves was great. The others had occasional waves of sea sickness but everyone kept everything in their stomachs.
After a day of fishing we went to dinner and checked into our hotel for the night. The next morning we headed to the boat! We didn’t realize it at the time we booked the cruise but the ship we were on was the same one we went on with the kids in 2019. Mariner of The Seas. The kids were all paired up and had their own rooms. Allison and Leah’s room ended up being the hangout spot for cousins when they weren’t doing other things. They mentioned a few times the room was pretty hot. A few days into the cruise we realized their AC wasn’t working. We called maintenance and 30 minutes later it was much cooler in their room. The first day we explored the ship and got settled in our rooms. We discovered the ice cream cone dispensary and snack areas, soda refills, all the important things.🤣 For dinner we ate at the Hibachi grill. It was a fun kick off to the cruise.
It seemed like the kids really enjoyed having a buddy and doing whatever they wanted together. We all got a lot of activities in on the ship. We had two days at sea, plus the embarking day. Some of the favorite things we did were shows, trivia games, dance parties, swimming, the flow rider, water aerobics, mini golf, rock climbing, napkin folding, working out, finding and hiding ducks, napping on the deck, watching movies at the pool, ice skating, board games, a sushi making class and eating lots of yummy food. Our waiters names each night were April and Jozie. They were really nice and took great care of us. They had been on the boat for 7 months and were getting off to go home for the holidays the same day we did. The only picture Matthew asked for the whole time was with them. They always brought him extra food. I have never seen someone eat so much, he was like a food vacuum. He started keeping track of how many ice cream cones he ate but lost track after 34. The girls decorated their doors and I decorated Matthew’s room for his birthday.
We had two days at Ports. The first was Costa Maya. We all went to a beach and the kids played keep away and we did some souvenir shopping. The second was Cozumel. It was raining pretty good in the morning. Our family had an excursion booked. Jovee came with us and everyone else went to the airport to fly most of their family home. We were debating on canceling the excursion due to rain. When we were checking in they told us we needed two drivers with a drivers license. Ryan didn’t have his so Matthew and I were the drivers for our group. They asked us a bunch of health questions and when they asked about asthma I said yes but not who had it. They said Matthew couldn’t drive if he had asthma (how dumb is that btw) so Allison immediately said it was her. We went along with it (not the best example, I know) and I told them it wasn’t bad at all and we weren’t concerned about it. Then they said that Allison could not only not snorkel but she couldn’t go on the boat to snorkel because if she needed medicine they couldn’t help her. I told them it was fine and I had her medicine if she needed it, which she wouldn’t. Then they were really freaking out because I had medicine. It was a disaster. We decided to just cancel the excursion and rented our own car. We drove ourselves to the cenote that was on our excursion and it was closed anyway because of the rain. We drove for a bit until we found a nice beach that it wasn’t raining at. We had an almost empty beach with chairs and a restaurant. We rented some boogie boards for the kids and they enjoyed the pretty big waves for several hours. It was a great afternoon and I was happy that it wasn’t ruined by rain or asthma. It is so fun to see new places and make new memories.
Playing keep away at Costa MayaCozumelI made a sand castle that looked like a Mayan temple.Costa Maya
We got off the boat early in the morning on a Saturday and drove the whole way home. Matthew had a baseball tournament that weekend and we were able to get back so he could play on Sunday and help them win. It is going to be very different and feel weird when Matthew and then the girls start leaving the house. I have enjoyed this phase of our lives. I still am but it is getting alarmingly close to it coming to an end.
School got started and we all got back into the routines of our Fall schedules.
Matt took the girls to the bus stop at Grandpa Terry’s on his way to school and picked them up on his way home. During the school year I work three days a week instead of two so it is very helpful that he can take them because their schools are the opposite direction of my work. Fall is Ryan’s travel time for work and he was gone most week for 2-5 days at different trade shows or to help train new sales people.
We did celebrate Matthew’s 17th birthday this month…I apparently didn’t take any pictures! Matthew’s love language and favorite thing to do is eat good food. For his birthday he wanted to have a weekend of yummy meals. We went to a few restaurants- Chick-fil-a, K-machos, and Sake. We made pancakes and sausage and bacon for breakfast without eggs. Well, some of us had eggs but Matthew hates eggs so we didn’t make him eat any. His birthday was on a Sunday so after church we watched lots of football and Matthew didn’t have to do any chores and hung out with his friends as much as he wanted all weekend. It wasn’t his most exciting birthday but hopefully it was still a good birthday. I can’t believe he will be 18 next year!!
Matthew worked at Twisted Sugar as a cookie froster and cashier a few times a week. For the first time in 8 years he didn’t play Fall Ball because he was recovering from his elbow surgery. They thought it would take 4-6 months and it took every bit of that time and a little more. He did physical therapy at least three times a week. He took Campbell to the Homecoming dance.
Allison did wrestling and gymnastics. She was a teachers aid for her art teacher for one of her classes and really likes it. Spanish was not her favorite but she stuck it out. She continued with Girl Scouts as well and her troop went on a camping trip to Oklahoma and did glass blowing and other fun activities.
I have many more of Allison’s wrestling videos on my you tube channel but I will put a few here. She improved a lot this season. She was a lot more aggressive and won most of her matches. Grandma and Grandpa Jones came to visit and were able to see her in person.
We didn’t have baseball every weekend so we did a few family activities on the weekends. Sometimes it was raking leaves or cleaning the house- kids loved it. Sometimes it was lunch together. One of the weekends we finally made it to the WWI museum in downtown KC. It is the only one in the country and we have been meaning to go for years. We finally made it happen. It was pretty good. After we toured the museum and went up the tower to see the city, we went to lunch and stopped at Matthew’s teams baseball game to cheer them on. We highly recommend the museum.
Allison and Leah went to the Taylor Swift Movie of her Eras Tour. They got all dressed up and danced and sang along with the rest of the theater for a few hours. They had a good time. I loved seeing Allison in a cute dress she picked out too. They looked very cute together.
Ryan took the girls to a Royals game for a daddy daughter date. They got to use his company tickets so it was good seats and some yummy food.
To get ready for Halloween we ate chili and carved pumpkins with our cousins at their house. All of our kids can carve their own pumpkins now and they like to get a lot more detailed than I ever did so it is fun to see what they do with their creativity. It’s also awesome that they can clean up their mess now so I don’t have to touch any pumpkin guts.
Dad and I went to a masquerade party with some friends for Halloween. I’m not going to brag but it seemed kind of dead when we got there. People were shy about dancing and wearing their masks. We definitely kicked up the fun vibe and had a good time! Once we started dancing more people were willing to come out of their shells and have fun with us! RJ and I had masks too but they weren’t on for this picture obviously.
For Halloween day Grandpa Terry hosted us our cousins and the McDonalds. We brought the pizza and the witches brew. Then as a new level, Ethan and his girlfriend took the littler kids trick or treating and the rest grouped up and went on their own. The adults got to stay home and eat hot chocolate, hand out candy and play games. It was a little chillier than some years so everyone picked a warm costume or had to add some layers.
Another Fall tradition that we made sure happened was dad made us some of his cinnamon rolls from his grandma Groom’s recipe. They were delicious as always!
We were hoping our house would be done by the beginning of November but it wasn’t quite done yet so we bottled our excitement and tried to handle our impatience for a little longer.
This is the third year of doing the Primary Program for Sacrament meeting. The first year was COVID and we just did a video. The last two years have been more traditional versions. The kids learn the songs all year and we help them come up with their parts about a month before the program. We practice everyone’s parts and singing together the two weeks before we do it for the whole congregation. We had a Saturday practice the day before this year as well. The kids were doing great and excited to show their parents and the people they invited.
Once it was time to start the kids came up front and found their spots and things were going along great. About 15 minutes in I noticed a rustling of noise starting and kids seemed to be losing their focus a bit. I was trying to figure out what was going on and I saw one of the boys point at something. I look up to where he is pointing and there are two baby mice running along the ledge of the light facet around the room. Once one of them noticed it took about 20 seconds for word to spread to all the kids on the stage. Our music leader was able to get there attention and the teachers up with the kids on the stand helped them refocus. We continued on with their program.
The mice were not done exploring though. They were jumping and skipping along the edge. The audience also started to notice and we lost several of them because they ran out crying. One of the mice got a little to crazy and fell from the ledge right down the wall. He was at the back of the room and started working his way up the pews on the floor. We lost a few more audience members. I was in the very front row and could tell my Sunbeam class teacher was not ok with a mouse getting anywhere near her. She was sitting by her husband and he was trying to help her relax. At one point when the people right behind me gave a little jump indicating the mouse had reached their pew she stood up to exit. Her husband put his arm around her shoulder and helped her stay in her seat. The mouse then moved up past me and was headed towards the ramp to get up on the stand. The poor Sunbeam teacher was at the top of the ramp and I new if it got any closer to her she lose her composure completely and no amount of coaxing from her husband or myself would calm her down. So I stood up and walked over to the baby mouse-his ears were bigger than his body- and kicked him under the door. I was very grateful he went out the door instead of up my leg. By this time a few people had gotten a bucket or two and were waiting for it to come out in the hall to catch it. I am now known as the legendary primary president that saved the primary program by literally booting a mouse out the door. Apparently I did it very calmly and people were impressed. I was just glad it was not a snake.
When we are getting ready to do a program, I try and think of all the different situations that could come up and how to handle them so I am prepared for anything 80 kids from 3-11 might throw at me. I never thought of mice showing up and running around. Once the mouse was out of the room, things settled down a little and the kids finished their program and did a great job. Afterwards when we talked about it they thought it was so great they sang and said their parts so well that even the mice came to watch.
Emilee has been keeping busy with her activities too. She is still doing piano. She wants to be done with it but I told her she had to get through the lesson book she is on first. She has a recital coming up and she is going to play a song from Wicked that she has been learning.
She is still taking riding lessons and loves it. One of the horses she rides is called Marilyn. She is a shorter horse so when she canters she gets moving pretty good.
She played volleyball this Fall and it was hit or miss if she liked it. Once she was there I think she liked it, getting her there was usually a chore. Especially when it was early on a Saturday.
She loves going to Primary Activity Days. They had a daddy-daughter activity a while ago. They both had a lot of fun building this tower together. It was a contest to see who could build the biggest sturdiest tower in a certain amount of time. They were the winners. Dad’s engineering heart was so proud.
One of the things I admire about Allison is she is willing to try new things. If she sees something that interests her she jumps right in and gives it a try. At the end of last year she mentioned that she wanted to try wrestling next year. When it came time to sign up she was all over it. No one in our family wrestles and knows much about wrestling. It is a really fast intense season. About 6 weeks long. It takes a lot of time and energy and she says she is really liking it. When we watch her at her meets we have no idea what is going on as far as points but we still cheer her on and we know if she pins someone or she gets pinned that is the match. We learn a little more each time. The video of her wrestling starts after two rounds that had already timed out. Both the girls were getting pretty tired. Allison won the battle of grit. This is her first pin in a match.
Allison went to the Fall dance at school with a few of her friends this year. There wasn’t a lot of dancing but there was a lot of socializing. She thought it was great.
She is continuing with the Orchestra this year as well. The middle school went to the high school and they did a joint concert together for Halloween. They could dress up if they wanted. They are getting good enough now that it is really enjoyable to listen to them play. In the video Alison is right in the center of the screen. She is the second on in on her row.
For one of her Young Women Activities we went to the Garmin building and the girls got to fly a flight simulator. Allison crashed when it was her turn.
Of course while we were getting ready to sell our house and move into the rental, the rest of life continued on. Each of the kids had a busy Fall.
Matthew played Fall Ball. He had a fun season and he and his team participated in several fun tournaments and even one of placed in the finals for a few of them. Several of their tournaments were on college fields, including KU. The boys thought it was pretty cool to play on a D1 field.
As baseball was slowing down in October, Matthew filled his time with other activities. He turned 16. I am a pretty lucky momma. He is a good son. He is becoming a good man too. Things were a little chaotic on his birthday but he made the most of it. Most of his desires focused around the food he wanted to eat. He had smoothies, chic-fil-a, and sushi and for his cake- as always a Cookie Cake. He spent some time hanging out with Campbell and sometime hanging out with his buddies. He asked the family if we would go to Top Golf for his birthday. We all went and had a good time. Emilee and Matthew were pretty good golfers. Allison and I have some work to do. Anyone that asked what he wanted was told fishing stuff. He got several mystery tackle boxes and he loved it. Grandma texted him thinking it was me asking about his present. He sent me a screen shot and thought it was pretty funny. Grandma messed with him a little and gave him gummy worms and fish as a tackle box before she gave him the real one. He thought it was pretty funny.
Matthew took Campbell to Homecoming. There was a group of them going together and the day of all the other boys changed their minds. Matthew was a good sport about it. They took pictures before and then went to the football game. After the game they went to the dance and then played games at one of the girls house afterwards. I am very appreciative that Matthew finds good friends to hang out with. Campbell does too. He has found the groups that don’t want to drink and party. They have fun and enjoy each others company.
Watching the HS football game with our friends Margarita and Jeff.
Saving the best for last. We were all hanging out in the living room one night and I noticed that Matthew kept admiring himself in the mirror and pretty pumped about his muscles. I was able to get a short video of it without him noticing.
We had another successful Halloween at our house this year. As our usual plans we had the McDonald’s over. Our cousins joined us this year too. Ryan made the witch’s brew, I picked up pizzas the day before from Papa Murphy’s. I went rogue and got a hamburger pizza instead of our usual cheese. It didn’t go over well. Hamburgers are good, hamburger pizza is not. It was a good thing we had trick or treating to distract us.
We had a slow, medium, and fast group again. Our fast group is old enough to go ahead on their own. The dads keep track of the medium speed group and the moms stay with the slowest group. It was a fun evening with family and friends.
Allison was running for president
Reese and Emilee were pumpkins with Pumpkin at the barn.
Ryan shaved his beard to a monkey tail for his costume.
I came home the other day and the kids were all carving their pumpkins. They had a great time and the pumpkins all looked good. We put them out on the porch.
Left to right we have Allison’s, Emilee’s, the Matthew’s. Matthew did his as fast as he could and still claim he participated. Two weeks until Halloween.
It was nice they all had fun and even nicer they did it all on their own and I didn’t have to degut any pumpkins. The only issue is there was still two weeks until Halloween when they carved them. I have been told, ‘Don’t you dare throw our Halloween pumpkins away before Halloween!” I already have one mark against me for having ‘cutesy’ Halloween decorations instead of ‘make you scream when you see it creepy grotesque’ ones. So I have agreed to let them continue to mold and decay into a pile of mush (with the caveat that they have to move them to the trash themselves the day after Halloween and clean up any mess left behind) but I will also take photographs to remind them why we wait until right before Halloween to carve the pumpkins.
One week to go until Halloween.
Three days to go. I called it and put them in the trash.
