I found this cute video the other day. Emilee was getting some batting practice in with her brother. I loved how she would tap her bat to start getting ready. No one told her to do that, she just saw Matthew do it for years. Adorable!
Tag: Emilee
Forest Springs Frosty Formal
Emilee had her first school dance. Her middle school has a dance for the 7th and 8th graders in the winter each year. She looked beautiful and is growing up way to fast. She picked out her dress, she wanted it to be purple and she decided how she wanted her hair to be done. She originally thought a bun but changed her mind and went with curls, half up, half down. She went with a group of her girl friends. A few of them came over to our house to take pictures before and then arrive together at the dance. Emilee said she wanted to go in her dads car so she could arrive at the dance and have ‘drip’. I am not sure I said that correctly. But we took her and her friends to the dance and we had the song “Shut Up and Dance” blaring on the speakers when we arrived and they made their grand entrance. They had to run because there was a blizzard happening and it was a freezing 15 degrees at the time but it was still a grand entrance. It was pretty stinking cute. They all had a fun time. Emilee said they danced a lot and they had good snacks to eat.
2026
Here we go! A new year of experiences, growing, changing, learning, and memories to add to our lives.
Emilee went to Arkansas for the last part of 2025 and spent a few days with her cousin Lizzy. They had a great time and loved getting to be together. She was with them for New Year Eve and we picked her up New Year Day. We hadn’t opened presents yet so when she got home we opened some with her. Our family pajama pants this year were Dr. Pepper pants. Some of us are very big fans of Dr. Pepper. And speaking of things that people are big fans of, Emilee is also a big fan of Bluey…the cartoon for preschool kids…but there is apparently a big following of middle school kids that love it too. She got a pair of Bluey pajama pants for Christmas and she got her dad a pair for Christmas so we had to get that on camera.
A few days after the New Year it was warm enough to practice shooting her bow so we went outside and used the new target she got for Christmas.
Matthew is now in his Black Out Year. It is a term missionaries use for the year of their mission that they are gone from home for the whole 365 days of the year. The crappy part of that is the definition I just gave you. The silver lining is when it is done it will be just a few more months until he comes home. He is doing really well. His Portuguese gets better everyday and he is learning and growing a lot. We are proud of him and excited for the opportunities he is having. He is missed a lot. We went to dinner the other night at Costa Vida where he used to work. He called us while we were there and talked to some of the people he used to work with which he thought was awesome. On the way there we made this video for him so he could hear one of his favorite songs and see some of the Kansas sunset. Allison was in the car with us but didn’t want to be in the video.
Allison is working hard at wrestling. She is doing early morning practices and spends most of her weekends at meets. The most recent meet at Blue Valley North West she took 3rd place. Here is a video of her at a match in Topeka.
Emilee is still doing her weekly riding lesson. She moved to a new barn this year. She is getting pretty good and comfortable on a horse. It is fun to watch her.
December Begins
I love Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. I have several books of them. Every few years I come across them and decide to read them again. I did that about a week ago. This one makes me laugh, and I remember reading it with Matthew when he was 6-7 and he thought it was hilarious too. I sent him a picture of it in his missionary photo album that our family has for him.
Emilee is still doing her riding lessons once a week. She is getting pretty good. She is still doing English riding style and does 1-1 1/2 foot jumps. I don’t know a lot about riding but I have been watching her enough to be able to tell who can ride a horse and who is sitting on a horse bouncing around. Emilee definitely looks like she is confident and knows how to work with the horse.
Since it is close to the end of the year my phone is putting collages together and showing me ‘a year in review’ or ‘people over the years’. It showed me this one of Allison and I thought it was pretty cute. She is a funny, sweet, fierce girl. I sure do love her.
Emilee has a Bluey (kids cartoon) shirt that she got this year and wears to school. It is a little bit of a thing for middle school and high school kids to wear/have items that are kids cartoon stuff. Allison has a Barbie lunch box, and Emilee likes Bluey. Matthew teases them both and gives them a hard time about it. We were Christmas shopping and Emilee found a big Bluey stuffed animal. She sent Matthew a picture and told him it would be on his bed for him when he got home.
This might be the last year I get a cute decorated Christmas list from Emilee, my other two already don’t do it anymore. So here is the list she gave me. My kids know they don’t get everything on their list but I like to have lots of ideas. They also know I don’t give living gifts but they still put them on their lists sometimes.
Terry Bell Performance
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.
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!
Halloween
It was a pretty quiet Halloween for me this year. Ryan was out of town for a work trip. Allison invited a friend over to hangout. They watched a movie and ate pizza. Emilee went trick or treating with her friend Harriet. They dressed up as skeletons. When they were all done she had 14 pounds of candy.
I snuck a piece of pizza from the girls and then decided to set up my Christmas tree. We have a big tree and it takes a lot of work to get it set up so I wanted to make sure that it was up long enough to enjoy it. So we have had all our Thanksgiving decorations and our Christmas tree this year. It is pretty and makes me happy.
Emilee’s Fall Sport
We tried a new softball team for Emilee this Fall. We went to a new team at the club level for Advanced Fast Pitch Academy. She is the youngest girl on the team. She seemed to like it and got along well with the girls. The girls seemed nice. They are not very good. They played in five tournaments. 4-5 games per tournament and one two games total. That is a little frustrating for Ryan and I. She seemed to lose skills she had because they weren’t taught or reinforced…and we are paying club prices now, not rec team. She had a fun season and it takes time for teams to mesh so we will see how winter conditioning and Spring go but I don’t feel like we have found ‘her team’ yet. One of the tournaments they did was the Monster Bash. Here are some cute pictures from after the game.
Planes, Boats, and a Baby!
The first weekend after Matthew left I was pretty down in the dumps. Ryan tried to distract me a little bit. There was a Commemorative Airplane Show at an airport near by so we went with some friends to check it out. There were jeeps, helicopters, a museum and a handful of plans from WWII and Vietnam.
Allison went on her annual lake trip with a group of her friends for their friend Olivia’s birthday. This is the third year she has gone.
The Jones family picture that was taken on at Thanksgiving has now become outdated. John and Rachel had their fourth baby, second girl, Johanna. I believe they are going to call her Jojo. She was in the NICU for a few days because her breathing was struggling but she is doing great now.
Allison has been taking drivers education and practicing driving the past year. She recently got her learners permit for driving bumped up to her restricted driver license. That means she can now drive by herself, or with one sibling, to work, church, or school. For her first drive with Emilee to the church for youth night we took these pictures of her backing out. Its kind of hard to see but the first one is Allison crossing her fingers, and the second one is Emilee’s reaction when she saw her doing it. It was pretty funny. Allison did great and everyone got to and from where they were supposed to safely.
