We switched Emilee to a new barn for her riding lessons in March. She seems to be really liking the new place. She has been progressing a lot. For the school talent show at the end of the year she asked me to take a video of her at her riding lesson to show for the talent show.
Emilee also played volleyball again this Spring. She asked to do it and was excited to go to practices and games. For all other sports besides horse riding we have had to make her ‘just try it’ and she has been very glad when it is over. She did great this season, her last game she served the maximum times (5) and scored then they have to give the ball to the other team. She was pretty excited about that.
Allison had her AAU gymnastics meet in Manhattan Kansas. She did really well. The team ended up qualifying to go to the National AAU meet in Illinois in July. She is pretty excited about it. Ryan and I are happy for her that she enjoys gymnastics and she is doing well at it and continuing to improve.
Matthew just finished up his Freshman year on the baseball team. He was a really good bat this season. He played mostly 2nd or short when he was on defense. He did a good job and his coach seemed pleased with him. There last game of the season was rained out which was a bummer. He is looking forward to his season with his club team over the Summer.
There was a YM basketball tournament for our Stake. The boys all had a great time. Matthew loved it. Our ward had two teams. The team Matthew was on ended up making it to the final game and winning the tournament. Matthew was given the MVP award for giving all out effort all the time. They even let them cut the net down which was pretty fun for them.
I have some talented children. I love watching all my kids in their activities. I am glad they are taking the opportunities to improve themselves and work hard at something they enjoy.
When I was young I spent many years begging to get my ears pierced. My mom didn’t mind but my dad wanted to convince me to never have them pierced. His mom never did, and it was something he told me over and over he admired about her. He also asked me why I wanted to put more holes in my head. When I was around 4th or 5th grade I made the deal to practice my piano, say my prayers and read my scriptures every day for a year and then I could get my ears pierced. I don’t know if they made me do it for the whole year but I did it for a long time and then I got my ears pierced. At some point along the way I also remember telling my grandma that she was making it harder for me to get my ears pierced. When she asked what I meant I explained my dads thoughts that she was somehow making a moral stand to not get her ears pierced. She replied, “For Heaven’s sake, I’ve just never done it. I have no moral concerns for having or not having pierced ears!” I was quite delighted with her response. My dad tried to convince her otherwise and she would not agree. I am not positive but I think she eventually did get her ears pierced.
Anyways, with my girls every now and then I’ve asked them if they are interested in getting their ears pierced. They both have not had any interest in it. Out of the blue the other day Emilee came up to me and said she had a dream that I took her to get her ears pierced so she wanted to do it now. I told her we could plan on it sometime to see if she forgot about it or if she was serious. She continued to bring it up several times a day for a few weeks so this past Saturday I took her to get them done. When we were walking into the store I asked her if she had her “brave pants” on. She looked down at her pants and said, “No! I have my gingerbread pants on!” LOL! She picked topaz studs for her birthstone color for her studs to wear while her ears heal and handled it like a champ when she had it done. Apparently, her gingerbread pants will also work as “brave pants”.
Every week I have to delete dozens and dozens of pictures and videos that Emilee makes with my phone. She makes goofy videos and pulls silly faces at herself and entertains herself forever with it. For posterity sake I thought I would include one of her latest videos in the family blog. Allison is pretending to knock so Emilee will go answer the door in the back ground. Emilee incorporates it into her video when she cackles, “You can’t trick me!”
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!
It was recently the fun time of year when all (now most in a post COVID world) elementary students carry on the decades old tradition of decorating a box with as much hearts, glitter, pink and frilly decorations as they can and make a Valentine’s for each class member to exchange and put in each others box. For some brief back ground- Matthew made his first box in kindergarten and after that year decided a plastic grocery sack was good enough for his remaining elementary years. Allison let me help her make her box in kindergarten and then told me my help was no longer needed in the following years. She came up with a bigger and more elaborate design each year for her box. It never resembled a box or anything to do with Valentine’s other than having a slot to put the Valentine’s cards in. By third grade her reputation preceded her and the teachers gave her specific size limits on her box. Emilee has always gone the more traditional route and decorated a shoe box in the before mentioned way. She is the last kiddo that still makes a Valentine’s box for school in our house.
This year during one of our many days off of school in February she had a burst of creativity and brought me a drawing of what she wanted to do for her box the next week. We gathered the supplies she needed and she was excited and thrilled to make her picture come to life by making her box all by herself. She did a great job. She was very proud of it and it sat on the side table in the kitchen for the few days before it was time to take it to school.
Emilee’s awesome Valentine’s Box
They were told to bring it in sometime in the two days before the party. She had a bunch of other things to take the school the first day they could bring them in so she planned to take it the second day. The morning she was supposed to take it I reminded her not to forget it. She said, “No, I think I will just have people set the Valentine on my desk.” I of course asked her what she meant and she started to tear up. Come to find out, almost everyone else had brought their boxes in the day before and after seeing them Emilee thought hers wasn’t good enough. She said that most of the other boxes were, “more neat looking” than hers. Meaning-they were made by adults not kids, or ordered on the internet and ‘professionally’ made. Grrr, I was pretty annoyed. This isn’t the first time one of my kids has been embarrassed of something they did on their own because other kids parents do the assignments for them. It is a soap box of mine. Stupid parents. We talked about how her box was perfect the way it was and how awesome it was that she did it all by herself (because 1-she wanted to and had a great time doing it and 2- THOSE ARE THE DIRECTIONS-not have your parents make your box). I told her I loved her box and she should be proud of it. She told me,” You are just saying that because you are my mom so you have to like it.” Allison then chimed in and said that one of the reasons she made her boxes the way she did is so they would be unique and represent something she liked and told Emilee, “I love the way you did your box. The see through part is cool.” Allison’s words carried a lot more weight than mine. The silver lining of having sisters that fight more than it seems like they get along is that when one of them gives you a compliment you believe it because you know they have no problem insulting you. It was a sweet moment. I appreciated Allison helping her sister.
She took her box to school and was happy to report that her friend Millie told her is was an awesome box. I was helping at the party the next day and had the chance to see all the boxes myself. There were many boxes there that were clearly made by an adult or straight up bought on some bougie valentine website. It was ridiculous. I was happy to see the few that were home made by kids and made sure to tell each of them I loved their creativity. She still has her box sitting on her dresser and I will leave it there as long as she wants to instead of chucking it after a few weeks like I normally would.
Emilee had to find a new place to ride horses. The barn she was riding at had a few of their horses pass away and the owner wanted to take some time off from teaching. It took a bit of time to find a new place. Part of the issue was that she only wanted to ride with Reese so we had a find a place that had room for both of them. We finally found a place that wasn’t to much farther away. It seems a little more organized and stream lined than the last barn. Hopefully they will continue to progress in there riding.
While she waited for me to find a new barn for her, she filled her time with playing with her horses at home. She is pretty cute. This heard of horses, barbies and random other stuffed animals can be found around the house in various stages of their daily trek from the fireplace to the office and and back to the fireplace. They always travel together in a pack and they seem to have a fairly organized rotation for taking turns riding on all the different horses. If you are lucky you will catch a little bit of conversation between all of the animals but if they know you are around they move pretty quietly. I love her imagination.
She has also become one of her primary teachers helpers with her baby on Sundays. She loves holding her. The babies name is Maddie and as you can see she is fond of Emilee too.
February is usually parent teacher conferences. For the winter conference they have the students come with their parents and talk with them about what they are doing and learning. Along with her grades (that were very good!) I was sent home with a few of Emilee’s self portraits. One of them was her before she got glasses and the other was after she got them. She has done much better in school and seems to feel more confident going now that she can see. Imagine that. She reads a lot without being asked too. I asked her how she read the board to know what to do. She said, “I just guessed.” I’m glad we figured it out so she can work and learn at her full capacity. Poor girl! She looks pretty cute with her glasses I think!
All three of my kids needed glasses when we went in for this years annual eye check up. Apparently we didn’t eat enough carrots last year. Matthew and Allison only need their glasses in certain situations, Emilee needs hers all the time.
Emi turned nine this month! Nine years since that little girl joined us two weeks early and and scared me to death by not making a peep when she was born. Once the doctors were convinced she was ok just content then gave her to me and she snuggled right back into a ball on my tummy like she had been for the last nine months but now was in the outside world.
She is a fun, joyful girl. She loves to play, work is always for later. She has been asking for a horse for the past few months. I told her that she wouldn’t be getting a horse for her birthday but she could pick a fun non-living present and still have a great birthday. She said, “That’s fine, I’ll just ask Santa for the horse next month for Christmas.” 🤦♀️
She voted to have spaghetti and three kinds of ice cream for her birthday dinner. She had a horse riding lesson the day of her birthday which couldn’t have worked out better. After her lesson Reese came home with us and ate dinner and they played the rest of the evening.
She decided to have a sleep over with a few of her friends to celebrate that weekend. There was six girls total including Emilee. Two of them stayed late instead of sleeping over and it felt like no less than 10 girls at all times. Emilee thought it was a fun successful party which is what counts. Grandma Terry let her pick a few crafts that the girls could do. She had a painting project, an ornament project and a diamond dots project. They were all a big hit. They had pizza for dinner and watched Space Jam while eating as much popcorn as they could. Emilee voted for ice cream only instead of cake and wanted one candle. After all that they opened presents and then played games and entertained themselves until 12:30 in the morning. I know because I was in the next room waiting for them to fall asleep. The next morning while we ate pancakes they talked about how awesome it was that they stayed up all night long.
Yes, those are my Christmas decorations in the background of the pictures. We needed some Christmas early this year!
Time seems to be flying by at a rapid pace again. September and October seemed to go by so fast.
Matthew had a busy month. When I was looking at the picture to add to this post I should have titled it Matthew’s busy September. Everyone was busy and had things going on. I guess we just photographed more of Matthew’s.
Matthew crammed in as much baseball as he could in September and October. The weather was pretty cooperative. He is on the same team but there were a lot of changes and the new group of boys is pretty fun to watch. They all mix well together.
Division 1 Champs
Out!
Firebird Baseball Cluc
Celebrating a big win!
Out!
Out!
Allison came up with another creative way to get her energy out. This is a video she sent me the other day.
We went to several High School Football games this past month too. Some at our school, some to watch other kids we know play for their school. One of those was Homecoming. Matthew and Campbell took pictures together before the game, then they changed and met their friends at the game. After the game they changed again (Matthew in the back of our car) and a group of them went to the dance together.
Next on Matthew’s list was a Temple trip and a camping trip with the Young Men in our ward. They went to a lake and did some swimming, biking, hiking, fishing, and eating smore’s. Matthew and his friend Carter are really into fishing now. They try and go at least once a week. I’m glad he has a fun hobby to do with a good buddy.
Emilee tried volleyball this year, and we are very happy to say that she loved it! She looked forward to practices, we didn’t have to drag her and she was excited enough about her games that she kept track of them herself. I am very glad we found a new talent for her to develop. Her dad is over the moon excited. She has lost two pairs of knee pads already but if she keeps enjoying it I can get her another pair.
She also loves drawing and wanted me to capture this master piece of me to share on my blog.
Well, unlike last year school started one the original day it was supposed to. That was a plus. To make a long story short our school district said it was up to parents if their kids wore masks or not. I think that is a great idea because 1-they are my kids and I should be the one making decisions for them. 2- there is no mask mandate anywhere in our entire county right now. 3-Despite the news and politicians making it look like people are dropping dead in the streets and hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID patients, its not. One hospital (ironically Children’s Mercy) has made a public post TWICE saying they are not full and have very few COVID patients. However, the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners decided they know better (despite ZERO children’s deaths in our county and very low infection rates for children since all this started in March 2020) and made an order requiring all K-6th grade students to wear a mask. Our school board found a way around it by providing a mask exemption form for parents and/or doctors to sign but it has caused quite a tizzy. It is all kinds of crazy. The world and people are getting crazier everyday. But my kids are back in school, mine have the option to wear a mask ONLY if they want and unlike the other districts around us they did not have to define their sexuality and declare their pronouns the first day of school. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Emilee is in 3rd Grade. She has the same teacher Allison had in 3rd grade but her name is different because she got married. Mrs. Dechant. She is a great teacher and even though Emilee isn’t a huge fan of school I hope she will have a good year. I need to work on raising my expectations for her and helping her out of the “youngest child please do everything for me” funk.
Allison is in 6th grade and is ready to conquer it in a blaze of glory. There is a lot of cello players this year and they tried to persuade some kids to switch but she wouldn’t budge. She has been waiting a year to get to learn to play the cello and be an “Orch Dork”. She has a lot of classes with her friends and has organized and re-organized her locker multiple times a day since school started three days ago. Her friends and her make towel tents for each other to change in for PE and she can get seconds at lunch if she wants. Other than her mom making her ride the bus instead of personally delivering her to the front of the school each morning, she is loving life. If Allison is happy, the rest of us are even more happy. Doing the work won’t be a problem for her. Staying on top of things herself and being responsible will be her mountain to over come. She can do it!
Matthew started 9th grade this year, making it our first of many years to have a kid in each school. He got the classes he wanted but doesn’t have any close friends in any of them. He sees his besties in the hall and in a few weeks at lunch when they switch to the open hour lunch. He is a little bummed about that but his dad and I are encouraging him to meet new people. Good new people. So far he has a very good track record of picking friends that are good people and steering clear of the ones that aren’t as nice. He is starting to get some height going so that is exciting for him and he is hoping to bulk up a bit with weights as a class this year. His teenage laziness is effecting his motivation levels for school but he has always been good at staying up with assignments and managing it on his own. He told me he was looking forward to his retirement the other day. I rolled my eyes and told him to enjoy the phase he is at in life now. He takes drivers education soon and as soon as he is 15 he can drive by himself in a car to and from school if needed. He does have the slight problem of not having a car yet. They school had a gas leak 20 minutes after it started on the first day and everyone had to evacuate for an hour and a half but since then it has been pretty low key at the high school.
First day, catching the bus with neighbors Jack and Finn
It has been awhile since I wrote about each kiddo individually so I thought I would do that. They like reading about themselves when they look through these blogs so I’ll catch up on what they are like in their lives right now.
She has changed from a little girl into a young lady the past several months. I love watching her grow up but it is also a little bitter sweet with her because each time she finishes a phase it is the last of my kids to go through it. Sometimes it is nice- like potty training. Other times it is a little sad- like losing her first tooth, or holding my hand when we go places. I can still talk her into holding my hand for now.
She is finishing her last week of a two week trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa Jones in Florida this Summer. She has been having a great time. She told me some of the highlights have been watching movies with grandma and grandpa, going to the zoo, playing with her cousin Aubry, swimming A LOT, and her cousin Hannah coming to stay too. They even had a Pioneer Primary Activity while she was there. She was a little nervous about flying on the airplane by herself to get there but she is a pro now so she isn’t worried about the flight home.
Grandma picking her up at the air port.
Hiking with Hannah
Zoo with Aubry
Sherri said the swam for 4 hours and were still going strong but they had to go.
Taking a selfie with Aubry.
Pioneer Primary activity-they were making leather bracelets.
Grandma and Grandpa took over shaking the butter.
Playing with Grandma’s animals and singing.
Emilee is 8 years old. She loves being the youngest kid and tries to take advantage of the ‘I don’t know how’ excuse any chance she gets. She is a master at getting what she wants right under your nose. I have to really watch myself or before I know it I am doing everything for her or having her brother or sister do it for her. The saying, you catch more bees with sugar than vinegar is her motto in life, if it doesn’t work she is fully prepared to back it up with crying or even the occasional tantrum. Those tactics are easier to spot because they are more annoying obviously, and she usually over does the theatrics a bit so it is almost comical. Overall she is still a happy easy going girl for the most part.
We often hear her singing either a real or made up song while she plays. She is the best at using her imagination and will entertain herself for hours with her stuffed animals or her little animal toys or legos. She has an amazing stuffed animal collection. It is almost like her journal. She remembers each of their names and where or why she got them. They rotate on her bed so they all have turns sleeping with her at night. There are 10-15 stuffed animals in her bed at any given time.
She is very tall for her age. Dad still tries to get her interested in sports. She is very fast and has a fair amount of natural athleticism. She has tried basketball, soccer, softball, gymnastics and will be trying volleyball this Fall. She could be very good at any of those but so far she hasn’t loved any of them. Her love is animals. She started riding lessons with one of her besties Reese about a year ago. She loves riding the horses and helping take care of them each week. She did a horse camp this Summer and has been telling us she wants a horse for Christmas ever since then. I am hoping she will be my kiddo that does some theater and choir in school.
She likes to color and draw. If I let her she would keep every single piece of paper from school, church, restaurants, and anywhere else she gets it. She wants to color every single space on the paper and then display it when she is done. She has a good memory and if one of her papers comes up missing she quickly checks her bed room garbage, then the kitchen garbage and the big dumpster in the garage to retrieve it. She has followed the chain of where I throw things away that she hasn’t approved. Paper is not the only thing she likes to keep. She likes to collect almost anything. She has her stuffed animals, sea shells, sunglasses, chap stick, rocks, dragons, anything she can think of. She loves collecting and prefers to have all of her collections on display, not neatly put away.
She loves having a friend to play with. Her besties are Reese Dunn, Summer Beashore, Cambrie McDonald and her cousin Jovee. If she is with any of them they can entertain themselves for hours. Reese and her share a love of animals and swimming. Summer and her love coloring together, Cambrie and her love Lego dragons and Jovee and her come up with all sorts of games to play.
Reese and Emilee playing at Reese’s house with her dog Poe after horse camp.
She has loved dragons since she was very little and still loves them. She collects all kids of dragons-stuffed, plastic, action figures, but her most favorite is Dragons out of Legos. Her and Cambrie line them up for hours and play endlessly with them. She loves the How to Train Your Dragon movies and all the spin off shows from them.
Emilee is a sweet girl and has brought joy to our home from day one. She is the best cuddler. She loves to be tucked in every night. She enjoys going to bed when she is tired and looks forward to good sleep. She does not like getting up in the morning and the thought of having to get up early stresses her out. She is the pickiest eater you will ever meet. I think the biggest culprit to her pickiness is texture but it is a constantly changing, ridiculous list of what she will and won’t eat. Her food of choice is mac n cheese, cheese quesadilla, yogurt, carrots, apples, cereal, PB and honey, bagels with brown sugar cream cheese and water (unless root beer is an option which it usually isn’t but she likes to double check). She has been slowly getting better at broadening her list of foods she will eat with the exception of berries. Strawberries in particular. She will do any chore, go to bed in the middle of the afternoon, sit at the table for hours, go without any food before she will eat a strawberry or anything she knows has a strawberry in it. With the exception of strawberry milk which she calls pink milk and doesn’t know is strawberry. Technically it is just added flavored sugar so it isn’t really strawberry. As picky as she is she has a giant sweet tooth and we have to really watch what treats we keep around the house because she will eat all of them. Don’t think her inconsistent though, her sweet tooth is pretty picky too.
Emilee is a beautiful little girl but she doesn’t overly concern herself with matters of hygiene. She used to prefer to change into the clothes she was wearing the next day the night before instead of pajamas so she could roll out of bed and be ready. She now prefers to wear her pajamas and change in the morning like the rest of the world. She grabs whatever is at the top of her drawer and puts it on. Luckily she matches most of the time. She rarely shows a preference on what to wear and is fine with me picking out clothes for her at the store. She will brush the top layer of her hair and pull it into a pony tail. If she grabs shorts and it is cold she will put on a sweatshirt and wear knee high socks. If it is warm and she grabs leggings or long sleeves she will pull or roll them up if she gets hot. She would wear tennis shoes all the time even to church if I let her. One of her nick names is ‘Dirty Pigeon’. If you haven’t read the book by Mo Willems called The Dirty Pigeon, you should. It is about a pigeon that really needs a bath but doesn’t want to take one and makes a big fuss about it. When he finally gets in the bath he is in it for hours and won’t get out. That is Emilee. She will try and go days and days without taking a shower. When she is caught and has to take one she stomps and pouts about it then gets in the showers and literally stays until all the hot water is gone, or takes a bath and keeps adding hot water and stays for hours.
Emilee will be starting 3rd grade in a few weeks. School is not her favorite. The eye doctor is wondering and keeps checking her for focusing issues because reading is not her favorite. I think it is just that reading is not her favorite. She loves being read to but isn’t a big reader on her own. She does fine in school but is much more into the hands on active learning then sitting and concentrate learning. Her biggest hang up with school is she has to get up early (her definition of get up early is waking up anytime before she wakes up naturally on her own and can’t lay in bed for 30 minutes) but once she is there she does fine. Her teachers always say she is a sweet girl and a good listener.
Well that is kind of a hodge podge of things about Emilee. She is a happy fun girl and we love her a lot. She has been a happy easy going girl from day one. I am glad she is in our family and I love watching her grow up. The 5 words that pop into my head first when I think of Emilee are happy, fun, loving, silly, and kind.
