March brought us a semi chilly Spring Break this year. We decided to go and see some family for part of our break. Ryan had some work and his annual man trip with his mission buddies to work around our break. Matthew had some baseball games and practices to work around.
So, Friday, the girls and Ryan left for Arkansas to see the Torgerson family. My girls really like spending time with there cousins down there so they were packed and ready to go the second they got home from school. There was a pretty bad storm passing through. Ryan joked that he was more scared of telling the girls we had to wait for the storm then driving through the storm. So he braved the weather and it ended up not being to bad and they made it Friday night. Matthew and I followed them and arrived in Arkansas early Saturday afternoon. We played games, visited, went to Top Golf, went shopping, played outside, went to church with them on Sunday, and enjoyed their company. They are a very easy family to spend time with. I enjoy getting to know them better each time we see them.
Monday morning, Ryan left for home for a few meetings he had for work before leaving for Vegas on Tuesday evening. The kids and I left Arkansas and headed to Dallas to see Sherri and her family. We played games, hit all the cookie spots, drink spots, and ice cream spots, watched movies and hung out. Tuesday morning we got up a early and went to a drive through safari. It was all enjoyable but the giraffes were a hit. They were hungry and had no problem using there giant lips and tongue to search out the food they new we had. One of them took the whole bag from Matthew and ate it with the food inside.
Matthew had baseball games Thursday morning so we left Dallas Wednesday morning and spent the day on the road. The games were pretty chilly, down right frigid, but the sun did come out so it seemed not as bad. Friday and Saturday were relax at home days and catch up on ‘all the things’ that pile up. Ryan got home Sunday and he and I both went back to work Monday, but for some reason the kids had one more day of Spring Break so they got to sleep in and be lazy an extra day. It was a nice Spring Break. Its nice to see family and have some new experiences with them.
Emilee told me several weeks in advance that she was excited to see what she was getting for Valentine’s Day this year. She loved waking up and seeing what was on the counter for her. So, I took her hint and did the same thing this year. I just leave them a little note with a small gift for each of them. Emilee also mentioned she was specifically looking forward to the candy because the girl has the biggest sweet tooth I have ever seen. I don’t love just giving them a bunch of candy but I did include a treat for them too.
Ryan gave me the flowers. He took me on a date to a new Mediterranean restaurant I had never had before called Meddy’s. It was very yummy. We came home and watched the next episode in the show we are hooked on right now called Severance and then we were going to go country dancing but since we had come home and settled on the couch we decided we were good for the night and saved that for another day.
Well the Chiefs made it to the Super Bowl AGAIN! It is a lot more fun to watch a Super Bowl when your team is in it. We had a family party again and all got together to watch it. Ross and Lauren brought a big balloon arch they used at their gym the day before. That made it festive and fun. Allison and Leah made lots of football themed treats and Ryan, Ross and Roger made lots of food to eat. In the past we have watched it upstairs but we decided to go downstairs this time and watch on the big TV. And I am now told that because we switched up our routine and didn’t do things exactly like we have done in the past we are a contributing factor to why they had one of the worst losses the Chiefs have ever had. It was awful. It put a bit of a damper on the party- that is a downside to having your team in the Super Bowl, if they don’t win, its like handing out a turd at the end of a fun party. Several of us just quit watching, Matthew disappeared into his room for a while. It is the last Chiefs game he will watch for a few years so he took it personally that they lost. Definitely not how we wanted it to go, someday, probably the next day, life will go on. Hopefully we do better next year!
Matt arrived home from a church meeting and was excited to go put on his Chiefs jersey.Both Matt and Allison held their hand on their hearts on their own when they sang the National Anthem. It warmed my patriotic mommy heart.
January was a typical January this year. There were a lot of social media comments and jokes about how January is a 12 years long, never ends and the most miserable month of the year. I don’t think that. February seems longer to me, ironic since it is the shortest month of the year. I get why people struggle though. It is a long cold and dreary month. I am ready for the calm boringness after several months of go go go with the holidays. We had a few things that spiced the month up though.
RJ and Dani decided we should all go to a show together at the Kaufmann Center downtown. They had never been and it had been a long time for us. We all went to Chicago together. I had seen the movie, never the play. I think the play was a lot better. It was a nice adult date night down town. Allison watched their son and dogs overnight at their house and Matthew and Emilee watched each other so we stayed downtown and used hotel points after the show. It was nice to not have to drive all the way home afterwards.
The following weekend was Ryan’s works holiday party. They rented out a speak easy under the KC Hotel downtown with a roaring twenties theme. It was pretty fun, everyone dressed up and had a good time. We were going to stay in the hotel that night too but mid week Ryan got sick and we didn’t know if we were going to be able to go or not so we canceled it just in case. Luckily he was better and we got to go. It is a pretty fun hotel but I didn’t mind coming home since we had stayed downtown the weekend before. I was talking to the new marketing person Ryan just hired and her spouse. They seemed really familiar and eventually we figured out that they come to my office for dental work, so they reason they looked familiar is because I have cleaned their whole families teeth for the past few years. LOL. Small world. There were some group pictures taken but I didn’t get any copies so I just have the pictures of Ryan and I. I thought we looked pretty good, Emilee thought we looked silly but she clearly doesn’t know how people dressed in the 20’s. Our costumes came with fake cigarettes but we decided to not carry those around all night.
The next weekend we had Grandpa Terry’s 73rd birthday to celebrate! Every year he says he just wants a very simple meal for his birthday dinner with everyone. This year he said he wanted tacos, Ross said that was boring and made chicken fajitas instead. They were very good… I think Roger enjoyed them and ended up being ok with the switch. Rhonda made him a carrot cake-she makes a very good carrot cake-and he blew out all the candles successfully. The Terry family has decided we are going to continue with the decades old tradition of blowing out the candles on a birthday cake despite COVID trying to do away with it. It is kind of gross if you think about it, but we have all survived this long. 🤷♀️🤷♀️ I do not have a clue why Allison is holding a candle up in an orange for him to blow out too-I would guess either an inside joke or she didn’t want to eat cake for wrestling reasons and was including her orange in the celebration.
And last but not least for January-for part of the kids Christmas present Ryan got tickets to the Chiefs playoff game…if they made it. Of course they made it to the playoffs. We have gone to the super bowl 6 times in the last 7 years and will probably go again this year. He had four tickets. I was fine with not going because if I watch the game I prefer to do it in the warmth of my living room. IT WAS COLD! Allison had some wrestling stuff she didn’t want to miss so she passed her ticket onto Matthew’s friend Carter. So Emilee, Carter, Matthew and Ryan braved the weather and went to the game. We won and it was a fun game. No one lost any toes or fingers to the cold. The Chiefs hold the record for loudest stadium in the NFL and Emilee said she believes it. She had a fun time with her dad and brother. Next we have to try for a three win in a row at the Super Bowl!
The week between Christmas and New Years day it very unique. I love it. Ryan and I usually take it off and of course the kids are out of school. There is no structure. You bounce back and forth between constructive activities, and wasting time. There is no time. You don’t know what day it is. It doesn’t matter because there is no schedule, no demands. If there is something scheduled it most likely will be forgotten. Sometimes you go to bed at 8pm. Sometimes it is 2am. Sometimes you shower and get dressed for the day, sometimes you don’t. I get to be my true introvert self and rarely leave the house. A lack of a plan is the plan. We love it.
We had lots of relaxing, family time activities. The Bourne’s were at Grandma’s all week so my girls spent most of their days playing with them. The weather wasn’t to bad so they even went to the park a few times and got to be outside. I took them to the church one afternoon to play in the gym and draw on the giant chalk boards.
Grandpa Terry, Emilee and Jovee all gave talks on Sunday. We had a family dinner with everyone at our house afterwards to celebrate getting to go to three sacraments. Lots of games were played and football was watched. I caught Ryan getting a little extra snuggle time in with Emilee while he explained something about football rules to her.
Becky invited me to go to a paint class with her so we filled one of our afternoons painting a winter sunset scene. I really like painting. I never know what to do with it when I’m done, it is not good enough to hang up anywhere. It is a fun thing to do and I like learning the techniques and creating things.
Ryan and I worked on some projects together. He made some awesome shelves for my holiday decoration boxes. I can now take one at a time out without having to restack or take other boxes out of the way. I LOVE IT. I went through all my decorations and storage stuff and organized it and cleaned it out. So satisfying. We got a new security system that Ryan installed too. We live far enough away from people that there aren’t that many people but not far enough that I don’t think a weirdo wouldn’t wander by. Ryan got a dart board for Christmas so we hung that up and put a frame around it to help protect the wall a little from wayward darts.
Look at that beautiful organization!
We celebrated New Years Eve at our house with all the Terry Family. We had lots of food and yummy treats. We watched movies, played games, ate and visited while we passed the time away until midnight. I made a balloon drop with confetti for the kids to pull down when we got to midnight.
It was a fun night to celebrate the last day of the year and the starting of a new one. It is pretty crazy to look back over a year and see and the things that happened and how things changed. It is weird how things change and don’t change at the same time. I think 2024 was good to us. We had some good times and made new memories together. No broken bones. I waited until 2025 had started before I typed that. We are not perfect but we are blessed and grateful for our good health and the comfortable lives we all have. There is a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world right now and we are mostly untouched by it. 2025 will bring a new chapter into our families lives. The foremost in my mind is Matthew will graduate and is planning on going on a mission and the dynamics of our family will shift from how we have known them for the last 18 years. For the last picture of this edition of my blog I thought I would put this picture. I wish I had one of our whole family doing this but this one will work. Ciao 2024
It was Ryan’s families year for Christmas. The Bourne’s came from Idaho and the Ross and Ryan families are already here. The Lee’s couldn’t make it.
Christmas Eve we spent most of the morning cooking a preparing the meal. We had ham and cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, jello salad, and Ryan smoked a brisket. It was all very delicious. We ate dinner around 4pm. After dinner and pie and cookies for dessert, the cousins continued to play and have fun together. Some of us watched a movie and played games or took a nap. When everyone was rested and not stuffed from dinner anymore we had a little family gathering. Emilee, Jovee and Tyler started us off by sharing a little thought they each wrote about what Christmas means to them and what some of their favorite parts about Christmas are. Then most of the grandkids shared some kind of talent. We had several piano numbers, a flute, a trumpet, dancing, and even a little acrobatics. Grandpa then gave us a Christmas message and we all had a family prayer together.
Later that night when we got back to our house we opened our Christmas Eve PJ’s and did any last minute wrapping and headed to bed.
Christmas morning we plan for 6:30am at the earliest to wake up for presents. The kids have the option to sleep in longer if they want but so far they have not taken us up on the offer. This year Allison woke us all up at 6:30 sharp with excited cheering that it was Christmas morning. The kids wait at the bottom of the stairs until we get into the living room and then they come up and we start opening presents.
Matthew got some golf clubs and a guitar. He pretty recently decided that he wants to learn the guitar. It isn’t the piano but I’ll take it. Allison wanted lots of clothes and some fancy head phones. Emilee wanted some lego sets to put together and she is currently collecting palm pals and had a list of those she wanted. I didn’t do a very good job of taking pictures this year. Here are the few I did remember to take. Last year we did a scavenger hunt for the kids for the family gifts. They seemed to like it so we did it again this year. The family gift was tickets for one of the Chiefs play off games in January. It will be a fun family event! I’ll post more about it after they go to the game.
After we opened presents and ate breakfast and chilled for a little bit, we went back over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. We opened more presents there with them and then the Chiefs played at noon so everyone came over to our house to watch the game. We ate snacks and leftovers, played games and hung out together.
December was just lovely. It flew by really fast but it wasn’t chaotic and out of control with to much going on. It was perfect.
We made treats, did puzzles, listened to music, looked at lights, drank hot chocolate, did toys for tots and the giving tree, wrapped presents, watched Christmas movies, went to Christmas parties, celebrated with family and friends. It was an awesome month.
Allison had another wrestling match. It was an away meet so we didn’t go but someone recorded it for us. Spoiler alert-she wins! I finally figured out how to combine her videos so we can watch all her matches for a meet in one video.
Ryan and I went on a brief overnight date to downtown Kansas City. He gets a free weekend night as a perk through his Hilton credit card so we usually use it in December. We went with our friends Dani and RJ. We booked a few reservations at some of the Christmas pop up places they have for appetizers, dinner, and dessert and had a nice relaxing night with lots of visiting.
Christmas was on a Wednesday this year. The kids finished school the Friday before and Ryan and I had our last day of work on Monday. Then we had the next week off to celebrate Christmas, New Years and enjoy being lazy, and getting things done around the house that we wanted to. Ryan built some shelves for all the decorations in our storage room. I haven’t taken down all the Christmas decorations yet so I will wait to take a picture when its all packed away and finished. He installed a new security system around our house. I was in my purging our house of things that we don’t need anymore and customizing/organizing a few areas. I did Ryan and my closet, the pantry, and the storage room- which like I said is now just waiting on the Christmas decorations. We played games with the kids and hung out. There is a touch of a sad note for me this year because it will be the last Christmas before our kids start leaving the house and we start tip toeing into a new era in our lives. That is another reason I really wanted to soak everything in as much as possible.
I have been so excited to decorate for Christmas this year! I wanted to put everything up early but since I was hosting Thanksgiving I thought I should keep my Thanksgiving stuff up at least until then. I did put my outside lights up and my tree without decorations on it early. It has been two years since we have had our decorations up. I forgot what some of them were! Two years ago we had just moved into our rental and only had room for a few things. Last year we moved in to our new house two days before Christmas so I put our tree up and that was about it. This year is was a little like Christmas opening up all the boxes to remember what I had. It was very fun to get it all up. The kids and Ryan were excited too. It feels nice and Christmassy around here now. We were in our last house for 7 years so I had a spot for everything. I have a few things that don’t work anymore or some areas that I don’t have the right decoration but I will tweak it a little each year and eventually it will all pull together. My goal this year was to get a bigger tree. We went from 7 1/2 feet to 12 feet. It is big! I love a beautiful tree but don’t love the setting up. I might get a little tired of setting it up every year, but I think it fills the space pretty good. I also got the garland for the stairs. Allison had a really cute idea to put ribbon on the kitchen cupboard doors with a bow so it looks like presents. I thought it turned out pretty cute! Ryan and I attempted to do the lights ourselves this year. He even crawled up on the roof for our tall front porch. The smaller eve next to it had a 30 foot drop off the one side so we decided it wasn’t worth the risk of our lives and ability to move all our limbs. I ordered a grinch and stuck him in the yard to make it look like he was stealing our lights, then we didn’t have to put them on that eve. Next year we need to get some bigger lights I think…and see about finding someone else to install them.
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.
We were lucky to get two of these gems in the White Elephant party.
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.
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.
