Family – Page 2 – Terry Family Shenanigans

Ready for Spring

Once Spring started making its appearance we did a few projects on the outside of the house. We put in the flower beds, lined them and filled them with rocks. We got the front flower beds planted. We will keep working on them a each year. We have a plan but it is a few year plan before it will be all done. We got some patio furniture so we can enjoy our deck and the patio. One of my favorite things we did was hang patio lights from the ceiling and hung up a hammock. It is so relaxing. We love it! For our house warming gift Ryan’s parents gave us a blackstone grill. We have family gatherings and do cookouts with it a lot. The kids have been requesting a trampoline and we got that so there would be more to do outside. Fall and Spring will be really nice to use outside. Once it gets hot it gets a little buggy and is not so great but I love having some outdoor spaces to enjoy!

This is pictures of out patio lights and a rainbow we saw from our deck one night.

Mother’s Day this year was nice. Ryan and the kids made me dinner and spoiled me on Sunday. The day before we did a family service project for the local food pantry. It has been a while since we have done it and Ryan and I felt like we were due for some service. This time we went to one in Lawrence Kansas. The Harvester truck brought a bunch of food to a local church and unloaded it. The volunteers divided it up and got ready to disperse it, then a line of cars came through and we loaded it into each car. We all enjoyed it. We need to get back into it as a regular thing that we do. We went to lunch together after that and then the kids helped me plant another flower bed for part of their Mother’s Day to me. It is so nice having grown children to help with projects. It saves my back a lot!

Of course with Spring the kids started their Spring sports. Allison is finishing up her gymnastic season about the time school ends. She had sever meets and got a personal best on the bar 9.5. It was pretty awesome to see her! She added a few new flips to her floor routine that she learned as well. In the Fall she thought this might be her last season for gymnastics, but as it got closer to the end she decided she wasn’t quite ready to be done. She has at least one more year in her! After the last meet they did the end of the year banquet. They had Mexican food and cake for dessert. The girls all dressed up and seemed to have a fun time. She got the “Tootsie Roll” reward for being able to roll with whatever she is doing at the gym. She was also voted by her team to win the Spirit Award because she is always positive and helps keep everyone focused during practice and meets. She is pretty awesome. Allison excels and puts full effort into whatever she does. She is a great leader and her dad and I were proud of her for showing that this year in gymnastics. It made us happy that her team recognized it in her too.

Matthew played for his High School team this year during the Spring. He played for JV as the short stop, and the coaches also took him to varsity games to help and fill in where they needed him. The varsity team made it to state again this year. Matthew went with them. Last year they lost the first game but this year they made it to the final game and ended up taking second. Matt loves baseball and loves to play as much as he can. There is some school politics that make the high school season not as fun but he had a good time. He was really excited to get into the competitive season with his regular team. His arm was back to full mobility in February and he worked on the strength side of it through the last semester. He was hitting well but his strength really started coming back and he started hitting some bombs at the beginning of his competitive season. His strength isn’t 100% yet but it coming back quick. He is consistently hitting doubles and triples and even got a home run during one of his HS games. It is fun to watch your kids do something they love.

High school baseball pictures

Emilee played softball again this Spring. Her team last year split in half and some stayed rec and some tried competitive. Emilee decided to try competitive. She decided to pick the same number as Matthew and she loved doing batting practice and playing catch with him. If he was able to come to her games she always came up to say hi and was super excited he was there. She played mostly short stop, center field or 1st base. She improved a lot and had a good time. Her team ended up getting 4th in the division they played in.

Eclipse

In April of this year there was a total lunar eclipse crossing the united states. It was similar to the one that was about 7 years ago that we went up to Lincoln Nebraska to see. Sherrie and Dave Torgerson’s house in Dardenelle Arkansas was in the direct path and they were going to have totality for almost 5 full minutes. We decided to take a very quick mini-cation and drive down Sunday afternoon to see it with them on Monday and then come home Monday afternoon. There were lots of family there which meant lots of cousins to play with. The weather was great so the kids got out water balloons and played a lot of games outside.

Allison and one of her besties Allie Sluga went on a little trip together. Allie invited her to go to the Ozarks with her and her grandparents took them for a few days. They had lots of girl time and did lots of shopping together.

I thought this was a good spot to put this picture showing Allison’t makeup talents. She is the Lorax, keeper of the trees.

Allison got one of her best scores on the beam at her last gymnastic meet this year. She got a 9.5!!

Matthew had his Junior Prom this year. He went with Campbell. They both looked great! It was a little crazy helping him get measured for a tux and getting the flowers and plans ready. Time really does fly when your kids grow up. They went in a group with his friends Ramey and Nick. They took pictures at a winery before they went to dinner at an Italian restaurant. Then they stopped by our house for a few minutes before they went to the dance. When the dance was over they came home and changed then went to the after party. It was at Chicken and Pickle. It was a great place for the afterparty. Unlimited chicken fingers and pickleball to play. Matthew won a few rounds and got some of the prizes for pickle ball.

This is a side by side of their first dance together- Freshman year Homecoming dance, and Junior Prom.

Spring Break

Spring Break was a week earlier than it usually is for us. That might not seem like a big difference but in Kansas in the Spring that makes a big difference as far as temperature. For the first part of our Spring Break, Kenny and Sherri came to stay with us for a few days. It wasn’t quite warm enough to do a lot of yard things but Sherri helped me make a plan, and we picked out the rocks and plants to put in when it got warm enough a few weeks later. A house surrounded by three acres of mud gets messy really quick so we were anxious to get some landscaping in.

We did some shopping and visiting and went to dinner a few times while they were here too. Allison is great at babysitting and her and Emilee both enjoy spending time with cousins. KJ showed us real quick how un-baby proof our house is now.

Ryan had to go to a conference in Omaha for work for the last part of our Spring Break. On the last day of his conference, the kids and I drove up and we had a fun mini-cation in Omaha Nebraska. We stayed in a hotel for two nights. When we got there and checked in the first thing we did was an escape room. One of the family Christmas gifts we got was a “family escape room night” and we hadn’t done it yet. We picked a room with a batman theme that had a 17% success rate. I thought is was a lot of fun. Each of us picked a piece of the puzzle and worked on it. Allison solved hers then jumped to someone else and helped them finish. She could have easily finished it by herself. It is fun to see how her brain works through things. By the end the puzzle Matthew had was the last one and tricky because it seemed like we didn’t have all the info we needed but we had found all the clues. Someone finally came on the intercom and told us that we were missing half of his puzzle because one of the keys we found accidently opened two things instead of just one and we used it to open the one it shouldn’t have been able to open, so we thought we had found all the clues but had missed one. Once we figured that out and found the other half we solved it with time to spare. Technically they said since they had to help us we didn’t get a free t-shirt. I think since it was an error in their puzzles that required them to help us that shouldn’t have counted. Ryan and I didn’t debate with them though so our kids didn’t have to crawl under a table and die from embarrassment. We went and got dinner then tried out an ice cream place right by our hotel that turned out to be delightfully delicious. Later that night we went and saw Kung-Fu Panda in the movie theater together.

The next day we went to the Omaha Zoo. The last time we went to the zoo as a family we were still in the stroller, carrying snacks and hungry, hot, or need to use the bathroom every five minute stage. It was a fun time and we saw lots of animals but after a full day at the zoo, there was still a lot of zoo left to see and everyone was exhausted. Let me tell you, going to the zoo with three grown children is A-MAZ-ING! If anyone wanted to carry something they carried it themselves. We ate breakfast before we went and planned on getting lunch there. However, we were able to walk through the entire zoo and see everything we wanted to see in a few hours. By the time we were hungry we were done and went and found a restaurant outside the zoo. We picked a Mexican restaurant called Mexicity. It was a local restaurant and we could barely understand the owner because of his accent but he made delightful authentic Mexican food. It was so good. All of us practically licked our plates clean. A few months later we still talk about how good it was. A little hidden gem in Omaha Nebraska. Who would have guessed!?

After dinner we headed back to our hotel and stopped at the ice cream place on the way again. They had some different flavors than the day before so we each got something different to try and share. We played games at the hotel lobby that night, then headed home the next morning. We usually get two rooms when we stay in hotels now. The kids share a room and Ryan and I get our own. Everyone get a bed and everyone is happy. It was a pretty fun trip.

Valentine’s Day

This was our last year with a kiddo in elementary school. That means it was the last year we had to make a valentine box (at the very last minute because they changed their mind and do want to bring one) to take to school to collect all your valentines. Emilee made her own box out of a clothes box and other items she found in the wrapping paper drawer.

It was a low key day. Ryan was actually out of town for work so he took me on a Valentine’s date later that week. We got a few treats for breakfast for the kids valentine gift. I also told them they could all request as many hugs and kisses and they wanted all day long (lets be honest, they can do that everyday) but they didn’t take me up on it as much as I wanted.

Super Bowl!

The Chief’s were in the Super Bowl AGAIN this year! They have made it twice in a row before but never won it twice in a row. There were some very excited people in our family to watch the Super Bowl.

The day of the game Allison had a gymnastic meet. She was first thing in the morning but they had meets that went all day…into Super Bowl time. Ryan was just flabbergasted that anyone would schedule something on Super Bowl day that would conflict with the game. I told him they scheduled these meets months if not a year or more in advance. He maintained that everyone knows the day of the Super Bowl and they scheduled it to be stinkers. I suggested not everyone is into football as him and might not plan their life around it. I don’t think I convinced him that some people don’t know when the Super Bowl is let alone not watch it. He said, “Its basically a national holiday.”

Anyway, we cheered Allison on at her meet and she did great. Here is a video of her floor routine.

https://youtu.be/6vGswWr27gA?list=PLBwkO01uWtw9DJu2WA-l0-1CZ6EuoK5Kl

The day before Allison and Leah made lots of yummy treats for the Super Bowl. After her meet we went home and got the food and everything ready. Grandma and Grandpa and Ross and Lauren’s family came over to watch. We all made some food and had some good eating options. There was a list of who was bringing what and Matthew added a few of his own contributions to it. I thought is was funny so I took a picture.

It was a great game and spoiler alert- The CHIEFS WON! BACK TO BACK SUPER BOWL WINS! It was very exciting. I took a video of the last play right before they won in overtime. There was lots of cheering, lots of fireworks going off, and a city parade a few days later that they called off school so everyone could celebrate. They actually tried not to cancel school but they have done it in the past for other parades and the precedent had been set. They had so many teachers/staff calling in for subs they ended up just having to cancel school all together. We didn’t go to the parade but we enjoyed the day off!

https://youtu.be/aNixajtBMvM?list=PLBwkO01uWtw9DJu2WA-l0-1CZ6EuoK5Kl

The Mini-cation Idea

So, buying a house is pretty expensive. We new this. It is still a bit overwhelming sometimes though. Everything in our lives right now is expensive. So we have been trying to stick to a budget and watch our finances pretty close. Ryan and I both like to go on vacations. It is something we both look forward too and having a trip planned is a big motivational carrot for us. Vacations are expensive too. So we decided that for the next little bit while we are getting everything settled and taken care of with the new house and other life expenses since we need to put a pin in bigger trips that we want to go on someday we are going to do mini trips. Then we still have something to look forward to without breaking the bank.

The first one we took was in February. We took a long weekend and went to see my sister Sherri and Kenny in their new house in Dallas Texas. The bonus was my Grandma June was flying in to see her too, on the way to spend a month with my mom in Florida. Double bonus- my mom came to meet my grandma and stay with Sherri for a bit too. So the kids took Friday off of school and we left Thursday evening after all the kids activities were done. We drove about half way and then stayed the night at a hotel. After breakfast the next morning we finished the last few hours and were enjoying Casa De French by early afternoon.

My mom was already there so the 5 of us went to dinner that night and did an Escape Room together. It was pretty fun. Allison supervised the girls and kept a close eye on KJ for us while we were gone. Occasionally she let Matthew watch KJ. She is a pretty awesome babysitter.

The next day we went on a little drive to see Fort Worth. There were lots of long horned steer to see and shops and even a few shows to watch. Emilee and Sherri road a mechanical bull, and the kids and a few adults raced to see who could finish a maze first. It was a cool place to check out. It was early February and the weather was pretty nice.

Emilee’s mechanical bull riding experience:

https://youtu.be/gPvJWezc6Zc?list=PLBwkO01uWtw9DJu2WA-l0-1CZ6EuoK5Kl

My grandma flew in about mid afternoon so my mom, Sherri and I went to the airport to pick her up and everyone else went home. My grandma was a little nervous because she has never flown anywhere by herself. We had is set up like when a kids flies alone. Someone walked her to her gate and got her on the plane and then Sherri was going to meet her at the gate in Dallas when she got off the plane so she wouldn’t be by herself. She is starting to have a little bit of dementia as well so we didn’t want her to be alone navigating an airport for the first time in her life anymore than she did. We got to the airport and my mom and I went to wait in baggage claim. Sherri went to get a gate pass to wait at the gate for her. Things went downhill from there. Sherri got a gate pass but then security wouldn’t accept it. By the time she got back to the airline and called to have them bring Grandma to us in baggage claim, Grandma was no longer there and ‘someone’ had already taken her to baggage. My mom and I were in baggage claim though and Grandma was no where to be seen. The airport just lost her! We got to see a little bit of the Sherri fire that is always exciting to witness. It used to be free and often out of control when she was younger. Now as an adult she has harnessed the rage and controls it quite well. If she chooses to use it, it is something to witness. She let them know how she felt about them loosing her sweet 85 year old grandma with dementia in a GIANT airport. Meanwhile, we kept calling her cell phone and she finally answered and told us she was watching the traffic drive by. Someone had put her in a wheelchair, gotten her luggage (without going to baggage claim somehow?!?!?) and wheeled her outside to the curb and deposited her on a bench by the pickup lanes. It was a little stressful but we were very glad to find her, she was very glad we found her, and we all went back to Sherri’s. We spent the night visiting and made tacos for dinner and watched a movie together.

We had to leave the next morning to get back for work and school. My mom and grandma stayed with Sherri for another week then went back to Florida. It was a fast but fun get away.

I like traveling with our kids. For the most part we chat a little, read, nap, do our own thing but we like eating together. So it is fun to decide on a place to eat and then visit together while we eat and travel. It is wonderful to have a third driver now too. Matthew drove almost half the way there and it is awesome.

It was a successful mini-cation!

January 2024

If I looked back at my other posts from January I would bet that they say something to the effect that it is kind of a boring month but I love it because after the holidays I need a month of boring.

This year was not different. Relative to our usual schedule of kids activities and normal life events going on it was pretty slow. I loved it, and I needed it! There will still be some rearranging but I was able to go through each room and at least get the initial unpacking and organization done so everything is pretty functional. I did a little more decorating. Found some rugs, got a few things like and end table, bookcase and barstools. I hung up most of the pictures. I want to do another picture wall in the basement but I don’t have a solid plan in my head yet so I just keep thinking about it for now.

An usual change for me though was I got into plants. I like plants but as far as having live plants in my house I have never been interested because the few times I have been given a plant it doesn’t last to long. My sweet mom would give me starter plants after I got married and then they would die. She eventually gave up. I have just not had the desire or energy (I know it doesn’t take a ton but it requires some attention) to take care of them. Maybe now that my kids are older and a little more self sufficient I have enough band width to add some plants. So I did! I love them. They make me happy and don’t feel like a burden at all. The first one I got was a bit of an impulse buy from a store that doesn’t really have plants they just had a few randomly. I say that because so far it is the one that is struggling and I would normally think it was because I don’t really care to figure out why, but that is not the case. I think there was something in the soil or it wasn’t that healthy when I got it. I am still hopeful that it will turn around and make it but time will tell. After I got the first one I went and got a few more. Ryan took one to work and the rest I put around the house. I want to get more but I am making myself wait and not go crazy. The kids think I am a little silly but I like them. They don’t talk back or sass me either! Here are my plants I got. I repotted them and gave them all new soil and food and a nice sunny spot (or not sunny if they prefer) to grow. Three of the four are thriving and growing for sure. Crossing my fingers for the fourth but I am already way ahead of my past track record.

We had a few guests in January! Our first visitor was Sherrie. The girls stayed in Arkansas for a few days with her after New Years so she brought them back up and stayed the night with us.

A few weeks later Ryan’s best friend Mike Johnson came for a weekend. Those two are quite a pair. They love to get as much sports watching, eating, and talking in as they can whenever they get together.

It had been a bit to long since we had gotten out our Terry Family Growin’ Board and measured everyone. We got it out of storage when we moved so we measured the kids in January. Everyone had done some significant growing, Matthew hit a milestone he has been waiting on for a long time. He is the tallest in the family. He officially passed his dad in height. He is still growing so he is hoping to increase that lead by another inch or two.

Allison had two gymnastic meets in January. One at the beginning and one towards the end. The first one she had a few mess ups and wanted to just forget it. She still had some good moments but we can focus on the second one. Here are some pictures. I wish I had a parent photographer that takes amazing pictures for everyone on the team like I had for Matthew’s baseball but so far it is just my limited skills that are available. I tried to get some good action ones because we had pretty good seats at this meet.

Our Home

I decided to make a post with the progress on our house. I take a picture of the house the first day of each month and then we will have a finished house at the end. Hopefully it flies by and before we know it we have our finished forever house.

A few years ago, a neighborhood a little south of our house at the time caught our attention. It had a little bigger lots and space and it was quiet and peaceful. We talked about buying a house there and kept our eye out for any that went up for sale in that neighborhood. We went through one- it was a very nice house, but I didn’t love the layout. Ryan loved it, especially the backyard. It was a little out of our budget too. We put a pin in it for awhile. Then when COVID started we decided we wouldn’t mind having a little more space and looked again. Not many houses go up for sale in the neighborhood, there are only a dozen or so houses in the whole neighborhood. We heard that they might be developing more lots behind the houses already there. In December 2021 they put about a dozen more lots up for sale. We had never really planned on building a house but since there were now open lots in the area that we wanted to live we thought it was a good option. So in January 2022 we decided to do it. We then had to pick a lot, find the builder, arrange financing, and decide on the plans we wanted. In May of 2022 we signed the papers and it was time to start building.

The first order of business was to get permits and things in order with the city and county…it took a while. A long while. June. July. August long while. Finally in September the permits and everything were in order and we started digging.

October-Foundation walls poured, backfill on walls, temporary driveway placed.

November 2022-Basement plumbing put in, basement floor poured, walls water proofed, more backfill done.

December 2022-More back fill, garage floors poured, getting staged to frame.

January-February 2023- Framing finally started. Lots of snow, rain, and freezing weather made it go slower then we hoped.

March 2023- finished up framing. Small delay from a roof mishap. Roof started and ready for windows.

April- Roof put on, lower windows installed, framing finished, HVAC and cabinet drawings started.

Inside house pictures from April.

May- rest of windows installed, front porch poured, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical installed, temporary doors installed. Picked out tile and flooring.

June- inspections for plumbing electrical and gas were done so not much happened while we waited on that. They put the piers in for the back deck, and started on insulation once inspections were passed. I picked out some furniture for the living room and decided on tile and lighting.

July-August Inspections, and finishing plumbing and electrical seemed to take FOREVER. There were a few little things done while we waited on that. I think our builders were focused on other things to be honest. It was a very frustrating slow process. Towards the end of August things started picking up again. They put the stucco on the outside and got the house prepped for painting. Doors were hung. I picked out all the tile, stone, floors, paint, plumbing and anything else we needed to decide on while we ‘waited’ for whatever we were waiting for.

September-October Cabinets got installed, outside was painted, deck installed, drywall and mudding done, countertops installed, interior painting done, tile for kitchen and baths done, flooring started. Back patio and part of driveway and sidewalk poured. Found out the masonry was on strike and they can’t get any stone right now so still waiting for stone to be installed.

October-December 2023

Stucco, stone, and painting on the outside was done. Final grading, deck installed, fireplace stone done. There were a lot of things accomplished in November but the hoped for move in date of something in November was a little ambitious. Weather, holidays, and the universe testing my patience, slowed things down enough that we decided to shoot for December. Flooring, touchups, lighting installed, carpet, finish work like doors, hardware and lots of little things you don’t even think about were done. The house was pretty much done shortly after Thanksgiving. At the beginning of December we did an initial walk through and made a list of things that needed to be done, touched up or were missed. They got most of that done and then started the final clean ups. It was the middle of winter so we got temporary occupancy until we have some landscaping in. We told them we would not sod or plant grass in December. The city was cool with that, the loan company was kind of turds about it. It all got figured out and we started to move into our house on December 18, the movers brought the last of everything on December 23rd. Just a little over a week shy of when we decided to start this whole process and picked out lot out in January 2022. It has been a hectic two years. I don’t know if we would do it again😜 but we did it once! We love it and hope it will be a good home for us for a very long time!

Here are some pictures from the last month or so of everything starting to come together.

As I mentioned since it was the middle of winter we couldn’t do much yard work. They had to dig up the back yard about a month after we moved in to replace one of the septic tanks. We were really glad we didn’t have sprinklers and grass already installed. That would have been maddening. My sister Sherri put an awesome plan together for us though to show what we are going to start working on in the spring. It will take a few years but we are thinking something pretty close to this. We have a lot of work ahead of us!

This last picture is the first of many I will take of the sunrise from our deck at our house. That is one of my favorite things about our new house. The sunrise and sunsets are amazing!

NEW YEARS! 2024

We spent the week between Christmas and New Years continuing to get settled into our new house. Ryan had most of the week off so it was nice to hangout around the house and relax while we got stuff done. Sleeping in until you want to is a luxury I will never get tired of.

It was relaxing but I was anxious to get the house mostly unpacked and organized. I tend to have tunnel vision when I have something I need to get taken care of so that was my main focus. New Year’s Eve was on a Sunday so there wasn’t a lot going on. Ryan and girls decided to go to Arkansas and spend the weekend. The Torgerson’s are good about having family get togethers and celebrating together. They went to Jen and Dave’s house and had a good time. Matthew and I stayed home and had a low key holiday. We all loved it and had a great New Year.

We found a few bugs that had to be worked out in our house too the first few weeks we were in it. Almost every system in the house had a few kinks. The electricians had to come rewire and change a few things. Our furnace intake was ‘to open’ so it kept getting snow in it and then it wouldn’t turn on. This of course happened when it was a mere -10 degrees outside for a week. One of our tanks for the septic system was cracked when they backfilled so it was filling with water which made the pump run 24/7 which caused it to burn out so the alarm alerting us our system was full went off. I felt bad for the company that had to come fix it. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The weather was cold and rainy and it was a giant mud hole they had to dig in to get the broken one out and put a new one in. Not to mention it was the sewer system. Shortly after that we had a leak downstairs from the bathtub upstairs. Our builders took care of it all and there is still a list of small fix it items to do but overall everything is good. We are really glad we have at least a year warranty on all the work for the house too!

The beginning of 2023 we had recently moved into our rental and by the hair of our chins we moved in at the end of 2023 so we could get settled and start making new memories and adventures in our new house. Happy New Year!!

December…a little different this year.

Our December this year was busy as usual but a different than our usual December. Starting with our Christmas decorations. I come from a family where several of the women love to get their Christmas trees out and set up early. My Grandma June has been known to leave her tree up year round more often then not. Sometimes she changes the decorations for each holiday, sometimes she just leaves it Christmas all year. When we were younger my mom didn’t put our tree up as early but now she usually has a small one if not the full tree up by October at the latest. My sister Sherri usually has hers up by September. I have my tree up by the Friday after Thanksgiving at the latest. Usually a week or two into November I get the itch and put it up. This year, since we didn’t know for sure when we were moving we decided to not get any decorations out in out rental and just wait until we were in our new house. When we missed the November 1st move in dead line by the time Thanksgiving was approaching I pestered our builders pretty hard for a move in date. They finally said their goal was to be “done” with the house by Thanksgiving and then have a few weeks to go through and catch anything they needed to fix or change and the week of December 18th would be a good move in week. Thanksgiving came and went and the house was close but not quite what I would call “done”. The builders hadn’t said anything about moving the date up or back so I decided to tell them that I had scheduled movers for Dec 20th. They never really agreed but they said ok. We packed up the rental and got things ready to go with no Christmas decorations…it was a little bit gloomy I must admit. Decorations really add to the festivities and atmosphere. There were still Christmas parties and church school activities to help it feel like Christmas though!

Emilee’s class took a field trip to downtown to see some of the choirs singing at Union Station. She asked her dad if he would be a chaperon on her field trip and was pretty excited when he said he would love too! They watched the choirs and then broke into small groups and got to do a little Christmas shopping and eat lunch. Emilee had a great time and loved that her dad was there.

Allison has been doing some babysitting lately and finds it to be quite lucrative. She is incredible at it too. I was a boring babysitter, I didn’t really love doing it and I preferred the kids to entertain themselves while I supervised. Allison has awesome activities and games planned and makes a fun evening of it for the kids. She makes scavenger hunts, seems to have an endless supply of balloons, and gives them lots of attention. She watches a friend of ours son named Ethan with Emilee a lot and every time we come home they have new fun ideas that Allison has come up to do with them. This picture is one of the crafts she did with them sometime in December. These were little pictures them made. There was also giant almost life size gingerbread cookies hanging on the wall that they had made of themselves.

Emilee sang her very last time in Sacrament as a primary kid. She will be in Young Women’s after the New Year. I will have no more kids in primary!! That is so crazy! Allison snuck a picture of her singing for me. Her and Reese are inseparable.

Allison started her gymnastic season in December. She has decided that she wants to focus on weightlifting and wrestling so she is going to finish this Meet season for gymnastics then take a break. She has done a great job in gymnastics and always works hard at keeping her flexibility and learning her routines. We like watching her perform her events. Here are a few links to some of her best ones so far, in my opinion. Also some pictures from different meets she has done so far this season.

https://youtu.be/MB0es-oSbDQ (Allison Bar Routine)

https://youtu.be/kedxhCSiRQA (Allison Floor Routine)

As the day to move into our house arrived we weren’t sure it was going to happen until the actual day we moved. You never know with builders. In my limited experience they will never say when they will be done. They have to have a hard deadline and they will push it up to the second of that deadline. This time they made the dead line though! I told them we were moving in on December 20th but I actually didn’t schedule the movers until the 23rd. From the 20th-23rd we brought as much of our stuff over as we could that we didn’t want to box up. Lots of car loads. We got a lot of stuff taken over. There was pretty much just furniture for the movers when they came on the 23rd. The kids helped a lot and Matthew even recruited a few friends to help him load his car and take over a few loads. The first thing I took over was the Christmas tree and I set it up right away with a few decorations. I wasn’t going to have our first Christmas in our house with no decorations. It immediately felt like Christmas. That and the Christmas music made it a great time for moving.

Just to keep things extra exciting and as busy as possible on the 22nd of December Matthew had to have another procedure done on his arm to help get more of his mobility back. They had to put him to sleep but they were able to do what they needed without cutting him open again so he was able to recover a lot quicker then his initial surgery. We were worried he would have a pretty crappy Christmas break but other than a day or two afterwards he felt pretty good and was able to do the things he normally would have.

We used the same movers that moved us into the rental to move us out. They showed up at 9am Saturday and were supposed to be done around 1-2pm but for some reason they decided to bring a smaller truck this time then they did the first time…so when the truck they brought was about half full they realized it was not going to fit everything and they were going to have to do two trips. That made an already long day a little longer but they finished about 6pm and we had all of our stuff in our new home!! We got beds set up for everyone and spent the first night in our new house on December 23,2023. A week shy of two years from the day we bought the land and decided to build.

The next morning we all woke up refreshed and ready for Christmas Eve. We were actually pretty tired from working nonstop for three days to get everything done but we were very happy to be in our home. It was Sunday so we went to church and enjoyed the sacrament program. The Christmas program is one of my favorite weeks at church. There was beautiful music and great talks and thoughts shared. We came home and spend the rest of the day settling into our house, playing games and making Christmas treats. It was a Jones year for Christmas but my family usually doesn’t travel at Christmas because we are all spread out and no one wants to deal with the weather. Grandma and Grandpa Terry came over and joined us for a Christmas Eve dinner of pizza, salad, sparkling grape juice with Christmas Crunch and rolo pretzels for dessert. We same some Christmas songs, read the Christmas story from Luke in the Bible and watched a Christmas movie together. I usually like to have 95% of my shopping done by December 1st and then have it wrapped early in December but that didn’t happen this year because we didn’t have a lot of places to put things and I didn’t want things to get lost so for the first time in my life I had nothing wrapped on Christmas Eve. Ryan and I did it when everyone went to bed. It was fine we got it all done and weren’t up as late as I expected but I prefer my usual method. It is a lot more relaxing. I was pretty stressed that I would fall asleep and forget to do it before Christmas Day.

Christmas Day was a great day. The kids were debating on what time we should all get up. Some of them argued that we should sleep in but in the end the usual wake up time of 6:30 decided on. We opened gifts from Santa and each other and family and then the last gift I opened was the start of a scavenger hunt for the kids for some family gifts from Ryan and I. We were excited with how excited they got about the scavenger hunt. Even Matthew was into it. They figured the clues out pretty quickly and found a family game, a punching bag, and a ping pong table. After the scavenger hunt it was time for breakfast and then relaxing and spending the day assembling gifts and hanging out. Later in the day we went over to Grandma and Grandpa’s to see how their Christmas morning went. Yeah, it was a great day. I love Christmas and I love that we just get to relax and hang out together and not have to do work and other things.

https://youtube.com/shorts/0Ww2OcD-PJc (Christmas morning 2023)

Ryan worked a little bit through the next week until New Year’s but the kids and I were out of school and work. It was great to get to catch up on things I had gotten behind on and get settled into the house and not have all the normal stuff to do as well. We got a little dusting of snow a few of the days.