After a relaxing at home after Christmas, it was time for another party! Our friends the Beashore’s invited us over to celebrate the New Year with them. We ate lots of pizza and snacks for dinner. The rest of the evening was spent playing games and visiting.
They taught us a fun game they play every New Years Eve called Saran Wrap. I actually don’t know what they call it but that is what I am calling it. The kids all get in a line around the table oldest to youngest. The youngest gets to start with the ball. The ball is a bunch of little candies, gum, giftcards, coins, cash, anything you want rolled up in the saran wrap every few feet. When you start the person with the ball unwraps as fast as they can while the next person is rolling a dice. If they roll a three or a six they ball is passed to them. Anything you unwrap you get to keep. As soon as the ball is passed the next person starts rolling the dice and the new person unwraps. It keeps going until it is completely unwrapped. Then you can trade or bargain or keep whatever you got when you are done. It was a fun idea. I am sure our kids will want to carry it on next year and make it a tradition of ours too.
The other games we played were Taboo, ping pong, pop a shot, darts, occulus games, and dancing and boxing games on the play station. At midnight we cheered and lit off a few fireworks and confetti canons. It was a fun evening.
On our way home we saw that Grandpa and Grandma’s lights were still on so we stopped for a few minutes to say hi and tell them happy new years. Then we went home and went to bed!!
One of the gifts that our family got was a game called, Awkward Family Photos. We have played it a few times and it has some pretty funny pictures.
The Sunday after Christmas, Dad wanted to take a family photo of everyone before we changed out of our church clothes. It quickly evolved into taking our own awkward family photos. The first picture is the only one we didn’t intend to be awkward.
Countless times throughout the year anyone of our children is known to sleep through their alarm, purposefully not set an alarm, or have to be dragged from their bed kicking and screaming that they are tired and don’t want to wake up for one reason or another.
However, for the last ten years without fail or deviation of even one minute on Christmas morning, without an alarm, they all pop up like daisies at the predetermined earliest allowed to wake up time of 6:30am. Let that be an example of what the human brain can do with the right motivation.
This year was no different, they all woke up and then came in to get Ryan and I. Grandma and Grandpa Terry also came over to open presents with us at 6:30. Once the adults are in the living room and ready with their cameras the kids can come down and see the presents and stockings from Santa. Stockings are fair game and anything found in them can be immediately opened or eaten. Once everyone has had a few minutes to look through their stocking we take turn opening Santa presents one at a time. Once those are opened everyone starts opening presents at the same time. The wrapping paper goes in a general large pile and occasionally someone will take a break from unwrapping and stuff it in a trash bag. If Grandpa is there and you need a knife or scissors he loves to whip the one out of his pocket he carries with him at all times. If Grandpa isn’t present Ryan will whip out his pocket knife that he carries one day a year for a few hours on Christmas morning.
It was a very happy, blessed, fun Christmas morning for everyone this year. Once everything was opened we started breakfast. This years options were a breakfast casserole or all the favorite high sugar cold cereals. Grandma and Grandpa stayed a few more hours while we checked out our new stuff, did puzzles, watched a movie, listened to Christmas music, took a nap, or enjoyed relaxing.
Even Peanut got a present from Santa.
Before the kids came down Grandpa was making dog noises to make them think they were getting a dog. He thought he was hilarious. Rhonda did not. Luckily the kids were to excited to notice.
We were on our own for Christmas this year. My family did our Christmas get together in October in Florida. Ryan’s family was spending it with the other half of their families.
Roger and Rhonda were planning on going to Texas but then changed their minds and stayed here. We invited them and the McDonald family over. We have done Christmas with them before and it has been a few years.
We decided to go and see the new spider man movie in the theatre. Emilee didn’t want to go so she hung out with Grandma. Matthew and Allison invited Campbell and Caylin. It was 40 minutes late starting because there were projector issues but once that got figured out we all enjoyed the movie.
We had a yummy ham dinner together. Ryan smoked the ham, Rhonda and Roger made the rolls, I did potatoes, corn and green bean casserole, and Lori brought coconut cream pie. It was a delicious festive dinner.
Shepard and Angel
Mary and Joseph
Wise women
Costumes provided by Lori. Narration provided by Cameron.
We sang some Christmas songs together, read and acted out the Christmas story, Emilee read a book, and there were several piano, cello, and clarinet musical numbers played. It was a great evening with friends and family. After we were all done hanging out and visiting everyone went home we opened our matching pajamas and took our Christmas eve family picture. Then we hurried off to bed so Santa could come!
It was a very wonderful day. I love Christmas time. The Christmas Spirit permeates everything and everyone is happier and friendlier and you take the time to appreciate family and friends. I am grateful for the birth of the Savior and His life. It isn’t just a nice story. He is real. I know because of Him and what he did for each of us we can have eternal families and be together forever. I am grateful for the atonement to repent and improve ourselves. I am grateful for my family, and the very blessed life we have and all the amazing friends and family we have in our lives.
December was a fun, busy, wonderful month! We usually put our decorations up the day after Thanksgiving but I did it right after Halloween this year- and I don’t regret it! 😁 We paused the Christmas festivities and were thankful and grateful at Thanksgiving then we were right back to the Christmas spirit!
We tried to focus on service this month so we did something each weekend to do service. We brought Grandpa along with us as much as we could.
The first week we did The Giving Machine at Crown Center. Each Christmas season our church does a #LightTheWorld. They have a few vending machines called Giving Machines that they have in a few places around the country. You can go and punch the number in for the item you want and just like a vending machine it drops the card to the bottom but instead of taking something you leave it there and they distribute whatever people donate to the different charities. There was local charities for food, clothes, and blankets or a safe place to stay. There were also world wide charities you could donate a chicken or water or things like that. This year we got to have a giving machine in Kansas City. They placed it in Crown Center, it is an area downtown that lots of people visit and do festive things for the holidays. We were all really excited to go and see it and pick a few things to donate. We did a few of the festivities while we were there too. We walked through the train and light exhibit, ate lunch at Spin City Pizza together, and some of us window shopped while the rest of us went ice skating. We of course visited the giving machine and donated some chickens, an acre of sweet potatoes, some food, blankets, and a goat. The kids loved it!
The other weekends we volunteered at the Johnson County Christmas Bureau. We were supposed to be there for 4 hours but we were only there for about 30 minutes and they told us they were done for the night. We told the kids it still counts for service and we will volunteer again next year and hopefully have better luck. We made a lot treats and then delivered them to friends and neighbors the following weekend. We also tried to volunteer at Harvesters food bank but they changed their age requirement to a minimum 16 years.
Allison had two gymnastic meets within the past month. One was here in Olathe, the other was in Columbia Missouri. We drove there and back in one day. She didn’t say this but I think she loved having a travel meet that took the entire day like her brother has travel for baseball sometimes. She did great at both meets. Her best event was the beam at our home meet and the bars at the Columbia meet-she nailed her kip. She also added a few back hand springs to her floor routine and did great at those too.
We did a lot of puzzles this month too. Something about Christmas makes me want to put puzzles together. If it is a Christmas puzzle even better! Matthew was my most frequent helper but everyone joined me at some point for a bit. We would watch a Christmas show, or listen to Christmas music and drink some hot chocolate while we puzzled away.
This was the first one we did. Brand new and missing 3 pieces! Kenny googled it and said that apparently that particular puzzle is usually missing a piece or two. Grrrr!
Allison had a Christmas concert for orchestra. She did great. I had a hard time getting a picture of her because she was behind another kid but it was a well done concert and they sounded great. Her favorite part was going to dinner with Caylin afterwards.
My Grandma had Thanksgiving with her family that visited her and came to her for Thanksgiving in Utah. She has some good days and bad days and can’t do very much anymore. She was having a good day on Thanksgiving and she told her son Jared she wanted to go outside on a walk and have some fun. He obliged her. Even when she hurts a lot and is 89 years old she still has a great sense of humor and loves being around her family as much as possible.
It has been a few years since we had the entire family together for Ryan’s side of the family. It happened at Thanksgiving! The Bourne’s made it from Idaho, the Lee’s arrived from Texas, and the Ross and Ryan Terry’s made the trek across town and down the street.
Rhonda had a few weeks to recover from chemo before everyone arrived. She was feeling a little bit better. It was a happy vibe that we were all together and she was healthy and done with cancer.
We were able to get the traditional mani/pedi trip in for the moms that wanted to go. Some of our daughters are now old enough to want to join us. It is getting hard to find a salon that can take us all at the same time!
There were many games played, feasts made and devoured, visiting and movie watching in abundance. The grandkids all loved seeing each other again and picked up right where they left off. That is the wonderful thing about cousins. A group of us went to see the new Disney movie Encanto together and another group of us went to iFly indoor skydiving. Lauren and I took turns playing the piano a lot. The picture of her playing and everyone on their device listening soon became everyone napping.
Indoor skydiving
Encato movie.
Grandma and Grandpa wanted a family picture of everyone so we made it happen. Lauren was our photographer. The other nine adults were her helper and advice givers. She tolerated us pretty well. I think we got some good pictures too.
Kris, Jake and Ross were all directing from the sidelines too but they saw me right before I took the picture and played it cool.
It was a fun, happy, successful Terry Family Thanksgiving!
Matthew thought ‘nice casual’ meant wearing sweat pants instead of shorts with his hoodie.
We started November off by going to a Chief’s football game. They had a Monday night home game so we got tickets and went and had fun. It was my first professional football game. The environment is a little rough at football games so we didn’t take the girls. We met Ross and Ethan and Steve and a few other people there and did some tail gating with Q39 BBQ. The weather was pretty cold but the rain and wind stopped so it wasn’t to bad. They started the game with a team of paratroopers landing on the field. It was pretty awesome.
A friend at church sent me this picture of Matthew and his buddies at church. They are a good group of kids and have a lot of fun together.
This is a picture of Ryan and Sherrie from Austin’s wedding that he went to in August.
Emilee had her 3rd grade musical at school. They sang pirate songs. Emilee requested to not have a speaking part. She was also insistent that she was not going to dress up. We tried a few different times to convince her to wear even just an eye patch but she wouldn’t budge. She was excited to sing the songs just not feeling the dressing up part I guess.
Allison had her first 6th grade orchestra concert. She was thrilled that the whole family and Grandma and Grandpa Terry came to watch her. She started playing the cello this year. She is picking it up pretty well and has a lot of fun in orchestra. She likes being and “Orch Dork” as they all call themselves.
Matthew cut his chin open while he was wrestling with some friends. The mom called and told me she thought he would need stitches. We called a friend who is an oral surgeon and asked him if he could stitch him up for us instead of going to an ER at 10pm at night. He is an awesome friend and had us meet him at his office. He numbed Matthew up and 9 stitches later we were done and back at home in less time then it would have taken to fill out the paperwork at the ER.
Several years after we were married, Ryan asked me why I thought it was so funny to mismatch his socks all the time. I had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently, I am not good at matching white socks together and more often then not, I put wrong socks together. Over the years I have tried to work on this issue but haven’t had a huge improvement according to Ryan. It is funny. I always think I matched them all correctly but every now and then he shows me the pair he pulls out and they are clearly not a match. I fold socks last so maybe I am just done with laundry by the time I get to them. The other day Ryan was out of town for work and sent me a picture of the socks he put on that morning at the hotel. HAHA! I guess general color was my only criteria when I was folding socks last week! My sock matching disability has spread beyond just white socks.
All of us took turns passing a cold around that took a few days to recover from. Emilee is always cuddly but even more so when she is sick and dad loves it when he gets extra Emilee snuggling time. He was reading a book to her to help her rest and she fell asleep.
Allison didn’t make it because she was at gymnastics but for the last activity of the year, the primary activity girls went to Main Event and went bowling together. Emilee was the bowler to beat!
We had another successful Halloween at our house this year. As our usual plans we had the McDonald’s over. Our cousins joined us this year too. Ryan made the witch’s brew, I picked up pizzas the day before from Papa Murphy’s. I went rogue and got a hamburger pizza instead of our usual cheese. It didn’t go over well. Hamburgers are good, hamburger pizza is not. It was a good thing we had trick or treating to distract us.
We had a slow, medium, and fast group again. Our fast group is old enough to go ahead on their own. The dads keep track of the medium speed group and the moms stay with the slowest group. It was a fun evening with family and friends.
Allison was running for president
Reese and Emilee were pumpkins with Pumpkin at the barn.
Ryan shaved his beard to a monkey tail for his costume.
The best Sunday program of the year is coming up in our ward next week! The Primary Program. Ryan and I are helping. It is Allison’s last program before she goes to young women. Emilee still has a few years to go. Matthew will be watching us from the audience. The girls and I took a picture while we were practicing.
