Last Week was Formidable!

Trying to come up with a word that really described last week was hard. I settled on formidable because it means “difficult to deal with.” Yeah, that’ll do it.

It was a decent work week and a good week for the kids. One of my molars decided it was time for us to be done with each other. So tooth pain on Monday turned into mouth pain on Tuesday and then total head pain on Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon I had the sucker pulled and started the road to recovery! A week out, and I feel great.

Enough about me. Alex has been keeping busy with his middle school basketball team and tennis clinics, preparing for that season. I’m trying to play it cool, but I can’t wait to see him play this year. He has put in so much work since last season, and I’m ready to watch his 8th-grade season.

He visited Topeka High two weeks ago, and I can’t believe that will be his school next year. He said he and Dad visited three tables: Band, Tennis, and Science. Then they bounced. LOL. That sounds about right.

Aaron visited Topeka High as well, and going from four schools this year to two next year is going to be AMAZING! Aaron checked out the theatre table, and that was good to see. I love that T-High has something for everyone.

You can tell my monthly goals went off track during my Molar Week, but I’m back on track, and Lola and I have gotten our walks in all week. She is still very distracted by EVERYTHING, but we’re working on it. I just wish she didn’t see squirrels as such a threat…

My molar diet consisted of soft foods and ice coffee. Finally got hot food and drinks back on Sunday!

Getting serious about Lola walks! 

Basketball , Wrestling, Band and Burrrrr

I should have posted a week ago, but the crew has been busy! Alex has started his basketball season. The JV has had one win and one loss after two games. Daryl ended JV wrestling at Topeka West. At that meet, he had two wins and one loss. Last Friday, Alex had honor band at Washburn University. Whew! All while it has been super cold outside.

It is Feb. 1st, and while this isn’t my goals post, I do have to show off my 2026 planner. As someone who really has to plan my month so I don’t waste it, the Commit 30 planner keeps my goals in front of me. In January, I finished my first sticker page, and I didn’t do too bad. I’ll update the rest of my goals in my next post.

January felt like 100 days long. Excited to see what February brings!

HBD Jeff, Happy Turkey Day and HBD to me!

 Last week had a lot of days to celebrate and we did just that. Tuesday was Jeff's birthday and he celebrated by spending eight hours in the car picking up Lucas from school. LOL he celebrated my birthday the same way yesterday taking Lucas back. We do what we have to do for our kids. 

On Wednesday, we had a birthday date at Merchants in Lawrence and it was excellent. We enjoyed our evening to ourselves before the holiday officially started. We hosted my family for Thanksgiving but we did it on Friday. That was so nice because I had a whole day to stay in sweatpants and clean.

On Friday, my mom and my brother's family came for Thanksgiving and we finally got to meet Christopher. He was born a couple of months ago and he is adorable! It was also great to catch up with the other kids, I can't believe how big they are getting! 

I'm so glad the snow held off till today and everyone was able to get back home. I guess decorating for Christmas will be on the to do list for this week! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! 

Alex meets Christopher

Our birthday cocktails!

The kids table!

We did see Zootopia two on Friday night. It might be better than the first movie! Jeff and I celebrated hosting a family holiday with another cocktail!

Aaron made me pancakes and I got breakfast in bed for my birthday. I thought that was super nice!

Ravens Won!

 Middle School soccer season is a short one. Alex didn't let me know he was playing until the week before practice started. They started in October and the city championship was tonight. For the first time ever the Robinson Ravens won the city trophy. Not only did they finish first they had a perfect 7-0 season.

Alex played varsity defense and had a lot of good plays and a few that made us shake our heads. He played with confidence and had the support of his team. This was a fun group of  boys to watch and I am so proud of all of them! 

Thanks Ravens, that was a fun ride! 8th grade is going fast, slow down a bit! 

New Stadium and New Deck!

Started November off with my first KU football game at the new Memorial Stadium. KU played OSU, and they got the win! It was such a fun atmosphere, and I think OSU fans are the best in the Big 12. We all cheered for our teams and no one got rude. We had OSU fans in front of us and to our left, and everyone was fun to be around.

The last game the boys and I went to was in Stillwater, and the Cowboys came away with the W. They were still so nice and gracious.

Of course, half the fun is the band, mascots, and cheer teams. I think there was something for everyone, and we all had a good time.

Our deck has been built for a while now, but we finally got the last coat of stain on it, and I really like how it turned out. It’s not a huge visible difference, but now you won’t fall through it because of rotten boards. Yay!

Enjoy today and tomorrow, it’s going to get cold in Kansas on Sunday!

I will cut in front of some kids to get a picture of Baby Jay!

First smores at the new house!

New Deck, it is solid! 

Middle School Band and more!

We made it to our second Topeka High Football game of the year. Alex and the rest of the 7th and 8th grade middle school band performed a pre game show with the Topeka High marching band. They did great! 

I really hope that Alex continues with band in High School, it is fun to watch and listen to. 

On Saturday, Alex had a tennis lesson, Aaron had roller derby and I had an 11-mile long run. Felt like we all accomplished a lot. Oh ya, and Jeff finished the install of a light in the sewing room so it is more functional when I don't have bright sunlight. Yay! Now I need to get in there sometime this week after work and try it out. 

Mittens wants to remind everyone he is still around. He is getting brave and coming upstairs at night. 

 

Let there be light! 

One busy day!

This morning I got the long run in early so I could go to Alex's tennis tournament in Lawrence. This was his first USTA tournament, and while he didn't get the Ws, he learned a lot and knows playing better players makes him better. He left with his head down, but a couple of hours later he was ready to sign up again and he knew things he wanted to do differently. I thought he played really well. Match 1 and 3 were close and could have easily gone his way, his second match was a level of player he rarely sees and he still got some points. 

While our family is busy with everything else, our back deck is also being replaced. We thought it would be done in September but some wrong materials showed up, so it put us back a couple of weeks. I'm really hoping it gets done this week. I am missing our backyard! 

Bring on weather cool enough so we can sit and enjoy our new deck! 

The before picture, hard to tell but there is a lot of rot in this deck.

The in-process picture, hopefully an after picture is coming soon! 

Everyone is back in school!

 Yesterday, the rest of the house had their first day of school. Daryl started Junior year, Anna and Alex started 8th grade and Joseph started 5th. Yay for being back on a routine! We even have the drop off schedule perfected by day two. Daryl takes care of himself, Jeff takes Anna and I take Alex and Joseph. So far everything works. 

When I got home from work yesterday everyone was asleep! Having to pay attention for an entire day must be exhausting. I bet a lot of teachers needed an early evening nap as well. Happy school year!

I was accused of getting their new shoes dirty because I needed my picture by a tree. Oh well, they are shoes! 

Bring on 5th grade!

Smiling is hard

Daryl kinda gave me a smile!

Throw back to first day of 3rd grade and first day of Kindergarten! Bigger smiles!!

2025 Shawnee County Fair

 Today, we put everything away for the 2025 Shawnee County Fair. It is not as much work as it was when I worked in 4-H but it is still some long days and LOTS of steps! This was the first fair since my first one 14 years ago when I didn't have any Meerpohl entry card. The boys have been slowing down on their 4-H activities and they decided they didn't want to have any entries this year. They are both doing other youth development activities so I didn't feel like I needed to force the issue. 

They still came and worked the pancake feed and Daryl helped me set up the clothing area. It took a little stress off the week and maybe that's why this was one of the smoothest fairs I can remember. 

Fair is such a team effort I can't even explain how every volunteer, parent and staff member does their part and the whole thing just works. Today, we had time for conversations about next year, improvements we want to make, but I think for the next week I'm just going to enjoy what this one was. A great display of youth work and community spirit! 

Working the pancake feed, they were happy they didn't have the first shift this year!

Hopefully Daryl continues to help me with set up!

Daryl and I got to help the 4-H Exchange group at the bull riding event. 
We didn't stay to see the show but working with him was a lot of fun!

Our theme had great decorations this year. "Barnyard Bash" was a hit!

Some fair throw backs!

He used to be so blonde!

Jeff and I will have our two year anniversary in September. So it was time to have him help with tear down at the fair! He did good! 

Happy Birthday Week, Dear Alex!

 Both of my kids are officially teenagers, as of today! Alex has always been my county fair baby, so he is used to being flexible with his celebration. I haven't been the 4-H Agent in four years but we still shuffle around work things. 

All this to say, yesterday I left for a work conference and Alex just rolled with it. Granted, I made sure he was thoroughly spoiled all week. On Wednesday, we had our family celebration. This year that has consisted of the restaurant of the birthday person's choice and cake and ice cream at home. Alex picked Texas Roadhouse and had steak and shrimp, his favorite! 

On Friday he had his "friend" party and three of his buddies went to Cici's pizza and Skyzone for a night of pizza and jumping. Grandma Rosie kept me company while they jumped for every bit of their 90 minutes. It can be hard to get your friends together when you have a summer birthday, but Alex's buddies always pull through. He is also planning a sleepover for his dad's house. I'll let Kelly stay up all night. LOL 

And on the eve of his 13th birthday, I made him birthday pancakes! He is so sweet, when I told him I would be in Kansas City for his actual birthday he said, "We can just pretend like Saturday is my birthday!" 

I've got some great kids, they are understanding, empathetic and still take wrestling in the living room too far at 16 and 13! Just keeping it real, right before I left the house they were both in trouble for beating on each other in not a nice way. Boys. Oh well, three out of four days of being nice to each other isn't bad!

We didn't have 13 candles but 1 and 3 will do the trick!

Daryl decorated Al's cake for him, peanut M&Ms were a great choice!

On your birthday, you get steak! 

After 90 minutes of jumping these guys were so sweaty! LOL 

One eye open for his birthday pancakes. This was not early!
I called him down at 8:30am. LOL