Woof! 2025 was quite the year for us all, I believe. Some of the most cherished friendships have been built and fostered over the past 12 months, and some of the most unimaginably difficult moments have been lived. I think I can speak for many of us in welcoming a new year, a fresh start, and an opportunity to grow and care for the good that we share and create together. Looking back through my calendar and photos, I am left with overwhelming gratefulness for this life and all I am fortunate enough to have experienced. Whether 2025 was the best year or your life or the worst, I am so glad you are here, and so thankful for you.

Here are some highlights from what happened in the Butterfras household this year:

We were able to travel to see family both in Arkansas and in Houston this year, and one of the trips within a few weeks of each other. Ryan’s cousin got married at the beginning of May, so we made a trip to Houston to celebrate them, and spend some time with family and friends. Our kids loved dressing up and getting fancy for a wedding, and then dancing their hearts out! They also loved spending time with their cousin throughout the week.
Since it was still baseball season, we got to attend some of our best friends’ son’s games, and it was a blast cheering him on, and then of course celebrating afterward with texmex.

Just a couple short weeks after we got back from Houston, the kids and I traveled to Arkansas to spend time with my sister and her family. While there, two of my nieces and I made a day-trip to Nashville to attend a concert featuring a musician I’ve been following for almost 20 years. It’s so fun to share a love for an artist, and experience live music with them!

On the theme of traveling, we welcomed some family and friends into our home as well. My nieces and nephew made a sibling trip in June to KC, which was a fun, quick visit with them.
One of my oldest friends, Angelique visited us over July 4 weekend, and again captured some stunning family photos for us! This has become a long-standing tradition, and she is truly the absolute best with kids and making family photos a fun experience for everyone. This year, I’ve been extra thankful for Angelique’s friendship as I reflect on all of the phases I’ve walked through in my life, how much I’ve changed, and how she has been such a steadfast friend to me through every single one. Friends like her are one in a million, and I cherish her so much.

My older brother and his family visited us in August, just before heading back to New York for their last year in seminary. Jonathan was ordained as a priest in the Orthodox church this year, and next year they will be moving to a new parish. It’s always a sweet time together when they visit, and the cousin bonding is unmatched.

In October, we went camping again with some of our bffs, the NeSmiths, and this time around we took my niece, Isabelle! It was her first time camping, and it was super fun showing her the ropes from building a tent to percolating coffee. She also got a nice little taste of what it’s like to raise children without walls and deprived of sleep. Missouri has such beautiful outdoor spaces, and the fall in the midwest is perfectly chilly at night and warm in the daytime. We had a ton of fun being outside together.

A few individual updates!

Jude will be DOUBLE DIGITS in January, and no, I have no idea how he got that old that fast. His love for reading grows, and this year he tore through his first dragon series: Wings of Fire. He also read The Hobbit, and he and I have been watching the movies together on sick days throughout the year while little brother isn’t around. ;)
Jude and Jake both played soccer this year, and Jude’s team has several kiddos from his class, which is an extra layer of fun for all! He has grown a lot through 2 seasons learning confidence on the field, some soccer skills, and how to collaborate with a team. He’s looking forward to the spring season!

Photos by Angelique Humcke

Jake turned 7 in the fall, and has had a huge year of growth and transition! He loves to be outside, loves to help with almost any task and is not afraid of hard work. He also loves and cherishes quality time with family and friends. He’s quick on his feet and loves to hustle, and worked hard for several goals for his soccer team, for which he was very proud.
We had some learning challenges with Jake over the year, and are so thankful for access to good assessments and care to help guide us through the most optimal opportunities for him. We are hopeful that he’ll find encouragement and success as he works so hard to master tough skills!

Photos by Angelique Humcke

Ryan had a monumental year with Beskar Books, the comic book business he and my brother, Christian own together. They set up at Planet-Con again, but this year, they were the hosts of their table which meant Beskar’s name was featured in all the con materials and promos! A few years ago they started a mini-con locally called Tower-Con, which has earned lots of love and recognition in the KC comic community. They recently partnered with Boulevard Brewery, and hosted last month’s Tower-Con there! This was the largest event they’ve hosted yet, and it was a huge win for all parties involved. It’s such a cool feeling to grow your passion project into something others love and look forward to as well!
On the daily, Ryan still works in IT for Living Water International, and loves his team. Since he is remote, we are hoping to be able to travel to Houston again soon so he can get some face-time with them (and so we can visit our friends and family, of course!).

This year has been the MOST full for me (Tiffany), and we’ll just say my new year’s resolution is to prioritize the importance of rest and sleep. :) Working at Revive with some of the most incredible people has been a dream, and I’m so honored to be there. I started the year out launching a strength training program I built, and over time, took on more tasks and am currently working around 30 hrs a week on administrative related tasks and member experience. The community we grow together is one I’m so proud of, and it is an honor to care for a space that is safe for so many.
I’m also hanging on to my beloved Les Mills International certifications and teaching a few classes a week at The J, a community center just outside KC proper. The variety of creating programming from scratch paired with LMI classes where I learn and memorize pre-choreographed programming is the perfect mix. I love living in both worlds, and both bring me a lot of joy!

This year was also very strange for me with a couple instances cemented in my memory. Last January I was on my way to an early morning class at The J, and witnessed a pile up on a bridge that was iced over. Since it was so cold outside, I ended up sitting on the freeway for over 4 hours with some of the people involved in the accident in my car, all of us just listening to Doechii while we waited for the fire fighters to arrive and extinguish the car and bus that caught fire. Since then, I’ve been a lot more cautious and a lot less brave about driving in the ice… watching cars and a bus ram into each other and literally drive on top of each other shakes you up a bit.
Then, in April, I, along with 2 of my friends from Revive witnessed the aftermath of an accident involving a pedestrian. That is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that first hand, and I still think about that man every couple of weeks. Both of these instances reminded me how very fragile life is… and at the same time the immense weight of humanity. I wrestled with a lot of feelings from that day: the man being unidentified for over a week, him being alone at the crime scene while everyone’s lives moved on, my own choice to disassociate and teach a class 30 mins after the incident… everything feeling both so important and so frivolous at the same time. For a week, the most important thing to me was finding his name and remembering he was here on this earth.

There are many people in my life who have lost loved ones this year, and I just want to create space for you and acknowledge your loss, your pain, your confusing feelings and all the in between moments. Grief is strange in that it doesn’t all come at once or make sense, and that’s something I hope you are able to hold space for in your life as well. It’s ok to laugh, cry, feel kind of crazy, feel like you’ll never be better, not want to feel better than you do now/not want to forget, disassociate from time to time, do something that cares for your mind and your body, etc. Showing up with what we have today is enough, and with love and kindness our goal and our guide, we’ll find some healing along the way.

It often seems like there is non-stop horrific news updates one after the next; I’m learning to save some space to remember the good, cherish beauty, and not hold back in the hope for good to persevere. I tend to be enveloped in tragedy, feeling like it’s not right to smile, have fun, or enjoy things fully when I know about the nightmares people are living at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, I will never stop bombarding your social media feeds drawing attention to injustice and our responsibility to build a better world. But today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, I invite you to choose to find good, joy, and find hope with me. Samwise said it best, so I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

“It’s like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”

All our love,
Tiffany, Ryan, Jude, and Jake

Photos by Angelique Humcke