Goodbye 2010!

There were 2 different parties at our house tonight:
1st one was "sleep in your bed at bedtime"--only Colin attended that party.

The 2nd party consisted of traditional NYE ice cream treats and then a movie with the family--we watched Miracle On 34th Street in pj's! During dinner, the talk was of staying up to see the ball drop....we decided to DVR that and watch it tomorrow morning! After the movie the girls got in their sleeping bags for the family sleep over in mom & dad's room....only to have the best laid plans be changed :(
The big girls and Andy are having a sleepover....sick Ava and sick Katie are having a sickly sleepover in the pink room. (This will be the test to see IF the girls' mattresses are as good as we think!)

Happy 2011!

ps--in the photo above, the girls are wearing their Christmas pjs from Andy's mom! Cute cute cute!

Christmas Programs!

This month, we felt like we were hopping from one program to another! Unfortunately, due to a snowstorm, COLIN'S program was canceled at church! Although, he was very resistant to the idea of going up front to sing 2 songs...and said he'd only do it IF we let him take his "geee-tar"! :)

The 1st program was the NHCS Elementary program. The piano playing kids get an opportunity to have a recital as "preservice" music, which our girls just love.

Jayna's song is HERE.
Ellie's song is HERE.

Song #1 is HERE.
Song #2 is HERE.
Angel Gabriel and Mary are HERE.
Song #3 is HERE.
Song #4 is HERE.
The kids' singing voices are just precious!

The next week, we attended Ava's program at school....she was an angel!
Song #1 "Isn't He?"
Song #2 "Angels are Rejoicing" (my favorite!)

2 days later, Jayna had her Christmas concert with the Badger State Girl Choir. Jayna LOVES choir and this concert, she was 1 of 4 that did a little small group solo. If Jayna isn't talking at our house, she is constantly singing...some of you have most likely heard her random singing! :)

The concert was beautiful, held in a beautiful church...and 2 minutes before it started, we noticed the 'no photos please' request. Darn! But Andy did snap these photos without the flash and did get some video for your enjoyment!

Away in a Manger is HERE.
Deck The Halls is HERE.

And Christmas break is not complete without the Glynn girls rendition of the Christmas Story! This year, they did not use Colin as Baby Jesus, and Andy and I were not Joseph and Mary--the 3 girls did the entire play themselves. It was quite involved....and very precious!

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
The above photo collage is the short story: Christmas is about Jesus, not the presents under the tree....and we saw family--both at our house and far away! (Aren't those toothbrushes cute? The toothbrush holders suction onto a mirror--the 6 Glynns take up quite the amount of space when traveling....)

But if you're more of a "long story" type of person, keep reading, because here is our month of celebrating Christmas in pictures:

We had our 1st Christmas with Grammie and Grampy Gorden mid-December. We had a soup bar and opened gifts...we shared many laughs! Highlights included: Grampy getting a tid-bit book (Gorden family will chuckle at this!), the CAT mobile toy that was nearly chained into it's packaging and the grandparents not going overboard with gifts, yet hitting the nail on the head with what was chosen.

Fast forward then, to CHRISTMAS EVE.
This photo shows us finishing up our beloved Advent calendar, both girls playing piano prior to the Christmas Eve service at church, stocking opening, reactions to receiving mp3 players...and the only photo of our family dressed up for church. As usual, we didn't leave enough time to get ready/get to church and I threw in a curveball saying "It's SO important to me to get a family picture, and how about we use the stairs this year?!" Andy lovingly dragged in a ladder to use as a tripod and we tried numerous times...it wasn't meant to be...but at least we are documented.... :)

You'll also notice our feast of shrimp and steak--it was a hit, both items went 5/6 for likeability--it was a true feast! And for dinner, for those of you who follow our crazy Christmas Eve tradition, we did get to close down McDonald's this year!

ELLIE:
Dress up ware designed for 10 yr olds, a snuggie and a curling iron of her own...she's loving her gifts!

JAYNA:
Again, dress up clothes that actually fit an 8 yr old and a stack of American Girl fill in the blank notebooks. Add to that meaningful ornaments and the mp3 player stocked with music and she's been in heaven.

AVA:
Sleeping Beauty winter cloak, pillow pet and ballerina garb coming out of her ears.

COLIN:
Let me just say that eBay has been my best friend this year. Almost everything Colin received was Wiggle-related and not made anymore. He is loving life, with "talking" Wiggles dolls, a new guitar, Captain's feather sword etc. He loved the gifts this year and had to be watched like a hawk as he did not love the rotation with his sisters in opening gifts.

CHRISTMAS DAY!
We hit the road for Grandma and Grandpa Glynn's house...and enjoyed seeing Great Grandma and the Knoechel's for the day. We sang Happy Birthday Jesus, had a feast, washed dishes by hand (Broken dishwasher! Ack! But great conversation!) and exchanged gifts. Best gifts per the girls: homemade pj's by Grandma! Colin was a hoot, as usual, entertaining all who watched him as he turned EVERYTHING into a guitar and played peek-a-boo/hide behind people's backs.

SLEDDING:
We took all the winter gear for all 6 of us so we could go sledding. Let's just say that the big girls LOVED this, they were out 3 different times. The little 2....well, they enjoyed eating the "big sticks" from Grandma's house and they enjoyed their 1st run down the sledding hill. After that, they were D.O.N.E....as in "Do not even try to get us out there again!"! As you can see, Ellie appears to be a natural at snowboarding....we are trying to accept this newfound love...while we are rejoicing that little Jayna was the queen of the hill this year. She tumbled, she flew down on the saucers, she ran up the hill--she didn't tire a bit and the whole time, had joy emitting from her face!

The girls also had tons of Rebekah time....which was just as pleasing for Rebekah as it was for the girls. Which...makes saying "good bye" all the more harder! And, as the bottom right photo in this collage indicates, Andy spent most of his time taking pictures. He was in picture heaven. He also had time to hit the hill himself--good ole fun!

Still the day after Christmas, we got away for a lunch date and a trip to Menards to pick out paint colors to paint Colin's room. The trip to Menards didn't end fruitful though--we couldn't pick a color and when it was all said and done, we decided to paint a different room...and now? We can't decide on a color and we can't decide on a room....so we're not painting this week! :) That is a project for another snowy day...

While we were gone though, Grandma and Grandpa did a pretzel dipping project with the kids. Yummy yummy and creative cute are what describe these snowmen! The kids had a lot of fun.

Finally, like father, like son...Andy and his Dad moving all the furniture and vacuuming under it before we departed for Wisconsin. No further comments needed....it was a cute moment! :)

Next up: wading through the hundreds of photos from Christmas programs. This, family and friends, is the drawback of the new camera...but stay tuned, it will get done soon!

Cookies galore.....

TRADITION......we ALWAYS decorate Christmas cookies with the Landsverks....I think we've just missed 1 year in the last 6-7ish years?

Years ago, a far away friend gave me this recipe for frosting where you "finger paint" it onto the cookies. At the time, I think it was just Ellie and Silas decorating cookies...and now we've added Shae, Jayna, Ava and Colin (well, he EATS the cookies!). Years ago, we trained them well to NOT lick their fingers, just paint the cookies! It is a most fun way to decorate cookies!

Here are Silas and Shae hard at work on their masterpieces:

And then the Glynn girls concentrating as well...(and Ellie with red frosting teeth!)

Our dear friends David and DeAnn....and take note of the bottom 2 photos here--DeAnn is VERY artistic and she loves it when the kids have had enough--it's her turn! As you can see by the bottom right photo, she is very detailed in her decorating...

I love the cookie decorating process too...and this was the 1st year that the husbands joined in the fun. Andy surprised us all...another lefty who is VERY gifted in finger painting cookies! The bottom 2 photos are his prize decorated goodies!

This year, I added a craft idea that I had seen in one of Ellie's magazines to our afternoon--3D snowflakes. These might be some of the coolest things we've made out of paper! DeAnn got me started (because I hate to read directions!) and they left us with 2 beautiful HUGE snowflakes that are now hanging in our dining room windows! Note the bottom right photo--the lights from outside use the snowflakes to make a cool design on our ceiling!

Happy Winter.....and stay tuned....I have MANY photos/video to sort through from the girls' recent Christmas programs/concerts!

'Tis the Season...

For lots of love!

Aren't those boxes just cute? A dear friend is starting a cookie baking business and after putting Colin down for his nap on Friday, I peeked out my door, only to find my 3 boxes of cookies on my bench! Of course, I had to sample each of the 4 varieties in each box (she even tweeked one of the recipes to not have nuts, just for me!)...and after sampling, my response to her was "Do I have to share them with the other Glynns?!" Yum yum.

We also got our 1st snow on Thursday....1st "real" snow, that is--and we didn't even know it was going to snow! I even got the van washed Thursday morning, not knowing that I was just wasting my money!

When the kids got up Friday morning, Ava was ready to go--she had on almost all of her gear prior to breakfast and as soon as we dropped off the big girls at school, she was out playing. Colin joined her and our experience this year has been much different than last year--he LOVES the snow!

Ava taught Colin how to eat snow....this might be a problem as the snow loses it's pure white color...

The other girls have also enjoyed their little playmate in the snow, he's up for anything they are doing and all 4 kids come inside with BRIGHT red cheeks!

This morning, we rang the bells for the Salvation Army. This year, my goal is to find many opportunities for our family to volunteer. This can be challenging with 4 small kiddos and with 1 allergic kiddo (we'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to do a soup kitchen or serve a meal on a holiday...but that's still too risky!). So far, we've taken "tickets" at a cancer fundraising event, we've handed out water at the Fox Cities marathon, we've (Ava, actually!) sorted many pony beads for a teacher, and today, we rang bells and sang songs for the Salvation Army. We learned some things about this event: 1) Ava and Colin are a little young--they were pretty silly and there wasn't much room for that in the vestibule. 2) People are very generous--a LOT of BILLS being stuffed into the kettle--I thought people just threw change in there! and 3) People LOVE children, especially when you have singing children!

Colin was VERY into the bell ringing. The kid has rhythm!

Ellie and Jayna REALLY got into it...and they were the singers.

In between ringing bells himself, taking 1/2 of the kids for lunch and making sure Mr. Wiggle didn't dance off into the parking lot, Andy did snap the photos and some great video. These aren't long, and if you have time, they are all worth watching. You will see Mr. Wiggle in action, you will hear the girls' voices singing Christmas carols, and you will see someone giving money...but giving money to each of the children to stuff the kettle!
Ringing the bells, part 1
Ringing the bells, part 2
Ringing the bells, part 3
Ringing the bells, part 4
Ringing the bells, part 5

And while we're on the subject of 'tis the season...for lots of love, we ended our day with a Christmas Open House....numerous families braved the weather and had wonderful fellowship at a friend's home....celebrating friendship and the true meaning of love. Merry Christmas Season, everyone!

What a weekend!

We had a packed weekend at the beginning of the week; so packed that we were splitting up our family--1 parent to the swimming meet, 1 parent to take care of swimming lessons, birthday party attendance etc. And then we added 2 more "events" to our Saturday/Sunday schedule....but what a memorable weekend it turned out to be!

FRIDAY NIGHT:
Neenah has this Christmas celebration every year--the stores on Wisconsin Ave. participate in "live manequins" with their storefront windows. We've never attended....because.....1) we lived "all the way" in Appleton (haha for those of you who know that joke!) and 2) last year, we were still recovering from the big move, still knee deep in boxes etc.

But this year, Jayna's choir was going to be caroling during the festivities and it gave us a REASON to go out in the very cold night air. And what fun it was! (You will notice that Ava and Colin are not captured in our photos--Ava was very overtired from a long week of no napping and not feeling very photogenic. And Colin? Well....he was afraid of the manequins!)

Here is the Badger State Girl Choir caroling:

To catch a listen to the choir, click HERE.

And here are some photos of the window displays. It is so neat, the photos don't do the displays justice. Looks like we have ourselves a new December tradition....even if it's freezing cold outside!

After the Friday night festivities, we hurried home to put the kids to bed, especially Ellie. Saturday morning, she was ready to swim in the Green Bay Sprint meet...and sprint was the key word of the day!
Here are some photos I captured....note her new cap that actually has her NAME on it. We love the easy identification of our little swimmer!

And this collage captures her Saturday swimming success. The collage is read from left to right, top to bottom, like a book:
1st row: starting her 50 yd breastroke event
scoreboard for that event...Ellie got 2nd place!
preparing for her 50 yd backstroke event

2nd row: scoreboard for that event; another 2nd place!
Ellie swimming the 50 yd freestyle
scoreboard for that event; 4th place this time

3rd row: the relay swimmers
starting off the 100 yd freestyle relay
and the scoreboard for the relay....FIRST PLACE!

For your viewing pleasure, HERE is the 50 freestyle (Ellie's in the middle lane shown on the camera.)
And HERE is the "sprint" in action as she starts off the relay. (Ellie's relay is in lane 3.)

It was a super fun swimming meet. We're seeing the effects of practice this year, especially as she "gets" how to swim competitively!

But now we must back up 2 days to Thursday night. Andy was reading The Christmas Story to Ava before bed. In this particular book, the very last page has a flap with a huge heart on it. If you lift the flap, you see a picture of baby Jesus lying in a manger with John 3:16 written underneath.

When they finished, Ava said "I have a little place in my heart where Jesus can live", to which Andy replied "You are right Ava, but you haven't asked Him into your heart...do you want to do that tonight?", to which she said (in typical Ava fashion) "No, maybe tomorrow!". On Friday morning at breakfast, all of a sudden a quiet little voice said "I want to ask Jesus into my heart!". Suddenly everything stopped and then the girls started cheering for Ava! We talked about sin, we talked about Jesus saving us from sin, and Ava prayed to God, asking Jesus into her heart. It was beautiful.

Our tradition with this is that we get the girls a little cross necklace and have a party....we had a heart brownie "cake" and Ava got her necklace...

It was a joyous time, that is for sure.

Then, December 5th is the night that St. Nick visits the homes of Wisconsin. I'm not sure if any other states in the USA do this tradition, in all the states we've lived, I had never heard of it until we moved here! We've never participated....until this year....and of course, we put our own spin on it.

Each year the kids get new PJs for Christmas, on Christmas Eve. This year, we decided it would be fun for them to wear the PJs all month long and we were going to give the PJs on St. Nick Night and read the story about St. Nick. In a nutshell, he was all about generosity. More giving, less focus on receiving of gifts. Beautiful little book, that's for sure. The kids loved it, and they loved their new pjs. We loved taking photos of the fun we had:
In this collage, Andy is reading to the kids about St. Nick and then they are opening their gift. We tried to get a good group photo, but for some reason, it just wasn't in the cards last night! In the bottom right photo, Colin actually THOUGHT he was participating appropriately!

And for the candid photos....which had all of us laughing...

until Andy asked Colin to hug his best buddy Ava...and then we REALLY laughed at Colin the Clown...

And to top off the weekend, we slowly started a new endeavor that is my least favorite part of parenting. Potty training. Ugh.....to be continued....hopefully the training goes speedily!

Thanksgiving!

"Pilgrims and Indians thanked God together....Pilgrims and Indians thanked God together....Pilgrims and Indians thanked God together...On Thanksgiving Day!"

Years ago, my girls started learning that song at preschool and this year, we traveled to Minnesota for Thanksgiving...armed with copies of the song. The kids sang it first and then everyone joined in together, followed by Ellie praying for our meal--it was beautiful and fun! Here is a short clip of the singing--as you can see, all the cousins got into it, and even Uncle Tucker excelled at the song...

We had a great trip home--it was filled with laughter, filled with fun cousin play and filled with many different activities into a 3 day window.

To start off the trip, we got an email from Tucker "Let Andy know I need his help on something..." This is quite the joke around our house. When we lived out in Utah, we came home for Christmas and Tucker picked the coldest, windiest day to have Andy help him change the oil in his jeep. This time, it was "supposed" to be better--just putting the hard top on the jeep. However, we entered Minnesota and YIKES! It was COLD, much colder than Wisconsin!

1st picture on the left is the crew in the topless jeep going to get the hard top out of storage. Jayna and Grace went along for the fun. When they returned, Jayna said "MOM. I am FREEZING!"

Grampy also set up the jumping toy in his building--the kids loved to burn off energy in that. (1st photo on right.)

I knew my parents house was torn up--they are remodeling and 1/2 the area is not usable right now. Knowing this, I brought along some paints and ornaments for the girls to paint on Friday afternoon--they loved it (bottom left photo).

There was also much Oscar time--so much that on Sunday, Colin had Oscar-withdrawal...and Oscar had "Kaadie" and Jayna withdrawal! Ellie loved snuggling tired Oscar (bottom right photo)--the 2 milk allergic cousins!

Because of the remodel, there wasn't "room in the inn" for our big family. We were all going to stay at a hotel, but Andy and I chickened out--we've experienced too many sleepless nights with Colin in hotels! Colin, Ava and I stayed at my parents and Andy and the big girls stayed at a hotel. It was a lot of fun for the girls to have that time with Andy. Here is a picture he snapped of them watching a video before bed one of the nights:

On Saturday, we all went in different directions. Andy, Tucker and my Dad went to a football game and the girls/boy babies went house hopping and to see Macy's 8th floor Christmas display.

We loved seeing where our cousins live...and we headed out for Downtown Minneapolis. We were quite the group, 4 adults, 2 strollers and 8 kiddos. The kids did amazing as we waited for elevators, waited in line, waited some more etc...and they really enjoyed the display.
This is the best photo I was able to capture quickly:

The happy girls, with cousins and Grammie:

And Colin...and his best bud Oscar:

While the girls were putzing around, the boys went to the Minnesota vs. Iowa football game....in the new stadium that is outdoors! Brrr. Dad "had" to wear his Minnesota garb, he said his ancient Iowa sweatshirt bit the dust and was thrown out! Scandalous! As you can see, Tucker and Andy went to great lengths to try to stay warm--even sitting in garbage bags. The game was fun (to see the Hawkeyes live) but oh, so frustrating for Andy's beloved team...

We had a few tired kiddos on the way home--we didn't even leave the Cities until 7pm! Colin fell asleep mid-song--he was slap happy and all of a sudden, he was silent! Ava, our sleeper, slept from the get go and didn't wake up, even when we carried her to her bed!

The big girls enjoyed their movie and then fell asleep...and Ellie (!)...we just laughed when we looked back and saw how she was sleeping!

Has anyone heard of our latest "game"? It's called the Craigslist Camera Fund. We need a new camera, but we're trying to earn the money to buy the exact model Andy has his eye on. We were talking about that on Thanksgiving....it has been a fun activity, we've gotten rid of some baby stuff...but we have (had) a long way to go...

On their way up to Minneapolis, my Dad took Andy to Costco. They just happened upon the camera that Andy wants and my Dad bought one for himself...

While we were eating dinner at Megan's house after the game, my Dad said "Hey. I have a proposal for you....How about I give you $X and you pay the rest out of your camera fund for your new camera?" The camera was for US!

Andy is having a blast learning how to use it and here is a sneak peak of what he has captured so far. We can't even believe the detail this camera picks up!

The little girls: Note the action shots with their hair flying in the background!

And the Christmas tree shots:

Stay tuned for more....Ellie has a swimming meet this Saturday. I'm taking her and Andy's doing swimming lesson/birthday party duty. I told Andy "Give me my lesson on the camera, I'm taking it to the meet on Saturday to test it out!" :)