Summer, Week 4

HaPpY BiRtHdAy to Andy....TODAY, June 30th!
Usually Andy takes the day off on his birthday...and this year, he had to work. It was very odd around our house! We shall continue celebrating this weekend, though, as we visit Andy's family in IL.

Back to week 4....
We returned from our trip...1750 miles of driving....to the strawberry fields of Wisconsin! Jayna and I promptly headed out to the fields on Sunday and then again Monday morning with Cindy! A great time was had by all....and great berries were picked by all....
This photo is just some of the goodies that we ended up with:

Our time picking with Cindy was so special. Does everyone know Cindy?
In 2000, we moved to Wisconsin. "Granny Marlene" was the 1st neighbor I met. Cindy is Granny's granddaughter.
In 2002, Cindy started babysitting for us. She was 12 years old!
In 2011, Cindy still babysits for us....except now she lives almost 2 hrs away! We take her when we can get her! :)
When Cindy went off to nursing school, she introduced us to Amy....the girlfriend of her brother.
Guess what? Amy married Andy (Cindy's brother)...so Amy's part of Cindy's family now too.
And Cindy and Amy kind of look alike....and they both love the 4 Glynn kiddos....
And Colin keeps calling Cindy "Amy" now...
We worked with him though, and by the time Cindy arrived Monday morning, Colin was ready to say the right name!
As you can see below, Colin snuggled right up to our Cindy!

This week, the 3 big girls also attended Camp SonRay at our church! Remember 5 years ago when we had Camp SonRay in our backyard? It is a 1 day VBS and the kids just love it. As you can see, they had their faces painted and participated in "The Amazing Race" and learned about missions and how they can help other countries....how even kids can help out!
Currently, we have 3 "rice bowls" to fill with change. Did you know that just 25 cents can buy a child an entire meal? The girls are excited to turn their rice bowls full of change into the church in August.

And back to today....Andy's birthday.
You all know the kids live for birthday celebrations right? Well...we waited all day to have Andy come home to start celebrating. In the upper left photo below, Colin is actually saying "You so funny, Daddy!" because Andy put ribbon around Colin's neck! The kids made meaningful cards for Andy and we surprised him with fun, unique gifts.

We made him a triple layer white cake with the Chicago Bears' logo on it....
And of course, Andy had to do silly photos of blowing out the candles!

It's been a fun week!

Happy Birthday Andy & The Glynn Group...

What a crazy week this has been! Andy is on vacation this week and we're getting ready for our annual trip to IL for the 4th of July....Andy has made many trips to the local fireworks tents...

The week started with Ellie needing something to do while she waited to have her hair fixed for church....she put Colin on his helicopter and away they went! Colin just LOVES riding this toy! A big THANK YOU to Great Grandma--this is one cool birthday gift!

With 6 people, your van fills up FAST when you travel. For Christmas, all we wanted was money toward a new "cartop carrier" to hold all the stuff we take when we travel. This week, the Yakima will take it's maiden voyage...but first, we had to figure out HOW to get it on. Once Andy got it secure, he wanted me to see how easy it was to open it. I stepped up on the ladder, opened it up and BAM, there was Ellie yelling "Surprise!" She was IN the Yakima! Well, then of course, all 3 girls wanted to be IN the Yakima....

TODAY is Andy's birthday! Happy Birthday Andy! It was especially fun to have him home for his special day! We have free bowling cards for the girls and decided to use them this morning. We had a blast bowling....Colin even enjoyed it (well, he enjoyed his treats and falling alseep on the way home!)! Our family has a great time when we go bowling....and it's starting to be a birthday tradition around here. Ellie's theory is that IF it is your birthday, you will bowl strikes!

Here are some photos of the 'cake'. The girls decorated cookies last week with their friends Silas and Shae. It's an annual tradition to get all 5 kids together and they 'paint' the sugar cookies with this cool frosting. This time, we decorated tiger hawks (Iowa Hawkeye mascot) and I gave the girls instructions to decorate them nice for Daddy! (After all, the cake fairy IS on vacation!)

Andy enjoyed getting yummy Jelly Bellys, some shirts, a CD and a gazebo for our shade-less backyard. His most exciting gift though? To plan his fireworks show with his brothers....stay tuned for the blog entry on that fun!

Happy Father's Day at Bay Beach!

We have a tradition of always going to Bay Beach for Father's Day. (Does this mean that when all the kiddos have outgrown Bay Beach, we will have to all go to Great America?!)

Andy is traveling this week, and later this week, the children and I are traveling to Minnesota for a visit. We will pick Andy up in Minneapolis and spend the weekend with the Gorden family. On Father's Day, we'll be traveling back to Appleton--THAT is not a way to celebrate, so we picked this last weekend as our "Father's Day Weekend"!

Despite many things happening wrong, we managed to have lots of fun and beautiful weather! In the above picture, you will see the kids on some of the rides as well as Andy and his look-a-likes in the bottom right picture. (As usual, click on a collage for the full size photo!)

These are the many faces of Colin. He was happy, he was serious, he was playful with the girls, he was trying to break through the chain link fence to join in the fun...and he was LOVING the Luigi's Italian Ice. (Note to family: never share something sweet with Colin unless you are REALLY willing to give most of it up!)

What fun they had on the big slides! Only Ellie was tall enough to ride by herself...so Andy got quite the work out climbing the many steps numerous times to take Jayna and Ava down! Colin obviously did not think it was much fun...

Ava and Jayna managed to go on 4 different rides while Ellie and I waited in the LONG line for the Tilt-A-Whirl. They had such fun together...and Jayna hasn't outgrown these rides yet! YAY!

As we were leaving, we threw out the idea of letting the girls ride the ponies. They all said it was the BEST part of the day at Bay Beach. They loved it. Happy Father's Day to Andy....now onto his birthday!

This video is showing you all what happens when you put a baby that is teething (1 yr molars!) near a chain link fence. And, to all of you who have heard of Colin's 'manly' wave...here is a little example of it!!

Dad Date & "Joe-Fuss"

We had a rainy weekend this past weekend.

The girls were also informed that Andy would be traveling during their end of the school year learning celebration. There were many tears about that. To make up for it, Andy took the 3 girls to the movie UP. The reviews were as follows: Andy: "LOVED the message--we'll buy it when it comes out on DVD." Ellie: (crying) "It was scary mom!" Jayna: "I LOVED it mom, it wasn't scary at all!" Ava: "It was a little scary but I DID like it mom!"
They all must have liked it to some extent as I am hearing them converse with lines of the movie. (Those of you who are related to the Glynn girls can identify with the girls knowing the words to every song they hear 1x!) I am feeling very left out, not knowing WHAT the girls are talking about.

We also spent a considerable amount of time watching the 3 Glynn Girls put on their production of "Joe-Fuss" And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Anyone who knows Ava, has heard her precious pronunciation of "Joseph" as "Joe-Fuss". Funny enough, we are all finding ourselves saying Joe-Fuss now. The girls are OBSESSED with this musical. They saw a classmate in the musical a few months ago and the lyrics have been floating around our house ever since. We do realize that someday, we NEED to take them to a big production of this musical.

Anyway--the girls got all fancy (haha--it involved un-fixing their hair, involved straightening Ava's precious curls and putting on dress up shoes!); they covered up all of our furniture, learned how to change the lighting in our playroom, and put up a sign on our fireplace. They took turns singing for Andy and I....and the most amazing singing came from AVA, of all people. Just 2 months ago, at her 4 year check up, our pediatrician asked me "Does she talk? In all of my years seeing her, I've never heard her TALK!" (Ah, yes.....she DOES talk!) However, we have never seen her sing like this before.....

Enjoy sweet Ava singing here and here as well as Ellie and Jayna dancing across the camera! :)

Good job, Dad!

It's not too often that Andy gets the press on the blog...but I thought this was note-worthy!

His new position at Kimberly Clark requires him to travel much more than he ever has...and years ago, we started something--Ellie got a gift everyday that he was gone. (See how many years ago that was? We just had 1 child!) Now, however, with 4 kiddos and him traveling a lot, a gift everyday for each child has just gotten too much. Either you get little junk gifts from the dollar store (who needs 20 more pieces of $1 junk each week that Andy's gone anyway?!) or you get disappointment from the girls who thought they'd get something HUGE (like an American Girl?!).

So, we started something new this trip--the girls woke up to a note from Andy as well as a little cup of Starburst candy. The note reads: "To my dear, sweet, loving, caring, filled with joy, amazing daughters-- I love you all sooooo much and can't wait to talk to you every night this week. Thank you for the fun special time we each got on Sunday. I loved the time I got to spend with each of you! Ellie--thank you for the special reading and fun piano lessons (with that crazy piano teacher Borak! :) ). Jayna--thank you for the fun game you played with me and the story and book time. :) Ava--thank you for the great puzzle time. It was so special to see how good you are at puzzles. This week for your speical gift, I am leaving you with Starburst. There is one for each of you for every morning and every evening. I am also bringing Starburst with me! Whenever you eat one, think of me and whenever I eat one I will think of each of you! :) I will miss you this week but will be thinking of you 3, Mommy and Colin a lot! Have a great time and remember I love you. You are my three Starburst! Lots of love, Dad :)

Awww...good job, Andy!

And, as a side note, here is something interesting---we bought 3 sticks of Starburst. If the girls eat one each morning (5) and each evening (4), they each need 9. In each stick of Starburst, there were 12 little pieces of candy. With each girl only needing 9, that left 3 pieces from each stick...a total of 9 Starburst left for Andy, just like the girls! How perfectly that worked out!

And as for the above picture...Andy bought his girls flowers the week before Easter and they lived beautifully until last night. Andy cut off the carnations and the girls thought it was cool that all of the 'girls' of the family could wear them in our ears! The picture on the right is what the girls woke up to this morning, the Starburst treat!