This year we went with a white and blue lighted tree. My usual Red lights had some issues but I am kind of liking the "wintery" look with the blue and white lights.
Mmmm Fudge and Peanut Brittle.
Nothing like Christmas candy to spread Christmas cheer to all the neighbors!
Ellie Grace is such a funny girl! She sure can make people smile!
2014
Glenn Family Adventures
WOW what a year this has been! 2014 was
full of all sorts of adventures. Some Fun, Some trying, some worth celebrating,
some quite scary, but overall amazing.
The Beginning of the year started off great! The kids went
back to school and not long after both Kiera and Ethan earned Student of the
Month awards at school. They are such great kids and we are so proud of them!
All of the kids are growing up so fast!
Speaking of growing up, Ethan turned 6
this year! He is all boy! Scrapes, cuts, bruises, and all that come with little
boys, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. He also lost his 3rd
tooth this year! The tooth fairy has been busy at the Glenn household. Apart
from being our rough and tumble little boy, Ethan is our tenderhearted son. He
is very sensitive to the spirit and on multiple occasions has been brought to
tears after hearing a touching story being read to him or during a heartfelt
movie. At one point he told me, “Mom I don’t like feeling the spirit!” I asked him
why and he said, “Because it makes me cry.” I assured him that was quite
alright.
Emma who turned 3 in March is our girly
girl. She loves everything pink, princess, and fancy. She has also been
following in her mother’s and big sister’s footprints and is showing us her
crafty side lately. She loves it whenever mom lets her get out the brushes and
paints. She has made quite a few fun projects this year. Emma also started
Preschool and loves it. She is making friends and is quite the little flirt
with the boys in her class. But how can you blame the blonde haired blue eyed
cutie?!
Kiera is still our budding artist. She
is praised at school by many of the teachers on her artistic skills. She draws
EVERYTHING! When we attended parent/teacher conferences this past month we
heard 2 or 3 of the teachers compliment her on how much they love her artwork.
Even at home she seems to always have a pencil in hand. She will even sit and
draw the characters of the movies she is watching. But outside all that artsy
stuff, Kiera reached a big milestone this year. She turned 8 in August and was
baptized at the beginning of September. We are so proud of her!
August was probably our busiest month. We
did put off Kiera’s baptism just a bit, but not due to Kiera’s unwillingness.
In fact, she could hardly wait. No, instead it was to give mom time to rest and
heal a little bit. You see, August was indeed our busy busy month, and adding
one more thing to the mix was too much.
August was the month of Dan and Brittany’s Anniversary, Kiera’s B-day,
back to school month AND the best part…Baby Ellie Grace arrived. So that’s why
we waited til September for the baptism. It also made it nice so that visiting
family could be here for both the baptism and Ellie’s baby blessing.
Ellie has been such a blessing. She is
the most amazing baby you will ever meet! She hardly cries, she is happy,
content and all smiles! She loves to observe people and has recently found her
voice. She will sit and coo with you forever. Her new favorite’s songs to play
with mom are “Eensy Weensy Spider” and “Pat-a-Cake.” Ethan says he wants a
brother, but you should see how he plays with Ellie. He can get her to laugh
out loud like nobody’s business.
Now to tell you about Dan, What a year
for him! Dan lost over 50lbs this year! We are so happy for him. He is a much
happier daddy and the kids love running around with him these days. Dan also
had some big changes come about in his career this year. In June he was laid
off from B/E Aerospace and was about to be coming up on his 7 year anniversary
with. It was a big blow for us! Him
being laid off was very unexpected and hard to swallow. But as always, Heavenly
Father was looking out for us. As soon as Dan was laid off he was picked up
doing some consulting work and not long after that landed a job with Absolute
Manufacturing a Senior Aerospace company just 5 minutes down the road from our
house. Dan’s layoff was a huge blessing in disguise. We are very happy to have
our daddy back!
Brittany has been busy busy as usual
with various projects this year. Amid being pregnant for most of the year she
managed to make a few quilts, do some canning, and some other various projects
that are the norm with her, but one thing that she has added to her portfolio
is photography. Yes, yes she has already been taking pictures for a long time
but this year she started making an official business out of it. She did two
photo sessions for graduating seniors, and one family photo shoot just weeks
after advertising for it on Facebook! She hopes to keep the ball rolling and
even has her own business cards now. She feels very professional now. She also
hopes to start going back to Zumba now since Ellie is a few months old now.
We hope you all are having a great
holiday season and that you are doing well. We love you and keep you in our
prayers. Merry Christmas from the Glenn’s! Dan, Brittany, Kiera, Ethan, Emma,
and Ellie.
This year we did what I think has become a Glenn family tradition. We stayed over night at the Lights of Christmas at Warm Beach Camp. It is a night to look forward to and the kids love staying in the cabins and sleeping in their bunk beds there. It is nice to have a warm place to retreat to after a long night of walking around looking at the lights and eating yummy food without having to fight the traffic to get home again. And the hot breakfast they serve in the morning is quite nice too.
We can't take a trip to the lights of Christmas without a visit to see Santa
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This is us just after breakfast the next morning as we were getting ready to head home. It was a fun family outing.
Look what we saw on our drive home! If you are familiar with the show Dr. Who you will know. Pretty cool to spot the Tardis in your very own hometown! :)
Emma's preschool put on a Christmas program for all the parents. It was very cute! Emma sang all the songs like a champ and even tried to get the little boy on her left to sing since he just seemed to only want to observe. It was cute watching her tug on his shirt a few times mouthing the words, "come on! sing!" to him. I video taped the whole thing and afterwards the little boy's mom came up to me and asked if when I got the chance if she could get a copy.
Ethan and Kiera's school had a their Christmas program the next day and each grade sang two Christmas songs. It was supposed to be a community sing-a-long on every other song but boy do we have some hum bugs. I think myself and another mom who I happen to visit teach whom I was sitting by were the only ones singing. Oh well...the kids did great!
We were a little late on mailing our letters to Santa this year but we did manage to get them out before Christmas. Ethan decided to sprain his ankle on the neighbors trampoline that night too so it was a very slow long walk. I was grateful to have neighbors willing to lend me their set of children's crutches for a few days. And was also grateful it wasn't broken. Dan convinced me to wait and see how he was doing in the morning rather than take him in for x-rays. I was glad we waiting. He was much better in the morning and by that night was walking on it no problem. That little boy is going to be a handful when it comes to sports I fear :)
Christmas at Dan's parents was great. We had fun at the Christmas Eve get together in McMinnville, OR at Shellie's sister-in-laws house. Dan's cousins are having kids of their own now so our kids are starting to have other kids to play with. We stayed up WAY late and didn't make it back to Bob and Shellie's til around 1:00 a.m. Luckily that wore the kids out enough that they didn't get up until after 8:00 in the morning.
Shellie made breakfast pizza and we all opened our gifts. It was a great Christmas. We also went to visit Dan's great aunt Beth and open the gifts she bought for them.
Aunt Beth meeting Ellie Grace for the first time.
When we got home from Oregon we found that Santa had also paid a visit to our house as well. The kids got ready for bed and then had their second round of Christmas.
Grandma Tutu sent this fun Frozen playhouse for Emma. It was a big hit!
Merry Christmas and on to a new adventure in 2015!
