Merry Christmas!

Greetings!

Merry Christmas and an almost Happy New Year to everyone!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.  The entire family attended Christmas Eve service at our church and then fought off the yawns until finally we fell asleep.  We luckily left out cookies and milk for santa claus before we got too tired.  Whew!  Santa arrived and left just a few crumbs of the cookies, in addition, to several wonderful presents for Jonas and Elsa.

Elsa has discovered that she really wants to be a doctor.  She now has a doctor coat and various doctor instruments...and is keeping the host of toy babies in great health.  She takes temperatures and prescribes the necessary medicines or bedside care to ensure fast recoveries. 

Jonas is becoming a master builder of lego and thomas the train tracks.  It is really cool to see him and Elsa create tracks or cars from lego bricks. 

Elsa and Jonas have also taken to playing pirates!  Our couch serves as the ship and our living room floor as the ocean for various adventures.  The occasional shark has been spotted when our ship sinks but so far no pirates have been lost.

We also spent a day at the Washington State History Museum's annual train festival.  Miniature train sets were set up all over the museum.  It was amazing.  Jonas and Elsa and their birthday twin, Joshua (and his little sister too), had a great time checking out all the sets.  It was a lot of fun and we topped it off by coming back home and making tracks with Thomas.  A great day!

It has been a true joy to have the gift of time to play and play and play.  We hope the new year brings lots more laughs and love!

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

And a big welcome to the four year olds!

Greetings! 

Mari and Dan have received their four year diplomas in infants and preemies and are excited to announce they are moving on to graduate work in advanced toddler care.  Yippee!  It is has been four years since Twin a and b made a rather early entrance.  It has been a wonder and a joy.

We celebrated J and E's birthday at a jumpy house facility.  There were several large inflatable toys for us to bounce, jump, and fall in.  Everyone worked hard to earn a slice of decadent cake later that had been hand crafted by Mari...a pink cake for Elsa and a blue cake for Jonas. 

It was a great day and everyone slept well that night.  The adults were sore the next day from all the jumpy house exercise.

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Making Cookies

Greetings!

Jonas and Elsa had a great week at school.  They learned all about the letter J this week!  Jonas was very thrilled.  They baked cookies at home and helped with all the delicious frosting.  Their birthdays are almost here and they are sooooo excited! 

God Bless,

Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Jack and Jill

Greetings!
Jonas and Elsa had another great week.  They are loving school and learning lots.  It is always amazing to hear them use a new word they learned at school or sound out letters that they see.   Everyday it seems like they are learning something new! 

Elsa and Jonas are getting increasingly excited about their upcoming birthdays.  They are very aware that they are almost here!

Jonas helped Dan put up the Christmas lights!  Go Jonas and Dan!
God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Elsa and Dan singing at church

Greetings!
A couple months ago, Elsa and Dan sang at church.  The timing of it was immediately after Grandma Jeanne breaking her knee...so she missed the performance.   Elsa and Dan performed again this weekend and Grandma Jeanne was able to make it!  It was a great day!

The videos don't capture Elsa's voice very well but we can confirm that she knows more of the lyrics than Dan does.

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings!

A quick note.  Happy Thanksgiving to all!  We have many things to be thankful for this year...Yeah Elsa! Yeah Jonas!  Great job working hard this year in school and getting stronger each day!


We are so thankful that we are getting the Lysne band together for a performance:)

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Where there is smoke...

Greetings!
What a fabulous week.  Jonas and Elsa got a special treat at school.  A visit from the local fire engine!  This was the talk of the table at home.  They were so excited to meet some local heroes and get to sit in the fire engine.  Their teacher sent the pictures and wow!  It looks like a great day to be a preschool teacher.  The final picture is of Elsa and friends playing a pattern matching game...great learning!

Elsa and Jonas are getting very excited for their upcoming birthday!  They are noticing advertising (curses) and have started to say, "I want ____________ on my special day!"  They are also remembering that they share a birthday:)  It is getting very exciting in the Lysne house!

Elsa and Jonas had great check ups with their GI doctor this past week.  He was impressed with their weight gains and said that he didn't need to see them for six months!  (He is going to do a little examine on vocal cords in the upcoming months but is really happy with their weight gains!). 

Another great week!

Congrats to the PLU Lute Football team and their football consultants and football announcers for a great season and a playoff game next week!

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Special Delivery

Greetings!
A special delivery arrived today.  Couldn't wait to share.

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

The Halloween candy is all gone!

Greetings!  Halloween was so much fun!  Elsa and Jonas went trick or treating at our church and received lots of candy, high-fives, and hugs from people at church.  Several of Dan's students were workers at the event and they were really excited to meet Elsa and Jonas in person.  

Jonas was dressed as Bob the builder.  Elsa was a finely dressed rabbit ala Alice in Wonderland.  Great times!

It is kind of refreshing to be at home during the midst of a hotly contested election and only have to decide who is right about whether the tv show caillou or the tv show thomas the train should be watched as a reward on the weekend.  

God Bless,

Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

On the night before Halloween...

...and all through the house....twins shouting for candy now now now!

We can't wait for Halloween!

A great week has been had by all.  Elsa and Jonas had a great week of learning at school.  They are about halfway learning about the alphabet and show off their letter recognition all the time! 

There has been much discussion about halloween costumes...this year...Jonas will be Bob the builder and Elsa will be a well dressed rabbit!  Too cute.


God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Greetings!

The pumpkins are growing!  Elsa and Jonas had their 4 year old check-in...and wait for it....Elsa weighs more than Jonas!  They clocked in at 34 and 35 pounds...both safely on the charts and doing great!  They both got a shot and there were few tears and proud displays of their band-aids later in the day.

Jonas saw his dentist this week as well!  His teeth looked great and she was impressed with his flossing and brushing.

We went to the pumpkin patch this weekend and had a great time.  Elsa got to buy caramel corn and Jonas got an ear of corn to eat that was bigger than his arm.  Quite a great outing!

We also made it to our first PLU football game this year and were treated to a master class of football.  The lutes downed an undefeated opponent.  It was great!

Great times!  God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Sand in the shoes=good day

Greetings!  We are running a bit behind these days...four colds and a cough means a little lag on the blog.  But we are getting slowly better:)

Jonas and Elsa love their new school. It has a sandbox and they play any day that they can!  Evidence of this is found in their shoes after school...a pile of sand started appearing by our front door.  The kids were being really responsible and dumping out their shoes so that they wouldn't get their socks dirty the next day.  The one drawback was that they were dumping out their shoes inside.  We have worked on dumping the sand outside and things have gone much smoother!

We had our first week of pretty "fall-y" weather and the new winter jackets have made their first appearance.  A mom at the school commented, "I bet we see a lot of those coats"...then we noticed that her two kids had the same coats...Costco had a really good deal!

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

Warm Fall Days...we can still outdoor play!

Greetings! 
Jonas and Elsa spent the week learning all about letters at school.  It is great to hear and see their adventures in school (we get a weekly newsletter with lots of great pictures!).  They amaze us with their new learning everyday!

This week the flu returned and we are slowly getting better.  Our stock of tissues is running low!  Elsa and Jonas are still high energy and that is always great to see.

This week we visited Grandma Jeanne and practiced rolling down the hill.  See the video for more information:)

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas

B is for Ball and Ballet

Greetings! 

 This is my favorite picture!!!

Elsa and Jonas are learning so much!  Each day they surprise us with something new that they picked up at school.  This week the letter B was featured and the kids learned how to make the b sound, recognize b and Elsa proudly proclaimed that "ballet starts with b".  A great week!

Jonas and Elsa are starting to think about what they want to be for Halloween this year.  It is pretty neat that they are aware that it is coming up and they have real specific costumes that they are interested in.  More to come on this I am sure!

We celebrated last weekend with family and have some pictures from our feast!  We also have some singers in the family:) :)

A good, but long week, and we spent most of Sunday relaxing and recovering from bits of colds and all around tiredness. 

God Bless,
Mari & Dan & Elsa & Jonas