December - Advent Begins

One of my favorite parts about Christmas is Advent. I have done advent activities since Ben was 1 year old and somehow I didn't do it last year!? We have our favorite Santa calendar that Grandma Mary got us years ago and the boys love moving the candy cane closer to Christmas each day. This year my friend Carrie got us this fun Advent calendar with little envelopes and fun activities to do inside. I used most of them but modified it a bit with some of our favorite traditions. I really tried to focus on what we could do or give to someone else on most days and the kids loved every single day.

This is the first day - Monday the 1st - 

 

And this is GG later in the day when we went to visit Daddy at work...

Here's a list of our
Advent Activities -
1. Make Christmas Ornaments (for the grandparents)
2. Donate food to our local Food Bank (the kids shopped for it and dropped it off)
3. Make a List of Gratitude (another post...it's funny)
4. The Christmas Parade!
5. Watch a Christmas movie (We did this often - Elf and Home Alone are their faves)
6. Make Christmas cards (Des only made one for me!)
7. Write to Santa
8. Adopt an Angel and shop for them (this turned into buying a bunch of things for the school drive)
9. Check out Christmas books from the library
10. Do a family Christmas craft (Play Doh trees and handprint canvas)
11. Go Christmas Caroling
12. Play a Nativity Game
13. Make our Cardboard Christmas House
14. Celebrate our own Christmas Angel (GG!)
15. Choose toys to donate (we do this every month bc I hate clutter!)
16. Shop for your family and wrap the gifts
17. Go See Santa
18. Serve your community (took cupcakes and cards to a nursing home)
19. Give a gift (to our teachers and administrators)
20. Picnic under the tree
21. Special family celebration (Each lit a candle and made a wish for the new year)
22. Go see the Christmas lights!
23. Family Game Night!
24. Make Cookies for Santa

November - Getting our Tree

Is it a noogie? or a sweet hug?

We'll never know!

The Sunday after Thanksgiving we were ready to decorate for Christmas! We headed to Lowe's in Shawnee to pick out our tree. Ben and I wanted to cut down a tree on our farm, but we were outvoted. And the weather was too bad to go to a tree farm, so Lowe's it was.

 

We picked out a HUGE beautiful Douglas Fir and it was ready to go in a flash. I can get on board with that! :) The kids were excited and we were ready to get in the Christmas spirit!

Going to see Santa!

We left for our big trip on Friday, December 21st, so the Sunday before we decided to stop by and see Santa after church. The boys were super excited to see him and take their letters so he could read them in person. G just liked having an excuse to look pretty in her christmas dress!

We went to Northpark Mall because that is where we have gone for the last 6 pictures with Santa! Sadly, they got a new Santa this year and I didn't like him near as much. Oh well...the boys didn't know the difference and Ben could not WAIT to show him his letter. He even cut out a picture of the basketball hoop game that he wanted and taped it on the letter so Santa would for sure know what he was asking for.

Santa was very appreciative of the letters and the boys were so cute with him.

Then little sis got to join in the fun.

Then we made Daddy wait in line to buy the picture while we ran around to check out the decorations and fountains.

Then before the long trek home we decided to get some frozen yogurt. The lime green walls and red furniture was super cute and christmasy but I couldn't get little miss g to cooperate for some cute photos.

But these boys did!

It was a super successful Santa visit!

Advent - December 24th

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;

It is the night of our dear Savior's birth!

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born!

O night divine, O night,

O night divine!

It is Christmas Eve!

Advent Activity: Be with the ones we love and exchange gifts in honor of the ultimate gift, the birth of Jesus.

We had such a wonderful Christmas at my parents house. The boys woke everyone up bright and early and were very excited to see what Santa had brought them. There is a rigid tradition at Papa's house that the hallway door must stay shut and there can be no peeking until he is ready. He tortures everyone by leisurely making the first batch of coffee AND taking a shower. Then he checks the stash and reports on his findings before FINALLY opening the door and letting in the parade of bright-eyes to see if Santa really did come.

He has done this since we first moved into the house nearly 25 years ago and though it seems cruel, it has become one of our favorite parts of the entire day...all curled up together in one big bed, eager with anticipation. See for yourself here:

You can bet your bottom dollar you will see Ben's bottom by the end! :)

The only photo I captured of the initial findings:

*See those 4 beautifully wrapped boxes? Those would be iPads. Yep, Santa was good to us "kids" this year. Mighty good.

The rest of the day was spent wrestling with packaging (argh.), playing with our new toys, being read to, tackling each other, running around in circles, shooting hoops, growing magic animal pellets and water balls, popping HUGE bouncy balloons, racing cars, grinding playdough from our playdough factory into Gaga's carpet, drinking coffee, eating leftovers, entertaining Mimi, laughing, kissing, hugging, loading up the cars, and sadly, departing. Lane and Jess headed for Tulsa, Mimi headed for Edmond, and we headed home...afterall, Santa was coming to OUR house that night!

storytime with lala.

My baby yogi does HERO pose while playing with buzz. Seriously this kid knows all of like 5 words and Buzz is one of them.

Uncle tackling!

Nephew tackling!

Mimi is thoroughly entertained.

Showing Daddy the magic of the iPad. Impressive, y'all.

Whoa. Haircut?

Digging through his treasures. This is Des' new workbench. Ben likes.

Family! Notice who the boy clings to. Yes, CLINGS.

Jess and Gaga!

Two scary family photos. I show them only for the sake of love.

Lala and Ben set up a growing station. Lots of magic happening there!

He may be wee (and constantly huggin' the legs), but I love this little boy.

It was a very merry Christmas indeed...and we still had another one to go!