December 10th

10 days in and we are still going!  After nap time today Lily asked to do the calendar so we pulled down the bag for day 10 and read Luke 2:8-14 which is the angel's visitation to the shepherds announcing Jesus' birth. Lily and Charlotte play with their nativity sets all of the time so Lily already knew the shepherds were there because of the angel, such a bright little 3-year-old.

Today we decorated felt Christmas trees for our activity.  I simply cut the trees, a couple of stars, and some ornaments out of some felt and let them go at decorating and then redecorating their trees.

 Lily was very focused on getting the ornaments all in the right place.

 Charlotte was a little more random about where she placed her ornaments, but she set them in place very carefully.

It was a fun way to spend some time this afternoon.

December 9th

On the bright side, both of our girls seems to be happy and healthy again,their parents on the other hand...

Today's scripture was Luke 2:1-7 which is of course Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus.  It is interesting that after having 2 children my perspective has changed when I hear this story.  Riding for miles on a donkey at 9 months pregnant, not having a bed to sleep in, laboring and delivering in a barn, how miserable!

On Sundays I like to keep our Advent activities fairly simple since it is the Sabbath.  Today we did puzzles.  I just printed off an image, cut it into pieces, and laminated it.

December 8th

Today was a crazy busy day!  We were booked from morning to late at night and it was just go, go, go!!!  We missed our scripture for today, which would have been Luke 1:39-56.  We will have to incorporate it into Sunday's Advent activities.

The plan for today was to host a Christmas party.  The girls and I had my primary class, which consists of 10 year-old girls, over for a party.  We decorated pine cone ornaments and finished up the rest of the cinnamon ornaments from earlier this week.  We also cut out and decorated sugar cookies.

My girls loved it!  They had some really sweet girls who loved playing with them and entertaining them around and got to fully participate in the cookie cutting, baking, and decorating.  They were sad to see them all have to go at the end.

I slacked on pictures, I only got one of Lily after everyone left with her snowman cookie family.  I was too busy with the goings on to take pictures.

December 7th

One week in!  Today we started out by reading Matthew 1:20-25, which is when the angel visits Joseph and tells him about God's plan for Mary.

Our activity for today was decorating gingerbread houses, but our houses weren't made of gingerbread, or graham crackers for that matter.  Instead I formed them out of rice crispie treats and it worked so well!  No collapsing walls to worry about.

 I didn't really get many action pictures because me camera battery died after 3 pictures so it charged while we decorated.

 Lily took her sweet time though so we did get some pictures of her hard at work on her house.

 Lily had a great time sticking candy on her house.

 Tyson wins the prize for using the most candy on his, but he seemed to rather enjoy designing it.

 This one is mine.

 Charlotte lost interest in decorating when she discovered that the decorations were candy.  She pretty much sat and munched while we did ours.

 Tyson likes to add in lots of detail, that or save candy for later.

 I sure do love my family!

December 6th

Almost a week in, Charlotte is on the mend, Lily is ill, and we were stuck at home all day today...again.  Sometimes I forget on how much I rely on my little outings, playgroup, preschool, they really feel the need that I have for adult conversation (since Tyson is gone so much) and going without them for the week has really worn me down.

Anyway, after nap, when they are at their happiest and least sick, we did our calendar.  We started of course by reading our scripture, which today was Isaiah 7:14 and I explained that the prophets knew long before Jesus' birth that he would be coming.

Our activity today was to make cinnamon ornaments.  And when I say cinnamon I mean it, no flour in these suckers, just cinnamon, applesauce and glue.  Since the dough had to sit for an  hour after making it I did that earlier and then we gathered at the table, picked out some cookie cutters and went to work.

We ended up with quite a few cute little ornaments that are bound to make our artificial tree smell like cinnamon for the next month. I'd better make sure that my Scentsy warmer in the living room has a complimentary scent in it or it could be bad.

 

 They weren't all dry in time to decorate them, but we did manage to get the snowflakes covered in glitter and hung on the tree.

P.S. Lily wore her jingle bell bracelet again all day today...I might have to hide that thing fairly soon if this keeps up.

December 5th

Just when Charlotte was starting to feel better (still teething, but the fever and vomiting are gone) Lily decided to catch the bug and is now ill.  I'm actually glad that we have these little activities to do every day because we are stuck at home, no playgroup or other outings for us until the kids are better.

Today is day 5 and our scripture was Matthew 1:18-19, and while my girls can't quite understand it yet, I just explained to them that Joseph protected Mary and took care of her while she was expecting baby Jesus.

Our activity this morning was making jungle bell bracelets.  For my girls who love to accessorize this was a big hit!

I was surprised at how well Lily did stringing the bells on herself.  I only added the last 5 for her because she was having trouble adding more without losing the ones that she already had.

 I think that they sure turned out cute.

 Charlotte was excited when she realized that clapping her hands made it jingle.

I'm pretty sure that this will be all that I hear all day long!

December 4th

We started out the day with our advent calendar this morning.  Our scripture this morning was Luke 1:26-33, which is the Annunciation.  We talked for a minute about how Mary was told that she would be having a baby, and that he would be very special.

Afterwards, our activity was making borax snowflakes.  It was a quick and simple project, just 1/3 cup of borax in the bottom of a pint mason jar, then you fill the jar with boiling water.  Create your snowflake out of a pipe cleaner and then hang it from a string in the water and let it sit over night.

We started ours first thing this morning so that they would be done tonight rather than having them sit over night.

Charlotte didn't quite understand what to do with the pipe cleaner.

Lily was so excited by her shapes!

Our snowflakes, though none of them are shaped like snowflakes.

4 hours later

They turned out so pretty!!!