Advent Update

I don’t plan to give you a daily play-by-play of our advent activities.  However, I just wanted to let you know that Day 1 was a success. 

Here are pictures of the kids with the advent calendar and Claire looking at the clue for Day 1.  She actually “got” the story and enjoyed the craft.  David was in a pretty funky mood this morning.  I read our scripture from The Message but later realized the Claire’s bible (given to her by Will’s dad) is a Children’s International Version and much more kid-friendly, so we will be reading from there the rest of the time. 

Here are the kids with our advent tree and their ornaments.  All I can say if you do this craft is “go easy on the glue”.  These things took most of the day to dry.  I bought this little tree at Target for $8 and plan on having Will add a strand of lights.  I need to find a place to put it where baby brother can’t get his grubby little hands on it!

Our fun activity today was visiting Santa Claus.  That is why the kids are all dressed up in their Christmas finery.  I’ll get our photo up soon, but let’s just say Santa has gotten pricey … and they don’t let you take pictures with your own camera now even if you buy their photo too (which I always do).  All the kids did great and no tears were shed, which is what I call a successful visit to Santa.  The big kids even told him what they wanted for Christmas. 

We stopped by here on the way home and the kids were so excited.  David was crying when he went to bed tonight because he wanted to look at more Christmas lights.  I have that planned as one of our “fun” advent activities … lights, pjs and hot chocolate.

All in all, it was a busy and fun day and a great way to kick off the Christmas season.