December Fun

This year I decided to do a few more fun things with Christmas/December.  There are 24 days before Christmas, which mathematically works out nicely with 4 kids :)  

We will continue to do our Advent calendar, which we have done every year.  I was hoping to add some scripture memory to it, but haven't gotten that far yet.  The littles are still pretty small for that, but Z could do it...maybe next year.  Anyway, this is the same calendar that Jenny and I did as kids!  Actually, Mom and Jenny made 2 duplicates before I even had kids, so this is a duplicate.  And when Mom died, we split up the charms that were in hers, so now half of the good old ones are in my calendar.  (I even looked just now for an old picture of me and Jenny in front of the Advent calendar...but my hair was way too ugly and Jenny was in her "chubby" phase, so I couldn't bring myself to share it!). 

I got the idea to do something each day from pinterest.  (LOVE IT!)  So I sat down and wrote up a list of all the fun crafts we could do, things we could bake, places we could go, and people we could see this month.  Then I sat down with my calendar and made it all work.  I wrote each idea on a slip of paper and dated it.  Here is this years list: 

Make a paper chain; make M&M Christmas trees; cut down our tree; make Christmas cards; make candy canes with beads; go to Our Lady of the Snows; color a Christmas picture; make felt Christmas tree ornaments; go see the model trains at MoBot; bake cookies; make snowflakes; go to Santa's Magical Kingdom to see lights; make ice sun catchers; freeze bubbles; play with Papa Dan and Grandma Dena; wrap presents; watch the Grinch; make reindeer candy canes; make bird feeders; watercolor trees; paint our breakfast; make hot chocolate with marshmallows; read the Christmas story from Luke; go to Andy and Emily's; happy birthday Jesus! 

Whew.  Not sure if I am super mom or nutty mom.  Check back with me. 

Today we did day 1, and Z took all those slips with the dates on them, read them, put them in order, and made the chain.  The little boys played with scissors, glue sticks, and markers.

Last fun idea for the year (again, thank you pinterest!) was to wrap up all of the Christmas/winter books that we have and let the kids open one each night before bed. I would get the books out anyway, we would read them anyway, but it is more fun to open up presents.  Z was excited to see some of the old books..."oh, I love that one!  I remember that one!".   

Should be a fun and busy month in our world!