Advent Calendar

Today is a perfect day to organize our Advent Calendar.  Most of us are under the weather in one way or another. 

 

Last year's calendar ended up being mostly a count down because it wasn't very organized and because we moved December 17th.  This year we don't have a refrigerator that will hold magnets, so I have to come up with something new.  I'm still tossing around a couple ideas, but I like the idea of stringing something across the windows in the breakfast nook!

 

 

I can't wait.  Hopefully we can keep up with it.  I'm trying to make the activities realistic, so it doesn't make our schedule any more hectic.

I'm most excited about incorporating this idea . . .

The week of Thanksgiving we researched thanksgiving in the Bible: how we should give God thanks in our prayers and in our praise / singing and how we should be thankful in EVERYTHING.  The kids enjoyed the study, and I think they learned quite a bit.

My Darling Niece!

We headed to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with my family.  While we were there, I took a few (and when I say few I mean over 1,000) pictures of my niece and a couple pictures of my sister and brother-in-law for their Christmas card.  It would probably help if I had a better camera or knew more about how to accomplish what I wanted, but I just set my camera on Burst (the setting where you hold the button down and it takes like . . . a 1,000 pics).  We were just winging it, and having a great time watching Bella react to everything.

 

 

 

 

HaPpY {belated} bIrThDaY to Uncle Josh!

Butterfly's Birthday Lunch

This is yet another post that's been waiting in the wings, half finished.  Thought I'd take a few minutes at lunch to finish it.

 

We don't do many parties for the kids after their 5th birthday, so we had a couple of Butterfly's friends over for lunch.  She loves the Tangled movie, so we went with that theme for her "cake" and for a craft that afternoon.

 

Her food choice was a pasta bar.  We had marinara, alfredo and a creamy garlic butter sauce as well as spaghetti, penne and angel hair pasta.  We also had salad and garlic bread per the birthday girl's request.

 

Nana bought favor bags and her friends took home their craft, a flower stamp, watercolor paints and a picture of Repunzel to paint.

 

I made Repunzel tower cupcakes.  REALLY glad I decided to make only 6 (for the kids and the cake) and use the rest of the batter to make a layered cake for the adults.  They're cute cupcakes, but it would have taken forever to make a dozen or so of them.

 

She absolutly loved how the cupcakes turned out!

This was the best I felt like doing after midnight on the layered cake.  I didn't feel like making brown icing for the cobblestones.  You get the picture.

Singing to the birthday girl!

And he wonders how he got icing in his nose!

 

Not a great picture, but the only one I have of her and her friends from lunch.

The craft was making Pascal from card stock and party blowers.  Other than the birthday girl yawning the entire way through the craft, they kids had a blast!  Pappy & the Knight might say otherwise as they were the target of honking party blowers during their nap.