Christmas Advent

It's that time of year! A lot of planning and prep went into the Advent again this year but we did some fun and different things. And I think the kids are really starting to like this tradition. I hope so. It was so special to me growing up. Some of the birthday stuff and family parties are in a different blog, but this is almost the rest. Didn't take pictures of some of the movie times they had while I was working...but I think we documented pretty good :)

A really great picture of them opening the first gift :)

The first night we actually read the little lamb book about the Nativity. Trying to keep our focus on the whole point of it all :) The 2nd we walked around the lights at Layton Park. It was really fun! The kids were cute!

Baking cookies to take to some neighbors. Greta accidentally burned her finger on the edge of the pan when we were putting the kisses on - I made her stop crying and pretend to do it again - I'm a horrible mom. Pictures aren't THAT important!

I also found out about this "Back to Bethlehem" thing that didn't seem very well advertised...but we decided to try it out not knowing a thing about what it would be like. I thought it was actually pretty neat. The kids liked it. There were TONS of people which was kind of annoying - but it might be something we'd like to do again.

The live nativity was Greta's favorite. She just wanted to see Mary and baby Jesus. She was expecting to see the REAL legit baby Jesus. (She's been obsessed with Mary and babies in her tummy - usually baby Jesus - ever since all the nativity stuff). And when she'd hear about Bethlehem over the course of the month she'd yell out "We went to Bethlehem!!!" So dang cute.

Crafting with cousins. This one I thought was pretty fun and successful...as far as crafts/paint/glitter with kids can go.

Another new thing that I'd been wanting to try - the Kriskindl Market up at This is the Place. It was a beautiful day. Super crowded. Kind of muddy. And not that great for kids. They lost interest pretty fast in all the shops and we didn't really capitalize on the few things they had for kids. And the Santa was a little disappointing - although the kids didn't really mention anything about it. I did score a REALLY cool set of 3 Christmas trees made by this guy with his lathe. Super excited about that. And Tanner had the best brat he's ever had in his life. So it might be worth going back - but maybe without kids???

And even another new thing. We went to a symphony that was SUPPOSED to be really great for kids of all ages. It wasn't. It was very formal Christmas songs and lots of just the symphony playing stuff and a lady singing Handel's Messiah opera style. I thought the whole thing was great but I was pretty annoyed that there wasn't more kids songs and interaction. They had a sing along at the end but it was all hymns. NO kids Christmas songs. The kids basically hated it. Great use of money. Oh well. Maybe someday they'll appreciate the arts :) We did ride the front runner and trax to it - which was kind of fun.

Brooke and Alec came up one afternoon and we decorated boxes for the food bank. It was fun. Harvey did the most - Alec and Greta barely had it in them to finish one. Harvey cruised through them. Hopefully he caught the drift of what and why we were doing it.

Yummy treat crafts with friends. This one was pretty fun too!

We just went to the library one day. They played a little with the toys and picked out some books and Lottie screamed and it was super fun.

One pic from the ward Christmas party. They did a good job. Good food with a nice Savior focused program. Harvey loved it, obviously.

Gingerbread houses! I think I still need to fine tune the best way to do these. I like the freedom of the graham crackers a little more than the ready made ones - but need to investigate maybe some better ways to hold things together and other candy. Harvey made his some armybase and all the green bears were his army men. Love it. Lottie mostly just ate everything in site of hers.

I let them sleep by the tree one night. So cute.

Christmas pizza wreaths :)

More crafting. I have to admit this one was a doozy. I was SUPER grumpy or something and mostly just yelled at the kids and Lottie for making such a mess and made her cry and was kind of losing my marbles. I feel pretty bad about it. Hopefully they don't remember awful mom for that activity. Eek.

Smiling in between tears....

And the Sunday before Christmas we attempted our first acted out Nativity. The bigger kids LOVED it - especially miss Mary. Lottie wasn't having any part in it. At least she's in the picture because that's what's most important (eye roll emoji).

And I worked ALL day on Christmas Eve so we did the lego presents before I went to work. They seemed excited. And had a pretty good day, I think.

I love these kids so much. And our little family. And all the fun things we got to do together this month. It felt a lot more fun and happy and enjoyable to me this year - maybe because they got a little more into it. We had some doozy moments but that comes with the territory. I'm excited for the new things we'll be able to do as they get even a little bit older. Hopefully they had fun but also that they remember always that it's about Jesus first. And showing kindness and love to others. I'm excited to incorporate more service stuff in there when they get a bit bigger too. But for this year - I'd say it was a great success!