Nativity Advent Calendar
Since Grayson's first Christmas, I've wanted some sort of advent calendar to help him count down to Christmas Day, but I had a lot of trouble finding the right one. I didn't want anything related to Santa, because we don't do Santa, and boy was it was hard to find one without a Santa on it. (Meant to do a whole post on Skipping Santa, but it just wasn't happening with our schedule this year... maybe next December!!) Even when I did find one without a Santa, for some reason it was never the one I wanted, usually it involved a small gift for each day until Christmas which was a little more commercial than what I was going for. Then last year I ran across this little gem from Fisher-Price:
.JPG)
I knew I'd found the perfect advent calendar for our family! It wasn't just missing Santa, it was actually focused on the Christmas story! The kids can countdown to Christmas, visually see how many days are left by how many nativity figures are left to be placed, and they add Baby Jesus on Christmas day. It is very well done, even cuter in person. Last year Grayson got to put a figure on the nativity every day, but this year Harrison was old enough to want to get involved, so they had to take turns - Grayson did odd-numbered days and Harrison did even-numbered days. Hopefully next year I'll remember to switch that so that it'll be Harrison's year to add Baby Jesus on Christmas Day. They were both super excited each day to see what figure they were adding to the nativity, and count how many days were left until Christmas. And Harrison's daily question of "My turn talendar?? My turn??" was totally precious.
Painting with a Twist
The Christmas party for Matt's work was at Painting with a Twist this year, and since I have been wanting to try it and it was open to kids, all 4 of us went. Yep, we took a 2-year-old to Painting with a Twist. And bought him his own canvas. It was awesome. I'll let the pictures do the talking. (Sorry, we didn't take the good camera, it's just iPhone pics for this one and our kids don't sit still for iPhone pics! Too used to that DSLR!)
I got to actually do my own painting while Matt supervised the kids (when you see "supervised", you should read "made sure they did not get paint on anything except their canvases and themselves"). I was happy with my cute little snowman when I finished, and I'm thinking about hanging the kids paintings too!! Both kids actually started out paying attention to the instructor and really trying to follow directions. Harrison started to do his own thing not too far into the painting, and Grayson made it almost to the end before going all abstract on us. Here are our finished paintings...
And here's what Harrison looked like when we got home...
...paint on the face, paint in the hair...
Christmas Cookies
The kids and I did our annual Christmas cookie decorating the Saturday before Christmas. This is the first year that Harrison has gotten in on the action, and he had a blast. Both kids had plenty of cookies that ended up with entire mountains of sprinkles on them while I was distracted with the other child, but it was fun times. Unfortunately, Saturday afternoon both Grayson & I came down with an awful stomach bug that Grandma and then Harrison had both had earlier in the week, so I was afraid to let anyone eat any of the cookies in case we had contaminated them!!! So 2013 will forever be the year we decorated a gazillion Christmas cookies but did not eat any of them!
 |
| This is harder than it looks, people! |
 |
| Nevermind, I forgot about this one! One cookie did get eaten! |
And a little bit of randomness...
Before I get to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, here's a few more random favorite moments caught on camera during the month of December...
We had a couple serious helpers with Christmas decorating this year!
Both kids had a blast putting out their own nativity sets this year...
Had plenty of silly time on decorating day too...
And I've had 2 little helpers in the kitchen making all sorts of goodies this month...
We're ALWAYS excited when Grandma & Grandpa get here!!!
Grayson was always ready to put gifts under the tree as we got them wrapped,
and to read the tags to Harrison...
And because Christmas wasn't chaotic enough on it's own... I decided this would be a good time to make Harrison's belated birthday cake... the one that I bought a cake pan for and planned to do on his actual birthday, but then I wasn't feeling well that week and just couldn't do it and he ended up with a cookie cake... first time either of them haven't had a homemade cake on their birthday. Since I already had the cake pan, I told myself I'd just make his cake sometime later, and sometime later turned out to be the week before Christmas, near his 1/4 birthday... so here's Harrison's 2.25 birthday cake!
By Christmas Eve, everyone had recovered from the awful stomach bug and I was relieved that it looked like we would actually get to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Day instead of having to postpone!!
First important thing to mention about Christmas Eve is that we were blessed with "white stuff" again! (aka frost)
 |
| Brrrr! |
Then they were sooooo excited to open a few gifts!! They were having so much fun we let them open 1 more gift than planned - their gifts from each other. During a shopping trip the week before, Grayson had picked out a toy that he REALLY wanted to give Harrison (a Potty-Time Elmo, "Harrison'll love this, Mommy!"), and it really was a very timely gift for Harrison because THIS happened in December too...
 |
| First successful trip to the potty! Grayson was as excited as Harrison and gave Harrison one of his own fave undies to celebrate! |
And here are a few family pictures from Christmas Eve too...
Another reason we did our Christmas Eve festivities early, was so that we could squeeze in one more Christmas tradition that had been a little lacking this year. The last few years we've tried to take a Christmas Light Walk through our neighborhood several times throughout the month of December, but this year our schedule was just too jam-packed. As of Christmas Eve we had only been on one Christmas Light Walk and we only walked down one street that night!! So after supper, we loaded the kids into the double stroller with cups of hot chocolate, blankets, bowls of popcorn, and we covered nearly the whole neighborhood, admiring the Christmas lights! Wish we had fit more light walks in this year, but it's a little hard to fit in when there's somewhere to be every single night, then when the schedule finally lets up you're taking turns with a stomach bug...
 |
| Our House... anybody notice a little person somewhere in this picture?? |
 |
| Tuning Grayson's new guitar! |
 |
| Grayson's Gift Pile |
 |
| Harrison's Gift Pile |
This is the 3rd Christmas that we've spent in our own home, rather than driving back to North Carolina for the holiday. Although we miss the family Christmas gatherings, there is certainly something to be said for waking up in your own bed Christmas morning and having a lazy Christmas where the kids don't have to rush through their gifts to make it to Christmas dinner on time. My favorite part of having Christmas at home is that there's no commitments we have to hurry & get ready for. The kids can take as long as they want to go through their gifts. Well, that AND not having to haul their Christmas gifts halfway across the country without them seeing them, only to turn around and haul them right back. Pretty awesome not having to do that.
This year Grayson did not get up until 7am, which was great. We had to wake Harrison once Grayson was up, so that he didn't miss out on anything - so he was a little groggy for the first few minutes, but quickly warmed up when he realized it was finally present-opening-day.
The kids had a blast with all their gifts and we had a blast watching them. Highlights are below, trying not to go too crazy with the pictures but I have soooo many favorites and the pictures tell the story better than any words!
 |
| See next picture for what they were laughing at... |
 |
| Harrison took a bunch of self-portraits & he didn't even know it! |
 |
| Grayson stuck his arm in the stocking to fish things out... Harrison dumped the whole thing upside-down!! |
Before having kids, I had no idea how much work goes into Christmas preparations! But it is so worth it to see their faces on Christmas morning. Now it's hard to remember what Christmas was like before we had two excited little ones ripping into the wrapping paper & exclaiming over their gifts! Love Christmas with young children!!
And that's a wrap...
Alright, I did it! That's our Christmas season this year... chaotic, overflowing, and blessed! Closing with a couple more pics I couldn't resist... these are from the week since Christmas.
No comments:
Post a Comment