Advent

This year, we made an Advent calendar with Christopher to countdown the days until Christmas. I put together an envelope with a number on it that represents each day until Christmas. Inside the envelope is an activity (either a service activity or a fun holiday tradition) to do each day. For example, the activity for Sunday was to visit a Salvation Army ringer and donate money in their bucket. For that one, Chris went to his piggy bank and took out the $3 he had in the "donate" section (piggy banks are pretty fancy these days--there's also a save, spend, and invest section) to give. We also found some loose change around the house to give. On Monday, we had a Christmas song dance party and yesterday we donated food to Harvesters. Well, today was a fun activity, one that Chris was looking forward to all day! I found this online and it was to make Christmas trees out of ice cream cones, icing and sprinkles. Here is our boy hard at work!

We made one for Daddy and then Chris and I each made our own. And this activity wouldn't be nearly as fun if we didn't get to eat the trees, so eat them we did! Here's what they looked like before they got "chopped down."

Chris is also having to bundle up now that the temperature is starting to drop! In typical Kansas fashion, yesterday was 64 degrees and we were outside playing with John, Katie and Mary Jane in the driveway with no coats while today we are busting out the down to keep out the cold. I give you the silly boy in his new coat...