Our Advent Calender

 

I got creative (or motivated or something ...) this year and got an advent calender all put together!  I'm amazed I got it done before December 1st.  I got some ideas from this website, and then just made some up as well.  The look of my calender totally came from this site.  I plan to put a tutorial on putting it all together on my other blog at some point.  Hopefully sooner than later, but no promises.  :)

Here is the list of things we've had fun doing so far:
*Give a card and gift card to the mail carrier.

*Pick some families in the neighborhood to give "hugs" and "kisses" to.
*Eat at Red Robin.  While there pass out our "Free kids meal" vouchers we have.
*Mail a hug to grandparents. (If you know me at all, you know that we for sure did NOT do paint.  We traced, we used crayons to color and we cut, lol.)
*Start our Lego Advent calender (this was December 1st).
*Take dinner to a family in the neighborhood who could use it.
*Make snowflakes and EAT them!  :)
*Send Christmas cards to great grandparents (these are still on my counter, but will be sent out).
*Send cards of love to a family member who recently lost their husband.
*Make gingerbread houses. This is a huge ordeal for me.  Lots of mess and I HATE mess ... like a lot.  It gives me anxiety to let my kids do messy things (like, we NEVER paint.  Ever!  When we do it's a HUGE deal at our house.).  Dale was in charge of putting on blobs of icing, which is why he's in almost every picture.  He also put the houses together (like "glued" them) while the kids and I went through their toys and found a basket full to give to other kids who won't get much at Christmas.  

Everyone is almost done.

Starting out.

Making sure dad puts it in just the right spot.

Emma super tired, and Kate's house.

Emma still tired 3 seconds later, and Will's roof.

Little houses.

Concentration.

And done!

Done, and love it.

Super proud of herself.  She loved it.