Advent 2013

For me, there is no more exciting time of year than the Christmas season. I've always loved Christmas and do even more now that I'm a mom. Watching your babies experience the magic of Christmas - from Santa, to snow, to the miraculous birth of Baby Jesus - is like nothing else in the world. It gives me some serious warm fuzzies! So you can imagine my excitement each year when it's time to start the countdown. We celebrated Advent for the first time last year when I felt like Carsen was big enough to start understanding that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. Of course, even this year she is a little young to grasp the notion of a savior, but I'm happy to start with the idea that we're celebrating his birth.

Last year, I made an advent calendar using some pretty winter cardstock I had on hand, and some leftover Christmas ribbon. You can read the how-to along with our list of Advent activities here. It was really cute, but it got on my nerves a little with the way it was assembled. So this year, I decided to simplify the calendar itself. I still wanted it to be reusable for future years, though, so I used a piece of foam-core posterboard and a pad of sticky notes. I started by making a calendar grid on the posterboard {it was 20" x 30" so I made 4x4 squares and left a 1" margin on each side of the 30" length}. Then I wrote each of the activities on the back of a sticky note - 23 total this year. Since certain activities are better for weekends or some are better for earlier/later in the month, I used our Google calendar to plan out what activities to do on which days and stuck them on the Advent calendar accordingly.

Once all the sticky notes were in place, I just used silver and black Sharpies to write the countdown numbers on them. I personally like to do the numbers as a countdown, although I know a lot of calendars count up to Christmas. To hang it, I placed a command hook upside down on the back of our basement door. Then I hot glued some ribbon to the back of the calendar and looped the ribbon over the command hook. Voila!

 Originally, I had my heart SET on red sticky notes. In my mind, they were everywhere for the holidays. I mean, they're sticky notes... how else would they capitalize on the holiday season?? In reality, I could find them nowhere. It got to be a few days in when I finally decided to just use blue and go with a "winter" color scheme. They're a little too electric blue for my taste, but I feel that I did the best I could with the resources that were available. I did find a pack of Post-Its that were more of a dark blue and they would have looked better, but I couldn't bring myself to spend $8 on a 6-pad pack when I only needed 23 stickies. UGH. I'll begin my hunt for red {or even a nice true green that's not neon!} for next year's calendar promptly on January 1st.

In the mean time, here's our list of activities for this year:

• Decorate the tree and our house together


• Read "The Story of Christmas"


• Make cards for soldiers


• Write a letter to Santa {Carsen dictates, mommy writes. Save it in her baby book!}


• Visit Santa {at the mall}


• New Christmas jammies


• Christmas movie night #1 - Carsen's pick


• Make ice cream cone Christmas trees with cousins


• Learn about the symbols of Christmas


• Make paper cone Christmas trees for decorations


• Visit Valley View Farms {Carsen LOVES looking at Christmas trees in the stores, so this is a huge treat for her}


• Make brown paper garland {like this} for decorations


• Christmas movie night #2 - mommy's pick


• Make gifts for grandparents


• Make & decorate cardboard "Gingerbread" houses


• Go see Christmas lights in the neighborhood


• Read "The Night Before Christmas"


• Make ice bubbles


• Christmas movie night #3 - daddy's pick


• Hot cocoa bar {like the one in this post}


• Make a birthday card for Jesus


• Bake cookies


• Make {prep} a special breakfast for Christmas morning

Some of these are repeats from last year and some are new. As Carsen {and eventually Reagan and any future siblings} gets older there's more she can understand and participate in, so I'll change and adapt what we do each year accordingly.  Some things will probably always be on there like decorating the tree and house together as a family, Christmas movies, baking cookies, and making gifts for grandparents. In the future I'd like to add more service-related activities like volunteering and gathering food, toys, clothing or household items for donations {right now we usually do that around Thanksgiving}.

So far, we have... decorated, read "The Story of Christmas," made cards for soldiers, written a letter to Santa, visited Santa, and gotten new Christmas jammies.

 

 

 

Our Merry Little Christmas

We've had a very busy week since Christmas, but I figured it was a good idea to get this post up before the new year! It's true that Christmas is totally different once you have your own children. I have to say that although this was C's third Christmas, it was by far the one I was most excited about (thus far) and the one that she was most excited about. There's just nothing that compares to delighting your child and watching your child be completely thrilled. Making the magic of Christmas and Santa come alive for her while at the same time introducing Jesus and His birth as the whole reason we celebrate just brought our holiday cheer to a whole new level this year.

Christmas eve surprised us with some snow flurries. Although it hardly appears to be snowing in these pictures, there was a light dusting on the ground when it finally stopped and there were even some leftovers (especially further north where our parents live) on Christmas day. Regardless, C was totally excited about it.

Later that night...

We spent Christmas day celebrating first at home, then at Josh's parents' house, and finished the day at my parents' house. It was a stellar day all around filled with fun, food, and best of all our wonderful families!

Side note: Please forgive the world's worst white balance in these photos. Josh insisted the blinds be closed with indoor lights on even though it was daylight outside, so my white balance was horribly confused and off kilter. I chose orangey on the daylight setting over bright blue on the incandescent setting :-/

New boots!

The "Christmas Barbie" she had been asking for. We went with Skipper since C is only 2.5. Bonus- she has a pug puppy :)

Daddy may have also picked up the Barbie & Ken set from Toy Story 3, one of C's very favorite movies. 

And finally, her "Christmas Bicycle!"

For the first time this year we did breakfast at home before heading out to our parents' houses. I prepped it the night before (in about 5 minutes, not counting the bacon cooking) and then baked it in the morning while C was opening her gifts. It was really good. I'll share the recipe later!

Off to Josh's parents' house!

Her Jessie doll was the toy that she wouldn't put down all day.

It was a quieter celebration at my mom's. My sister had a sick kid so she and her 5 munchkins stayed home. It was just us, my brother, his wife and their 1-year old. We still made an amazing dinner of locally-known-as-the-best-around crab cakes and filet mignon with salad, potatoes, and green beans. Once we were sufficiently stuffed we opened presents, enjoyed some pie and coffee, and then called it a night.

Merry Christmas, Eli!

{Blurry, but so cute :)}

Pretending she's drinking from an Orioles shot-glass mug my mom gave to Josh. C totally thought it was just a coffee mug made for her.

Pie!

And thus concluded our very blessed, very yummy, very merry little Christmas spent with the people we love most. We certainly couldn't ever ask for more than that :) 

DIY Gift Tags

As the gift wrapping gets under way around here, I thought I would share the one aspect of my wrapping that is DIY this year! I am using all of my white card stock scraps to make gift tags! What else do you do with all those remnants anyway?? It's the easiest thing in the world. I'm not measuring or anything, just cutting my remnants (mostly big strips/rectangles) into small rectangles and trimming the corners on one end. They're somewhat imperfect, but close enough that you'd never be able to tell unless you really looked hard. To add a little festive touch, I'm using a silver Sharpie to make a border just away from the edge. You could use any color you wanted to suit the occasion or match the gift wrap you're using.

Since I'm a recycler/re-user, I totally re-use gift bags that are in decent shape. I just hate when I have a perfectly good gift bag but the tag has already been written on. These gift tags are super easy to attach to gift bags, solving that problem! I just use a hole punch to make a hole, and then cut a slice from the edge of the tag into the hole. You can easily slip the handle of the gift bag into the hole but it closes up well enough that the tag stays on.

I've seen a lot of great ideas for DIY gift tags out on Pinterest but I must admit I haven't looked at many of them. This is a great way to save yourself from having to spend an extra $5-$10 on gift tags considering an entire pack of 50 sheets of white, 8.5x11" card stock is $1.99. That's practically gift tags for life. My husband asked me to make some for him and I had 10 of them ready in less than 5 minutes. They could easily be made while watching a Christmas movie or catching up on your DVR, then when you're ready to wrap your tags will be there waiting for you :)

Happy wrapping!

Valley View Farms

Yesterday there was a water main break at J's work and his building was without water. He had to come home at 9 anyway because I had to go do my 1-hour glucose challenge test, so he decided to just take the day. We thought that would make it a perfect day to go visit Valley View Farms!

Originally a roadside produce stand, this place has grown into a gigantic garden center famous for their extensive display of Christmas merchandise during the holiday season. Since C asks to go see the Christmas trees on display in Target every. single. time. we're there, I knew she would be completely in awe of the endless aisles of Christmas trees and decorations at Valley View Farms. I was right ;)

Checking out an all-pink Christmas tree

One of the many intricate Christmas villages they have set up on display

Peanuts! We love the Peanuts :)

No surprise these two were drawn to this display

"A BIIIIIIIIIIG ice cream cone!"

She had to touch every piece of "necklace" she saw

More necklace

And even more necklace

She was a little unsure of the Nutcrackers after I made one say hello to her

All pink ornaments and decorations for breast cancer awareness

They even had a decorated dog house. I think she thought the puppies might be real

There were many themed trees. 

Yes, this one is "Jersey Shore" themed - like the tv show, not the actual place.

The Elvis themed tree

A "Yellow Submarine" themed tree (really?!)

I think you get the idea

Once our senses were thoroughly overloaded, we headed back home for lunch and happy nap! Another advent activity success :)