More Advent Updates

Sorry to be posting about nothing but the advent lately, but here we go again.

December 13: Christmas Bingo

This was the day when I decided I was too cold to go out and get the stuff I needed for our activity, so we used Christmas Bingo as a back-up. I printed fun Christmas Bingo cards and we used Christmas Captain Crunch to mark our cards. Then the kids ate their bowl of Captain Crunch. Super simple, no pictures.

December 14: Ugly Sweater Scavenger Hunt

Seth needed an ugly Christmas sweater for work. We scoured the town, but came up empty. The next day he did go get an off-white v-neck sweater and black turtleneck (which he turned into a dicky) so that he could dress like cousin Eddie. He ended up not wearing it though, because he was afraid people wouldn't be able to see the turtleneck, and that the joke would be wasted. He just wore a snowman sweatshirt. I don't even have a picture, since we didn't even find it on the day of our hunt. We did find Steven's Candy Cane cocoa though, so at least the night was not a total loss.

December 15: Photo Ornaments

When I was a kid, my mom always had us sit and make ornaments out of our Christmas cards. Typically my mom does not do crafty stuff. She also has the most decorated tree I have ever seen (tinsel, garland, lifesaver strings, 82 billion ornaments) so we definitely did not need any more ornaments, but this was her thing. So we sat, and we made ornaments. She didn't have any crafting tools, so we just drew circles with a cup, cut them, and stapled them together. I decided to use photos instead of Christmas cards (partly because we have only received 3 Christmas cards (sad, right?...but not too sad considering I haven't sent cards either since the birth of the blog). I printed 6 pictures of each family member, and 6 of the family together, and we set off to work. I originally planned to punch holes and sew the circles together with ribbon. After one attempt, I abandoned that idea and grabbed the stapler.

December 16: Teacher Gifts

We made gifts for the kids to give their school teachers. We started with candy bark. My cousin has been posting about candy bark recently, and how easy it is to make. I decided it would be something easy for the kids to do mostly on their own. It turned out to be lots of fun, smashing toppings and creating fun combos. After 4 batches of bark, we made little sleighs to put the bark in. We just cut the top off of Chinese take out boxes and stuck candy canes through. We also stuck a Target gift card in each sleigh, since I know that is the only gift teachers actually want.

Here are the combos we came up with...Front left: milk and white chocolate with reeses pieces and pretezels. Front right, dark and white chocolate with peppermint oreos and candy canes. Back left: Dark chocolate and mint chocolate with crushed oreos. Back right: Chocolate and peanut butter chips with pretzels. I copied this combo from my cousin, because it sounded like a Take 5 bar to me, but then we added a drizzle of caramel to the top as well. The two in the back were the runaway favorites!

December 17: Christmas Lights

We headed to Christmas Lane, which is about the only street that really decorates in our little town. We also hit our favorite house, that syncs up their lights to music. I think it is so cool when people do that, and this guy has new songs every year. We sat and watched 4 different songs, all with different lights. Pretty cool.

We are not smiling, we are frozen! It was about 10 degrees, but SO windy! This is one of our favorite houses. This guy builds a whole village with multiple train sets. He starts in October every year.

And Kudos to these folks for sitting out in the cold and bringing Christmas cheer to the kiddos.

Since no one was looking in that first one, Seth tried to get a better picture but his hands were shaking cold and all we got was blur...plus remember my camera is broken.

December 18: Candy Trains

The 18th is our anniversary. 11 years! Didn't I just post about our 10 year? I thought so, but somehow another year squeezed in since then. Alyssa woke us up to inform us that she had prepared our anniversary breakfast. Christmas Captain Crunch, egg nog, and a tootsie roll. We exchanged gifts. I actually bought Seth a gift...yay me! I bought him a Green Bay hoodie since he hinted that he needed one. I also framed the picture that Jen took of us so that he can take it to work. I was feeling okay about myself, but he one-upped me, as usual. Do you want to see what I got?

The blog, in print. Isn't that cool? It made me so happy to look through it. I love looking at books. So much cooler than reading on the computer. 2008 is printed and 2009 is ready to be printed. 2010 will wait a few months, because it was not cheap. After looking through it, I told Seth I wished he'd let me proofread it first. What a mess! Seth says I am not allowed to edit or alter my posts now. He says he is printing all of them exactly as they first appeared here. So, just so you know...I do know how write complete sentences, and I do know I am supposed to use punctuation. I also know that I am supposed to say Seth and I, and not me and Seth in most cases. AND I know that I am not supposed to start every sentence with and, but, or so....and that I make up words and overuse ellipses...(and parentheses) when I don't feel like starting a new sentence. I just like to write whatever my brain dumps out, exactly the way it dumps it out. Just clearing that up, so that when 2010 ends up in print, this will be recorded for future generations. Anyway...

Since our anniversary is the one time a year our kids get a babysitter, we thought about just writing babysitter night on the calendar, but then decided that was not Christmasy. Instead we made candy trains for the kid's church teachers (and then forgot to bring them to church today). Remember these trains? I think they will soon be obsolete. The only kind of gum I could find in a skinny pack was freedent, and even it was on clearance. There were lots of other candies I couldn't find, so we just improvised. Then the kids had their annual babysitter while me and Seth (or Seth and I....whatever) went out. I think they were more excited about the babysitter than anything we have done on the calendar.

December 19: Open Christmas Church Clothes

I waited too long to buy Christmas clothes again this year. I found the cutest dresses at Gymboree a couple months ago, but they were $80 each and still would have needed a sweater. I went to the Gymboree outlet and found even cuter dresses for $25. I kept meaning to go grab them the week we left for CA, but I was packing and having a party for Alex, and it never happened. I went the day we got home, and they were gone. Since it was the weekend after Thanksgiving, I figured the regular Gymboree might be having a sale as well, so I went there to see if the $80 dresses were on sale. They were! Half off. They only had two left, a size 6 and 10. I thought about trying to put a 6 on Chloe and a 10 on Alyssa, but quickly came to my senses and walked away. I almost decided to just bag Christmas clothes for this year, but I still needed to get the kids something with the check from Seth's grandparents, so I went out one more time yesterday. Once again, their dresses are not Christmasy, but they do look wintery. Good enough, and the girls love them. Alex hates getting church sweaters and vests, so I just got him a new tie, a toy to go with his Batcave, and lots of slipper socks instead. He was much happier than he has been in years past. As usual I had 20 seconds to try to get a picture before we had to run out the door for church.

Alex did not want a solo picture, and didn't even really want to be in a group one.

So we sent him on his way, and just let the girls pose.

And we are now caught up once again. The kids are still up and I am so excited about 2 weeks off school!!!! Yippee!