It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

All the Advent calendars are out and ready to coutdown the days until Christmas!

Our Nativity countdown calendar.

Our Hallmark Christmas Tree countdown calendar.

A new addition this year...  A felt Advent banner with Advent candles to "light".

Our Advent candles.  This is our third year having Advent Candles. I buy simple white candles and tie purple and pink robbons around them.  So much easier than trying to find purple and pink candles!

The Jesse Tree.  Our second year doing this.  It's a small tree that we will hang handmade ornaments on.  The ornaments are based on stories from scripture of the lineage and life of Jesus.  The first ornament is about how God made the world... then, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, Abraham... etc.  The kids love it!

A bed for baby Jesus...  For each "sacrifice" or "good deed" that the kids do, they get to put a piece of wool yarn in Baby Jesus' basket.  The goal is to fill it with lots of strings to make a soft bed for Him to lay on on Christmas Eve.

Angels and a paper chain.

Paper chain decorations on the stairs!

I have worked really hard this year to get a lot of the christma prep done BEFORE Thanksgiving...so we can really enjoy Christmas as a family this year.  I surprised myself when I remembered to get our Christmas CDs in the car the day after Thanksgiving...  And the Advent calendars were all out the day before Advent started.  (Well, all except one...  But we'll just have to play "catch-up" with that one!)  I am looking forward to making chex mix and decorating cookies...  And also putting up our Christmas tree!  (We never put it up early... I can't imagine having it up the day after Thanksgiving.  I like to wait a little longer.  This year we are going to put it up the weekend of the 18th.)

I hope everyone has time this year to enjoy some Christmas traditions with their families!!

 

Train Park Birthday

We had such a good time at the train park for Carter's birthday!  It's the same park we went to last year for his birthday.  We think it might become an after Thanksgiving tradition...

The train ride...

The animals...I mean kids...can ride in the boxcar!

Two dragons one top of the Jail playground.

A carousel ride...

Mommy and Allison on the train.

Daddy and Carter on the train.

Walking on the tracks...

(Don't worry that train in the distance is parked!)

 

 

Homemade Pizza

The nearly perfect pizza crust...

The...well... the other pizza crust...

Two Little "Army Guys" for Halloween

Here are my "Army Guys"!

Indian Girl

This is Allison's Indian hat from school...

All this week they learned about why Native American's are called "Indians"  (...because when Columbus arrived in America he thought he was in India) and they learned about some of the different tribes and also about the first Thanksgiving! 

Isn't Kindergarten cool?

Allison's "Happy Day"

Lego writing by Allison:

What Happens When You Can't Sit Nicely

MOMMY'S NOTE:  These pictures are from back in August...and Allison will probably cringe when she sees this someday.  But I am going to post it anyway!!


This is what happens when you can't sit nicely on the furniture...

...your chair gets taken away and you get to stand for dinner.

...and you hide your face in shame.

 ...and you put on your grumpy face.

...and the next day you sit nicely on the furniture.

 

Carter On His Nap

Carter doesn't nap anymore.  I try and try to get him to SLEEP at nap time! But what really happens is him hanging out in his room for 45 minutes while playing and poking his head out every 10 minutes to see if I'll let him "get up", yet. 

Everyday he claims that he has slept during nap time... 
     But he's 3, so what does he know?

Everyday I bribe him... 
     "If you sleep today - and I mean really sleep - you can go to bed second tonight."

Everyday I hope for a 2 hour nap...
     So Mommy can enjoy the peace and quiet!

And then today...
     Today he actually slept at nap time.
          Quiet and still.
     A good, peaceful, 45 minute nap!

And so after nap he makes this announcement:

Here's my problem...  Allison napped, too. And she's still napping! How will I ever get her to go to sleep first tonight?!

Lil' Dragons Karate Belt Testing

On October 21, the kids tested for their next belt in their Lil' Dragons Karate class.  Carter was testing for his 3rd belt - a Red belt.  And Allison was testing for her 5th belt - a half Brown & half Black belt.

Next step for Allison... 

Lil' Dragons BLACK BELT testing on November 20th!

 

ART by Carter

X's and O's!  For the whole family!

-Carter