Advent #2

We have been doing another advent this Christmas as well.

I found this idea from my friend kelly's blog. (thanks kelly!)

I downloaded the template for the cards here.

What you do is put a fun activity on each of the cards. It can range from small things - (like reading christmas books, eating candy canes together, singing christmas carols) to larger ones - (like going to see the trains at north park, making your teacher's christmas cards, or going to look at christmas lights).

The great thing about it is that you can make the cards applicable to what you like to do and you can put them on the schedule on days that would work well for you.

This is what all our cards look liked together:

i bought the template from alli edwards site

i printed it out, glued christmas paper to the back, wrote fun things for us to do each day,

laminated them and then put the cards in our calender pockets

my sister amy and i made up our own little advent calendar

it is in the shape of a christmas tree and we stitched numbers onto each pocket and then attached it to the tree with a button-hole stitch

(no sewing machine necessary - except for the monogramming one that magen used to put our name on top of the tree;))

i love it!

it is such a fun thing to do each day and really puts us in the christmas spirit

jayden loves picking the card each day and finding out what our activity is.

i am also realizing it is good for helping him to recognize his numbers!

i like that we have two different advents -

one for the real reason for Christmas

and the other to help us have fun and make this season more special

i also made a lot of the cards focused on doing this for others.

i want our kids to learn from an early age that it is much better to give than receive!

this is a great way/time to teach them about it!

hope you are having a good advent season!

happy sunday night!