Advent 2009

Last year I made up this Advent Banner for our home. I even posted a tutorial for how you can make one, too. And amazingly, we followed through. We did each day's activity and I think only missed one or maybe two days. Not too shabby.

This year, I decided to do more of the same. It worked so well, why mess with perfection, eh? I did add a couple new activities and even removed some of the less well-received things.

Our revised list for 2009 (in no particular order):

Put out our shoes for Sinterklaas (Dec 5th) and explain the tradition.
Attend a live Nativity
Drink Hot chocolate and read a Christmas Book
Watch a Christmas Movie
Drive around to see lights and give an award to our favorite house
Read the Christmas story from the scriptures
Address our Christmas cards
Attend Ward Christmas party
Make a gingerbread house
Make & Decorate Sugar Cookies
Write a letter to Santa
Have a Sock Snowball Fight
Act out the Nativity
Make Marshmallow Snowmen
Attend the Festival of the Nativity
Go for a walk as a family
Sing Christmas Songs
Play Board Games
Make Candy Cane Reindeer
Make an Ornament for the Christmas Tree
Watch Mr. Kreuger’s Christmas
Dance to Christmas Music
Go Christmas Shopping ($1 store for sibling gifts)
Wrap presents
Color Christmas Pictures
Make a Paper Chain to count down until Christmas
Chocolate Fondue for Dessert Tonight

So far, so good. We've played a fierce round of Monopoly Jr in which I got my butt whipped by Abbie. We danced for well over a half hour to random Christmas songs, thanks to Pandora. We made a chain to countdown until Christmas, only this year we made a fabric chain... like this one.

Are you having fun with Advent?

Cheese.

What's that mom?


You have your camera out?!


Boy, do I love that thing!

Addicted

We have a small problem.

Miles is addicted to all things electronic.

If it has a screen, he wants to play on it. TV, Wii, Matt's Nintendo DS, Matt's G1 Phone, the computer, an old-school Nintendo GameBoy we've got, movies, even those kiddie laptops. He's even content to just watch you play something. It's pathetic.

And it's nauseating. And I'm SO over it. And it must stop.
He couldn't even pull his eyes away from the screen for two seconds to look at me...


Any advice?

The Storage of Food

I've been working pretty diligently to work our food storage to a recommended 3 months' supply of foods we eat everyday. I was feeling pretty darn good about it!


Yeah, yeah... we shop at Wal-Mart... judge us.


The above is actually a little under-the-stairs storage area that desperately needs some shelving. In the meantime, it's kindof a mess, but I know where everything is.



And this is about 10 pounds of rice, 50 pounds of flour and 20 pounds of sugar.

It seems like a lot of food. So, we took it for a test drive. It's only maybe 6 weeks worth of food. Time to go shopping.

Let's Give Em Something to Blog About...

I really wish I had an even mildly entertaining reason to blog. Life, as we know it, continues on and we just keep plugging on.

We did actually go to visit my parents for about a week... and yet, I didn't take a single picture. Matt took a couple, so I'll probably (maybe.) post some of them later.

I am hoping to blog at least three times in the next week, so just in case anyone is actually still reading here, there MIGHT be something interesting to read. We'll see.

Blah. Sorry.