Advent Tidbits

Making peppermint creames... without any peppermint.  And actually, they taste really good - better than what we remember our last pepperminty ones tasting!

After an afternoon of puddle-jumping and Christmas shopping, Aiden fell asleep in the car.  Mommy cruelly woke him up when we got home, not wanting him up late.  It didn't work. He came in, sat down, and was out again.  We left him, hoping the awkward position would wake him up. Nope. He slid down and slept on the step for another half and hour! 

A tradition from the Fraser side: painted windows!  This year, too impatient to wait for Mom, this is what the kids did themselves.  Fantastic job! (Never mind the paint on the curtain and the floor...)

We had a "first Christmas" with family in Toronto this weekend.  Today, playing with his lego, Aiden kept making towers as presents for everyone and asking longingly when Friday was coming so "we have more presents" - I guess he knows Christmas means presents now! Hopefully the advent stories we've been telling will stick with him too. And the "shepherds running fast to see the baby king at last" does show up in his playing.

Life Lately

Aiden has been feeling the extra late nights recently... which has opened a whole new world of possibilities to the parents: now we can actually tell him to take a nap - and he will! Daddy sometimes forgets to specify where...

 One Advent activity was making peppermint bark to give to neighbours.  Aiden really liked crushing the candy canes!  The resulting bark was really good, but as it was kid made... it was rather thick and somewhat of a jaw workout!

 We had a house full of guests last weekend for a minute to win it party.  It was loads of fun!  I don't think we could have gotten much louder -11 kids and  9 adults playing competitive games is LOUD! I wonder if that is why the favoured game that everyone wanted to play was Go Tell It...  Even Aiden told a story!

 

aiming to transfer pompoms from one
bowl to another with a vasalined nose

A most popular game: shaking story dice and
telling a one minute story including all the dice pictures!

The lawnmower and lego were popular with the younger boys, who joined in the noise making, but not many of the games.

We had a few days to rest up, and then it was Daddy's birthday, which we celebrated quietly (mostly) at home.

Other things have included a violin recital for Jasmin, the end of term for AWANA and W2W, and slow preparations for the "main event" of Christmas. Busy, but not too busy too long. Just right so far.

Advent Begins by Grace and Mom

Grace -
Advent is your busy, squished, not-enough-time-for-school-or-for-planning/buying-Christmas-gifts type of time.

Mom -  well... that's not what it is supposed to be - it's what happens when we don't plan ahead enough. Actually, despite some hurried preparation last weekend, our advent activities are doing pretty smoothly.  But, yes, they do push out some schoolwork to get done each day.

Grace -
Day 1: Aiden is exited to go first and pull out the first cards, candy, and reading the story and unwrapping baby Jesus.

Mom -
We were pleasantly surprised that our church is following advent this year, and so we incorporated that into our Advent poster. Week one: Hope - His Omnipotent Promises Endure - acronym provided by Grace.

Mom -

Day 2 and 3: were about the angel telling Zachariah about the birth of John the Baptist and Mary about Jesus, so we made clay angels.

 Grace -
Left to right: Grace's angel,Aiden's angel,Grace's angel (I made 2!),and Jasmin's angel.Aiden did a pretty good job, but there's no face.Jasmin I don't think chose the right skin color/hair color. The angel with red wings had long hair with leafs in it.The one with yellow wings has a train with deer,black dots and a white background.

Mom - Day 4: was about Mary's visit to Elizabeth. We were supposed to make instruments to praise the Lord like Mary and Elizabeth, but we weren't really interested. So we made our candle holders instead.

Grace -
The one on the left is Jasmin's, lots of angels and halos.The snowflake is Jesus and the stars are Mary and Joseph.

 This is mine. I used our nativity to make (large) impressions.The left one is Joseph with a staff, the right is Mary, and the centre is Jesus. I have angels telling the shepherds/celebrating Jesus' birth, wise men carrying gifts/jewels representing gifts, and the star showing the wise men the way.

This is Aiden's, I don't have much to say.