Advent

*We started Advent a week ago, however we've had so much fun I'm just now getting a blog post up:)

This is one of my favorite times of the year. The lights, the excitement, Christmas trees everywhere, Christmas music constantly playing,fun times/activities with friends and family, I love it all! This year has been special seeing Cade get excited about it all as well. He is really into all the lights! As soon as he wakes up in the morning we have to turn on the Christmas tree lights.

Our main focus as a family during this season is the birth of Christ. We've been doing an Advent study every night as a family. The candles are a major distraction, but other than that it's been great! Matt wrote a more traditional advent study for us and for Cade we read bits of the Christmas story out of the Jesus Storybook Bible each night and act it out using his Little People Nativity set. He really gets into this! The repetition of the story each night has been great for him and I think really helped him grasp the story. After we read our story we let Cade pick a card from our Christmas cards box of last year's cards and pray for that family.

Last year I made and advent calendar out of toliet paper rolls. I have found activities from several different websites and planned some sort of outing, game, book or craft for most everyday. These range from making peppermint playdoh to baking treats for our neighbors, to unwrapping a Christmas book. Most days are pretty low key. Just fun things to remind us why/what we are celebrating. Some activities I'm looking forward to are the 'Cherokee Express', annual Mosier family cookie baking, shopping for a child in need, and baby day this Friday!! (Doesn't really have to do w/ Christmas but we're having our 20 week ultrasound that day) Here's some of what we've been up to the first week...

checking out the calendar

making our handprint Christmas tree

decorated our tree

Our goal for this season is to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ. We want to wait in anticipation for Christmas and take time to reflect on Christ's birth and life.

Where I got most of my ideas....
xtremeteamduty.blogspot.com
planetoftheapels.blogspot.com
totallytots.blogspot.com