Advent Calendar Day 11 & 12

Day 11's pocket held a little letter. Today was the day to prepare our Christmas cards to be mailed, and Evangeline got to help! We talked about why we send cards- to let our friends and family know how we are doing and how God has blessed us this year! We also send them to wish all the wonderful people in our lives a Merry Christmas! We hope that our card reminds them of all the blessings in their lives, too!
So, off to address, stamp, and stick! Eva loved it and I didn't even mind that our addresses were crooked, and sometimes double stamped, and our stamps were only sometimes in the upper right corner. She had fun and we spent time together.

I blurred out our street, but you get the idea of what some of our addresses look like!

On day 12, I knew Evangeline would be almost beside herself with excitement. Today was the 2nd annual family Gingerbread House Extravaganza! She drew a little Gingerbread house shrinky dink out of the pocket and asked, "Are we really gonna do them, mom!?!" (I'm not a fan, but lately, at least 50% of the time, my 2 year old calls me "mom"- it's horrible, but I'm trying not to let it get me down!)
We hosted last year's party, and my sister-in-law, Dawn, hosted this year. So, off to Caleb's house we went for an opportunity to inhale more candy than she has consumed in an entire year. She decorated a little; she ate A LOT. And, by "a lot" I mean at least 2 pounds. I thought she was going to vomit at any moment. I almost wish she did. It may have been a stretch, but we talked about how spending time with our family is important, especially at Christmas. We talked about how giving our time to spend with those we love shows them that they are special to us! The party may have been cut short for Evangeline as the result of a tornado of a meltdown, but it was still a lot of fun :)

Advent Calendar Day 9 & 10

OH!!! I just knew this would happen! We missed a day :(
Things just got away from me and it didn't help that Eva was ASLEEP (not in bed, but ASLEEP IN BED) at 6:30 pm. So, today (lucky girl), we got to do 2 activities and we are now all caught up. But, these were 2 of my favorites so far, I think.  Day 9's pocket held a paintbrush and palette shrinky dink. Eva drew it out and looked at it for a few second before wildly declaring, "We're gonna paint! We're gonna paint!" She did quite the little happy dance. Eva LOVES art projects of ANY kind, and she especially loves paint! It's key that it's washable because it ends up literally everywhere and countless shirts and pants would be ruined if not for that amazingly washable stuff :)
I printed coloring pages from the internet that had various Christmas themes and she chose a few to paint. I then pulled out the glitter to her incredible delight (she loves ALL things sparkly) and let her go to town! As we painted, we talked about what was in the pictures (Jesus in the manger, the Christmas tree, the little drummer boy, etc) and I also explained to her how art can be used as a way to glorify God. "Just as a gift like singing can be used to praise God, so can drawing and painting or any other talent! Like the way you dance for Jesus!"
This all tied in quite nicely with Day 10's activity: showing someone that you love them. She pulled a heart out of the pocket and I told her that today she was going to find something to do to show someone that she loved them. At Christmastime, we remember that God showed us how much He loved us was when He sent Jesus to be born on earth. That way, our King Jesus can understand everything we go through! We talked about the endless possibilities for ways she can show love and she came up with some of the most darling ideas (kiss them, make cookies for them, play with them, be kind to them, pray for them, color for them, sing for them, dance with them, give them a toy, etc.). In the end she chose her Papa (my dad) who came over for dinner tonight. He's alone since my mom is in Oklahoma City for the week, and I think Eva thought he needed some Christmas cheer :) She chose to show him how much she loves him with a kiss and a sparkly Christmas painting that she was oh-so-proud-of!

Trying to choose which one to paint first

she was VERY focused

Sam joins in with some "puffs"

That's the look when I gave her the sparkly glitter

She was quite liberal with the glitter. My house is covered in it...

Pulling out the 2nd shrinky dink

Check out that hair!

Delivering the finished product to Papa- "This is to show you that I love you!!"

Advent Calendar Day 8

Today's activity was setting up a nativity. The nativity scene is my favorite Christmas decoration. This year I have 3 :) One is a miniature one that is just for Eva and is set up on a little side table in the living room; she is allowed to play with this one on the table, but no where else because the pieces are really small and dangerous for Samuel. The second one is a Fisher Price Little People one and is set up on the window sill and both Sam and Eva can do whatever they want with it! The third one is very special and I love it- it is a Willowtree set and was a gift from my mother-in-law. It's fragile and, this year, I wasn't even going to put it up since I saw how insanely crazy and excited Eva has been with all the Christmas decorations. She doesn't mean to be careless, but she almost can't help herself. She is literally craving one little touch of EVERYTHING.
But, I decided to put a nativity scene in today's pocket because I knew she would love seeing the one from last year and we could go over each piece to further reinforce everything we've been talking about. She drew it out of the pocket and said, "we're doing something with animals?! I see animals!" We pulled each item out of it's box and placed it "just so". We talked and she asked questions and we had a lot of fun just being together. I absolutely cannot wait until Samuel can join in :)