In the event you haven't put Christmas away...

I meant to get this posted sooner. Waaaay sooner. Ah well. Maybe you'll want to use this idea next year.

This year I totally failed at Advent. I hardly did anything with the kids. Advent is my favorite season of the church year, and I want to do better... and next year I will!

I've always love the idea of reading an Advent or Christmas book each day of December as a way to tie into an Advent Calendar. While I haven't made an Advent Calendar yet (I have plans to do that during Lent this year), I have the rest of my ducks in a row. Here's what I did:

First, I pulled aside all the kids' Christmas toys and books. I generally put them away every year so they'll be fresh to play with come November/December.

Next, after Christmas I went shopping to see what simple activities I could purchase on clearance for the boys next year. I bought a few things, a ceramic ornament painting kit, a foam garland stringing kit (totally could have made this but it was $.50), a little activity book, a window cling nativity set, and a few odds and ends I can't recall at the moment.

Then I made a list of all the Advent activities I'd like to do. I wanted to balance the Jesus with the Santa, and put a focus on giving and doing, rather than getting. I wanted to make it simple enough that we could do every day, but meaningful, too.

So... I matched the books up to activities and planned 24 days worth of activities (yes, I know Advent begins before Dec. 1 but we'll likely be out of town with my family until Dec. next year). There are a few dates that I'll stick to (decorating will be first, St. Nicholas Day, Christmas Eve, etc.) but I'll rearrange the days as needed next November to match our schedule.

Advent 2011

I think you should be able to click on the link to view it full screen and download it if you join Scribd. Otherwise, if you're interested, leave a comment and I'm happy to email you copy of the file. :)

My favorite part is that I used our cloth reusable Christmas bags (some are drawstring and some just tie with ribbon), and placed the book, any items for the activity, etc. in them then labeled the outside. All I have to do next year is pull them out, order them, then place them under the tree! Ready to go!

Christmas!

Well, I pretty much did a terrible job on the picture front at Christmas. We all had so much fun that I hardly thought to get the camera out!

First a few more from Christmas Eve...

Lauren's boyfriend Adi got Jack a remote control fire truck and Charlie a singing car. Both were a HUGE hit.

 

Gigi and Charlie

Lala and Jack

In our family, the tradition is that Santa doesn't wrap gifts. He's a busy guy, so he just leaves them out! Jack asked Santa for Mickey (which was surprising to Mama!) and Santa delivered with Mickey pj's, sippy cups and a flashlight. Papa helped Santa out by getting a container truck with a jet taking off the back! Gigi and Santa teamed up to get Charlie a ride on fire truck for Gigi's house, Elmo doll, and outfit. And silly Santa stuffed the stockings so full he just scattered the candy all over the fireplace. As you can see, none of us could want for anything after Christmas!

Another big hit- big Woody! Even more popular are the action figure Woody and Buzz that Lala gave him. They never leave his fists!

Buzz hat and gloves from Gigi and Papa!

 

Lala reading Charlie's new book, "I Love You, Stinky Face."

Christmas Eve

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas week in Jacksonville with my family. 3 seemed to be a magical age for Jack and Christmas. He was very excited about everything. Each time he saw lights somewhere he'd say, "It's Christmas here!"

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas Eve...

Playing around the house in the morning

Pictures by the tree before church

I made Jack some reindeer food to put out for Rudolph.

Sprinkling quickly turned to throwing

Opening the boys' Christmas pj's. It's our family tradition to open a new pair of pj's on Christmas Eve night.

I made the boys pj pants out of an old (too small) pair of pj pants of mine. I used scraps to cut the t-shirt circle then ironed on letters saying "sweet."

Making hot chocolate and putting out cookies for Santa

Sampling in a tiny Santa mug

Christmas Morning

I'm so far behind... but want to get this all documented. Hopefully THIS is the week I'll get lots of blogging done!

Christmas morning with Gigi and Papa was super fun for us all! The boys didn't get up too early, and we enjoyed a leisurely morning and afternoon hanging out, eating, and opening presents.

The Hudson tradition is stockings, breakfast, gifts. And that's just what we did! Here's the morning in picures!

Jack and Charlie were wide awake and ready to open stockings!

 

The "big gift" was a set of TWO play tents connected by a tunnel from Gigi and Papa. It was a huge hit all week and Jack enjoyed convincing Lala and Gigi to play in it with him.

Jack reading to Charlie. I love it!

Jack was pretty into the present opening this year, which was fun. 

And here's what Charlie did during the rest of the morning. Oddly reminiscent to Jack's first Christmas, wouldn't you say?

Christmas with Nana and Grandad Dale

My boys are lucky enough to have four awesome grandparents, and are especially blessed to have "adopted" grandparents in Allison's parents. Anytime my kids have the opportunity to be loved on my great people, we feel very blessed. We did our Christmas exchange with them last weekend and, as always, it was so fun!

Of all the gifts given (and the boys got some really fun things!) the most versatile gift was this goggle set that we gave Colton. The goggles really made their rounds...

yes, even to me!

There was lots of love to go around!

And my personal highlight was this:

 

Ah, yes, the Magic Bullet, a much coveted item of mine for many years now. I've tried it out on many, many things these past couple of weeks, and I must say that so far it totally lives up to the level that I hyped it in my mind! Yes, I'm in love.

Thanks Nana and Grandad Dale, for all you do for us all year, and for teaching Jack to say "Go Jayhawks." Mike really appreciates it :-).

A Silly Christmas to You!

Baking Day!

Allison, our friend R, and I had a baking Saturday sans (big) kids a few weeks ago.

On the agenda:

R's Super-Yummy Pecan Truffle Brownies

Pioneer Woman's Sugar Cookies

Blueberry Bars

Mini Bagels

Soft Pretzels

 

We got everything ready to go, and prepared to bake up a storm!

I had to take a few breaks to tend to this guy:

but overall he was pretty easy.

This little chica showed up half way through and was a big help, too- free babysitting! :-)

After a while my other two best guys showed up as well!

R finished her brownies, I got the cookie dough mixed up, the bagel dough in the machine, and Allison made the pretzel dough. After the first batch of cookies, though, we noticed that the cookies were taking a LONG time to bake...

Uh oh! Could it be?

Yes, sadly baking day was interrupted by a BROKEN OVEN!

 

(Allison calling around for help.)

The mini bagels boiled and basking in the sun (maybe that will bake them?).

Luckily, the oven just turned out to have a blown fuse, and they were able to fix it pretty quickly. We split up the remaining doughs, etc. and met up later in the week to exchange baked goods. Everyone eventually got to try everything. Well, except for the pretzels, which I took home to bake and ended up eating all of  didn't taste good at all! Yep, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!