Advent thus far

Oh Advent, you've not played out as I imagined you would...

Starting with Day 1.
Bob forgot to mention we were hosting his college alumni at our church that morning, throwing off my plans to get supplies for our Advent card activities. I was bound to not get frustrated in lieu of this news, it was the start to Advent after all. So I sucked it up and told myself, "You can get what you need tomorrow... Surely, I can improvise tonight's activity."

He was SO excited to begin 

And of course, our first activity required specific supplies I did not have. ' Make the house smell like Christmas with oranges and cinnamon sticks,' the card said. Awesome.

Thankfully, I found our apple caramel candle and was able to thwart the lack of cinnamon sticks and oranges with a promise that Bray can light the candle. 

 

Boys and fire. I'll never understand it

He's so handsome

 

Day 2 of Advent was rather eventful. 

I took my first opportunity to gather the necessary supplies at the Dollar Store and Target.

Once we got home our first order of business was to re-do yesterday's project of making the house smell like Christmas.

Next we opened Day 2's card, which said to make Christmas brownies.

 

 

Bray was so excited about Christmas m&m's that he didn't notice how gross the brownies turned out. I originally planned to make them from scratch, but caved when I saw a package of mix at the dollar store.
Never again, I tell you

At this point, we were still on schedule with our Advent readings. However, Bray normally picks the story he wants to read and he was not happy about sticking to a reading schedule.
I did my best to explain: "It's because we are celebrating baby Jesus and we need to learn about history, his family, and how he came to be our Savior."

You can imagine how well that was received by my 3 year old.



I had to include this cutie
She's perfected her snort and does it all day long

After Day 1 and Day 2 everything went downhill.
I worked all week and we had commitments almost every evening. I thought I had planned activities that would be easy to accomplish, regardless of our schedule, but I was wrong.

For the most part we kept up our readings in the Jesus Story Book Bible, but there were a few nights Bray lost his privilege of story time. Normally, we don't take away story time as means of punishment, but scratching someone's new, Restoration Hardware, leather ottoman not once, but twice (going back after disciplined), constitutes every measure of discipline we could conjure up. He was also extra naughty to his sister, which I consider unacceptable and merits harsher punishment. "Braydon, did you really just punch her in the head for the THIRD time."

Here are a few pictures from the activities we did accomplish during my work week.

 

He's grossed out that sis is eating the stickers

Decorate a snowman

Silly boys avoiding a picture in their fort

 Monday (10th) I was home so we did a few more activities.

Decorated our front door

So determined

Decorated a Christmas tree

Made Christmas rice crispy treats
I used too much marshmallow which no one in my house appreciated. Even our sugar hog, Braydon, wouldn't eat them.
Bummer

Made our paper gingerbread house

Isn't it cute?
We still need to decorate it, but the assembly took far longer than we thought so we've saved it for another night

Christmas pancakes
These are gluten-free smore pancakes and they were delicious

While things have not gone as scheduled, I know the point of this season has nothing to do with perfect, planned out activities for my children. I love that I've tried and am trying to do fun things with them, but I pray I continue to remember this is about enjoying my time with the kids and trying the best I can to introduce them to their Savior.