The past couple of years I've driven myself crazy, with trying to do a home made advent calendar for the month of December. [Believe me, I know I have an entire year to prepare for this, but it still always seems to suddenly be here, so unexpectedly] The first time I did the advent, each day was filled with a little treat and something to do such as bake cookies, go look at lights, visit Santa, etc. It was overwhelming, I hadn't planned it out that well, and I tried to cram in WAY TOO MUCH. Last year I simplified it quite a bit, by saying things like: tell a friend at school you think they're awesome, or wish someone a Merry Christmas today, read a book to your sister after school. It made it much less stressful, but it was still a lot of work.
This year, I've tried something new yet again. On top of the bought advent calendars, which this year there is one for each [Star Wars Lego Advent for him, and Playmobile advent for her] I wrapped up all Christmas books individually, a book for each day. I had seen this idea on Pinterest [of course] as well as on other people's blogs. Imagine my delight when I counted our books [which are put away the rest of the year] and found that I had more than enough to keep us going for the next 24 days. [Thank heaven's for 5 years of scholastic book orders]
The kids don't know about this yet. I guess they'll find out about it tomorrow.
What's neat about this idea, is now they'll for sure read every Christmas book. In the past, when you have a pile of books sitting there, some of them might get overlooked. This year I think they'll be excited about the prospect of opening and reading a new Christmas book each day. Both kids are avid readers, so I think this will go over really well.I also have my December daily book ready to go... Well, for tomorrow I guess. It's ready to go for tomorrow... See? How does it creep up on me like this every single year? And look at this, my sewing machine and I are friends after all, as long as I don't move it off the zig zag setting...
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm loving turquoise right now for Christmas colours. It doesn't seem feasible to throw away everything I have and start over, with all new decor, so I'm going another route. I'm focusing on turquoise in my December daily album for 2011.
My colours this year are turquoise and red, with green for good measure. I'm using an 8x8 Red American Crafts binder I picked up on clearance at Winner's/Homesense. This year the book will be put together throughout the month, but I'm planning on doing it partially digital, so I'll send all the pages away at once when I finish the last day. We won't be able to look through it quite the same as we have in the past, when I've done my best to keep up with it daily. I'll try it this way this year, and see if it's easier or not in the long run.Now, back to the sad story of my sick kiddies... It's just a mess around here. It seems to be one thing after another. November has not been a good month for us health-wise. All 4 of us have been sick. Miss Madelyn seems to be getting the worst of it however... The last 2 weekends she's been sick 2 weeks ago she had a flu bug. Last weekend she seemed be be getting better, then by Sunday night had gone in the complete opposite direction. She's now laying on the couch with her croup-like cough and a face only a mother can love...
This child will NOT leave her poor mouth alone... It absolutely breaks my heart to look at her right now... I have been diligent about putting stuff on her lips, but she keeps licking them [and yes, I've even tried to scare her into stopping] but she just won't quit. She's either rubbing them, or licking them every time I look at her. So put in a prayer or two for us... Or our family picture for Christmas of 2011 is going to be a doozy... I've even looked up severe chapped lips on the internet. Barry has gone off to the pharmacy equipped with this picture and a plea of help. I hope we can get this under control. My poor little baby girl...
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