19 Days to Christmas

Today was our December Field Trip to the Georgia Ballet's Nutcracker performance. It was a specific program geared toward school age children, so shorter in length with all the really good parts kept in - battle between the Mouse King and Nutcracker, Dance of the Snow Queen and all the dances from the Land of Sweets.

Afterward we enjoyed a fun lunch out with friends - one of the reasons my kids love our field trips so much!

Tonight I enjoyed a dinner out with the ladies from our Sunday School class and another ornament exchange. This week is packed with parties and performances but, next week things will begin to slow down as we draw closer to Christmas.

20 Day to Christmas

Today we celebrated the second Sunday of Advent and lit the candle which represents "Peace". My husband led us in a devotion and we talked about how Jesus is the ultimate peacemaker.

Earlier in the day Ava Mae performed with her choir in the "True Night Before Christmas" story. Lexi also performed tonight at our church in a Live Nativity. After the performances were done we had time to enjoy some of the fun activities our self.
We met some of Santa's reindeer ...

Enjoyed the live nativity petting zoo ...

Sang karaoke ... my kids have no issues singing in a room full of people.

Enjoyed hot chocolate, seeing friends, and standing in line briefly for a carriage ride but, deciding instead to head inside and enjoy some warmer activities before heading home for the evening.

21 Days to Christmas

Today it was all hands on deck to prepare for the Christmas Party we were hosting for our Sunday School class. We cleaned, rearranged furniture, grocery shopped, and picked up the Honey Baked Ham.

The party was so much fun ... it is so nice to spend quality time with these couples outside of church. Everyone provided side dishes for tonight's dinner and it was all delicious. I enjoyed hearing how God had blessed each family this year and the sweet devotion that my friend Amanda prepared. Our ornament exchange was hilarious and I was really happy with the ornament we "stole"! The running joke of the night was "Nothing says Happy Birthday Jesus like ... " insert there - a cow on ice skates, a snow covered house, a 60's jukebox. ;)

So thankful for our new church home and these wonderful couples - definitely one of our blessings from God this year!

22 Days to Christmas

Today was a super busy day ... we baked scones for the girls Ballet School Director, a chocolate cake for our church's cake walk on Sunday, and we began cleaning our home for the party we are hosting tomorrow night.

We still had time though at the end of the evening to squeeze in a Christmas movie - Polar Express and we all decorated our Gingerbread House for this year. So much fun!

23 Days to Christmas

Day 2 of our Advent Study the symbol we talked about today - bells. Our Bible verse was Psalm 100 - "Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth ..." Our discussion topic was how we can be a joyful bell ringing the news of Jesus' birth during the holiday season rather than a noisy gong focusing only on ourselves.

Our activity for today was our Gingerbread House - part 1. I learned from past mistakes and brought out the glue gun this evening to shore up our house before we complete step 2 tomorrow - decorating.

Our countdown for the season - simple brown bags with countdown numbers (thanks so much to Beth Proudfoot who provided the idea and a free printable on her blog). Each day one child gets the honor of opening a bag. I have placed small trinkets and candy inside each bag. Thank goodness for leftover Halloween candy!

24 Days to Christmas

Today begins our Advent countdown to Christmas ... each weekday the kids and I work through an Advent study we are doing (this year we are focusing on the symbols of Christmas and how they each point us to Jesus). The study gives us some ideas for crafts, baking, or missionary type opportunities. On Sundays, as a family, we light our Advent wreath candle and my husband leads us in a study.

Today, our lesson was on Advent and the Advent Wreath. We talked about the word Advent's meaning and how we as a family purposely work on keeping our focus on Jesus during the season. One of the primary ways we do this is limiting gifts - we try hard to keep our gift count to just three for each child. It can be so hard for a child to focus on the true meaning of Christmas when during the holiday season they are inundated with gifts from family and friends.

Our activity today was baking Magic Cookie Bars for the Lottie Moon Bake Sale at church. Lexi's GA group sold them during Wednesday night dinner and activities tonight. Here is the cookie and fun packaging we decided on.

A Relevant Christmas

Last night the Women's Ministry at our church hosted A Relevant Christmas. It was a wonderful way to kick off the Christmas Season. With a great speaker, author Lisa Harper, Grammy-nominated recording artist Kim Hill, wonderful food and conversation it was an amazing evening. I would love to blog all about what Lisa spoke about but, I know I have a few friends who read my blog who will not be attending this event until Friday or Saturday and I don't want to give any of it away.

Here is a group shot we took at the end of the evening with some of my closest friends who were in attendance.
At the last minute I was asked to host a table. My plate was already completely full for this week but, I figured I had enough items to throw together something and I can always whip a favor at the last minute. This is what I came up with ....

I had lots of red Christmas balls, several different containers to choose from, and lots of ribbon. The only thing I did not have enough of at home were some Christmas florals/greens and picks so with coupons in hand I headed out to Micheal's to pick up a few things.

This is my mock up of the table centerpiece.

Here is the final outcome.

The favor I made to tie into my theme I chose to go with (birds) was a tea bag holder. I made a small tri-fold card then cut part of it and folded it over to make a holder for the tea. I then added a red and white polka dot ribbon and handstamped a winter tree with a red bird sitting on a branch. The tea I chose was something I had just purchased Candy Cane Herbal Tea - so yummy and perfect for the season.