Family Advent Activities

This year we thought it would be fun to start a Family Activities Advent Calendar. I bought a countdown calendar at the dollar section at Target with pockets for each day. We came up with fun activites to do and printed them and put one in each day. Here are pictures from a few activities we did.

Dec 5 - (We didn't start until the 5th because of Griffin's birthday and party) Decorate the tree and house

Santa's little helpers

Playing in the lights

They each have a photo ornament from the year they were born that they put on the tree first

All lit up!

We turned off the room lights and turned on the tree and Griffin did this. We'd see lit up trees everywhere we went and he really loved them this year

They both did a great job putting ornaments on the tree. Griffin didn't really understand spreading them out, that's his section on the bottom right!

Big Bird has been a part of our Nativity scene since I was little. I would tell my parents that big bird wanted to see baby Jesus too! But, this year we broke Mary, so Big Bird was a stand-in

All the stockings were hung by the chimney with care

Dec 6 - Christmas card pictures

Dec 8 - Make a paper chain garland

They put stickers on each strip and then we glued them together. They were really proud!

Dec 9 - Watch a Christmas movie with popcorn and pop

Dec 10 - Gingerbread (Graham cracker) houses

I think we all did more eating then decorating but it was a blast.

L to R - Daddy's, Griffin's, Tucker's, Mommy's

Dec 11 - Ice skating

This was the boys' first time ice skating. They were so excited and Tucker really did well. They got tired and bored after about an hour but we were impressed they made it that long. Mommy and Daddy were pretty sore the next day!

Taking a break

Dec 15 - Visit Santa

Neither of them were scared, but Griffin wasn't going to smile at all. Until we found these bells, he loved them!

Dec 16 - Open 1 present early

We got an Xbox 360 and Kinect for our family gift, but we wanted to have time to play it before we travelled the day after Christmas.

It's so much fun and so much fun to watch!

You look pretty silly when you're playing














































As usual mommy looks the silliest!

Dec 20 - Make ornaments

We made bottle cap snowmen and popsicle stick trees

We also colored some wooden ornaments, the boys' favorite part was using the glitter glue

Dec 21 - Camp under the Christmas tree

We set up mattresses on the floor and ate s'mores and slept in our sleeping bags under the lights of the tree. It was amazing.

Griffin asked to go to his bed and slept there for a few hours by himself but then woke up and came out to sleep with us for the rest of the night

Dec 22 - Drive around and look at lights in our PJs with hot cocoa

Daddy found a link on a news website of all the best light shows in town so we got to see some awesome displays. Some with motion, some with music, and lots and lots of lights

Dec 23 - Bake cookies

We made lots and lots of cookies this year. We took some to our sunday school teachers, our play group leader, neighbors, family and ate lots ourselves

Tucker helped measure and mix









Griffin played

They both cut out and decorated lots of sugar cookies

Ande's mint chip

Peanut butter blossoms with kisses and reeses

Chocolate covered pretzels they boys decorated

We had a blast and made lots of memories. This is definitely a tradition we'll contine every year!