First week of Advent

We are celebrating Advent at our house this month. Usually I blog about all of our fun activities at my "other" blog, Ready. Set. Read! But since none of these ideas are my own ideas, I decided to just record what we did here on my Baby Blog. I want to remember what we are doing each year and hopefully create some memorable traditions that carry on from year to year. So here is what we did last week. First of all, I decorated for Christmas. We have this really ugly wall in our house that we haven't been able to redo yet. AND, I had this roll of really BAD wrapping paper from Target that I got last year. I rips every time I try to wrap with it. SO, guess what I did? I covered the whole wall with wrapping paper. Now it's like a giant bulletin board to post all of our Christmas crafts. I thought Greg would freak out when he saw it but he just said it looked better than before!

Day 1- We got out our Little People Nativity Set, minus baby Jesus. I introduced the "cast of characters" to Logan and Tyson- while Tyson gnawed on a donkey head and Logan banged Tyson in the head with a sheep. Once we got all of that settled out, we decided to "look" for baby Jesus. I gave Logan a present to unwrap and Baby Jesus was inside! We talked about how Jesus is the best gift of Christmas.
Then we did a lot of playing with gifts. We hid toys in gift bags. We shook the bags to see what sounds they made. Logan played a memory game where he tried to remember where I had put certain toys. Tyson enjoyed pulling things out of bags, dropping them into bags, and eating bags!

Day 2- We read Luke 1:5-25 and talked about the angel telling Zechariah that he and Elizabeth would have a baby. We talked about how Angels in the Christmas story bring Good News!
We made a shape angel.

We reviewed the shapes, triangle, circle, and oval.

Day 3- We read Luke 1:26-38 We made handprint and footprint angels.

 I made one for Tyson and one for Logan. Then I taped them to a toilet paper holder and used them as our tree topper. I know not everyone would want this on their tree but it's special to me, I don't care if it doesn't look "fancy".

Day 4- Read Luke 1:57-80 and Matthew 3:1-11. Logan dressed up like John the Baptist, in his "camel hair" robe and leather belt.

We played a game where we matched pairs of socks and laid the matching pairs in the hallway, which made a straight path for us to run on. We talked about how John was born to prepare the people for who was about to come- Jesus! I talked to Logan about how our life is all messy (like a pile of socks) but when we follow Jesus, he makes our paths straight. Matthew 3:3 "Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight paths for him."

Day 4- We actually messed up and did Day 4/5 out of order but it's ok! We read Luke 1:39-56 and made a Joyful Tambourine to represent Mary's song of Praise.

I've found that I can read to the boys from the Bible while they are in the bathtub. They are contained and they listen (somewhat). God says that his word does not return void. I know that even if they are spending most of their time splashing and playing, the seeds of Gods word are being planted in their hearts. I pray that someday they will know Jesus, the reason for Christmas.