Homemade, Fun, Simple Advent Calendar

Look what Connor's been up to!

Christmas Decorations

Yay for Christmas! And yay for Christmas decorations!

Here's the den. The bow on top of the tree is from Carolina Pottery. I picked out the ribbon about seven years ago and the wonderful ladies there made it into a tree topper. Reagan, the 4-year-old, estimates there are 267 ornaments on our tree.

The stocking holders are each engraved with our names and have our baby pictures. Reagan had her picture made in the same dress I wore when I was her age. The stockings are from Target 9 years ago. We were at our friends', Heather and Kevin Couch's, house, and they had those stockings. I thought they were the most perfect stockings I'd ever laid eyes on and they told me they got them at Target. Nathan and I headed there. We went down the stocking aisle, spotted them, grabbed two, and were about to leave when the thought occurred to me, Wait a minute. I love these stockings so much. I want to have them for the rest of my life. When we have children, I want them to each have a stocking. So, that night, in Target, while we had been married only a few months, we decided we would have 3 children. And we walked out of Target with 5 stockings and our jaws hanging open.

This antique lamp sits in our kitchen year round. Usually it sits on a blue plate. I switched it out for a red one because I'm extremely good at decorating. You'll also notice Landon, the six-year-old, added some texture with the mini Lego sets on the plate. Nice touch.

The bird cage is filled with red and silver ornaments. I usually ask Nathan to put the ornaments on garland and display them beautifully over our kitchen cabinet but this year I poured the ornaments into a bird cage. He was stoked about my decision.

The Nativity Set. I made it look normal for this picture. Typically, my children try to cram every single item into the stable. And the 2-year-old loves knocking down the wise men with his sword.

I made those little trees that sit on our photo table. I bought green, foam forms from Michael's, wrapped them with yarn, and added red pom-poms.

This is our cross tree. I have been saving cross ornaments for several years in the hopes that one day I would have a cross tree in our foyer to greet all our guests as they entered. Last year, I found this tree on clearance after Christmas. I love how this sweet, simple tree turned out. Such a great reminder of the One who loves us so very much and is worthy of celebration all 365 days of the year.

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Feast with Pretty Princess

The feast: turkey sandwiches, carrots, grapes and cheese skewers, Rice Krispy treat

My little turkey and me

Her biggest hero, her daddy

Both 4-year-old classrooms feasted together. One class dressed up as pilgrims, the other as Native Americans.

Each child in Reagan's dress got to choose their Native American name. She chose Pretty Princess. Shocking.

The class used their footprints to make feathers for the thankful turkey.

"I am thankful that Jesus died on the cross for our sins." -Reagan, age 4

She knows her very well!

On Wednesday, Nathan and I attended Reagan's parent/teacher conference. Here are just a few quotes from her teacher, Mrs. Jenn. She sure does know our daughter well!

"She is very independent."

"She is a great helper. I can always count on her to help the kids who can't put on their jackets or zip their coats. I call her the loft helper because she always knows how to clean it."

"She's always happy. Always bubbly."

"She has a vivid imagination."

"She is everyone's friend. Everybody always wants to play with Reagan."

"She's very chatty."

"If I had one wish, it would be that when I call her over to work with me, she wouldn't rush through her work just so she can go back to playing. I want her to take her time."

"She's not really interested in the details. She is more about the big picture."

"She loves books."

"She's a natural leader. It might be more effective if I sat on the floor and she taught the class."

After the conference, Reagan couldn't wait to hear what Mrs. Jenn said. I told her everything and then said, "The one wish Mrs. Jenn had for you was that you take your time when you are working with her. Don't rush." Reagan said she would tell Mrs. Jenn, "I'm not going to rush to go play."

I saw Mrs. Jenn on Thursday and told her what Reagan said. Mrs. Jenn then proceeded to laugh and said, "Well, today I was working with two students on a turkey project. They were gluing feathers to the turkey. Wynn said, 'Wow! How did Reagan finish so fast?' I looked over and, instead of gluing the feathers down one at a time like most children had done, she squirted glue on the paper and tossed all the feathers in the air, letting them fall where they may on the paper. And off she went to play.'"

And that sums up our little girl.

Awesome.

What's grosser than gross?

When your two-year-old walks in your room with a diaper in one hand and a huge doo-doo ball in the other.

Awesome.

Craftilicious Girls Night Out!

On Tuesday night, I invited the women from my Sunday School class over for a girly-crafty-let's-make-a-Christmas-wreath night. "Crafty" and "Christy" are kind of antonyms. I have majorly low self-esteem when it comes to arts and crafts. But my friend Ellen keeps blogging about how God created us so we should create. And at first I rolled my eyes and kind of thought easy for you to say little miss handmade recess lady complete with a sewing machine and an etsy shop and all that jazz. But then I reminded myself that creating doesn't just mean sewing stuff. It can also mean creating a peaceful home, creating a purposeful daily schedule, creating a family mission statement, creating a painting that covers the lipstick mural created by the two-year-old.

So then I started seeing myself as creative.

And then I found Pinterest. And that made me start to consider the tiny possibility that somewhere in my logical, non-crafty, non-girly self, I could find a cell that could make a craft. So I started pinning. And pinning. And pinning. And never crafting. But majorly pinning.

Then Heather started a craft club and bragged about how much fun it was. She doesn't live in my town so I couldn't join it but I thought to myself I may not love to craft but I sure do love people so maybe I'll give this a shot! And that's how crafty-girly-night was birthed!

We had the best time! And my wreath turned out really cute considering about 5 minutes before the evening started, I had no idea what I was going to make. Amazing what some yarn and balls can turn into.

Biggest Wreath award went to Angie.

Smallest Wreath award went to Stacia.

My wreath