Christmas Programs

We had a weekend full of Christmas parties and Christmas Programs.  Unfortunately, I don't really have any pictures to prove it. 

On Friday night Alina had her first preschool Christmas program.  It was very cute.  All the classes came up on stage and sang a variety of songs.  Alina's class did "Away in a Manger."  From where we were sitting we could see her fine, but unfortunately the pictures just didn't turn out:( However, I did get this cute picture of Nate and Justin watching her perform.

On Sunday night, both kids sang in our church's children's program. Nate's toddler class sang "Happy Birthday to Jesus" and Alina once again did "Away in a Manger" and all the kids joined in on "We Wish You A Merry Christmas."  It was a cute play and all the kids did well.  While I recorded the whole thing on video, I did not get a good picture except this attempt:

I will try and get the video on here, but that has proven difficult lately.  Guess who's not getting mother of the year this Christmas?????

Christmas Fun

This past Saturday was filled with fun Christmas activities. We started off by going to the Palisade Olde Fashioned Christmas which is such a nice festival with lots of free activities to see and do.  It was a bit different this year because it was so cold so all the activities were inside.

We started off at the Gingerbread House Contest.  Some of these houses were amazing!  The kids also got to decorate a part of a house and now want to make one at home:)

And this is the one we voted for:

We rode on a trailer pulled by a tractor, which was a huge hit for Nate

After lunch we went to meet Santa.  They were both so excited to sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas and then this is how close they actually got:

He was so happy and loved Santa, but was not about to sit on his lap.  Alina gave him a fist-bump.

Free s'mores!

We got home in time for a quick nap and then headed out to the Parade of Lights. Alina was riding on the Danceworks float (which got #1 in the performance category!).  We bundled up really well  because it was maybe 20 degrees before the sun went down and only got colder.

 

She had three layers under that Santa costume!

Waiting for the parade to start

Remember the little brother from Christmas Story?

Our little star riding by us on the float

Advent 3 Ways

I absolutely love the Advent season!  I love the music, lights, decorations, food, all of it. I like the focus on the arrival of our Lord to distract from some of the craziness that comes along with the holiday season.  I think if it were up to me December would be like 45 days long.  I've enjoyed doing some activities with the kids the past few years, but this year we are doing a little bit of everything.

1. Countdown Chain - Alina and I started doing this the year we moved to Colorado (Nate was like 8 months old so he really didn't know what was going on) and she loves it.  We tear off one link each night before bed. This year I added verses to read on the inside of each link (got it from Pinterest, there's a shock, here's the link verses to read in december) that follow the entire Christmas story.  So for December we will be reading those each night.

 2. Target and Truth in the Tinsel - Nina got us this cute countdown at Target when she was here and it works perfectly with Truth in the Tinsel that I decided to try this year.  Once again it goes through the Christmas story through all of December but you also do a craft/ornament each day, like a Jesse tree idea.  Its cute and simple enough that I may hopefully stick with it.  There's a piece of paper that is the clue for the theme for each day in the little pocket.  Each morning we pull out the clue and stick the candy cane in its place.  Then at some point we read the scripture and make the craft.  I probably won't do all 24 crafts, but will try most of them.  I like it because once again, it centers on the coming of the baby Jesus.

3. And of course the chocolate calendar.  Nina always has one of these for each of the grand kids (and Uncle Mark:).  Its the simplest, but possibly the favorite. They may for get about our craft or scripture but they don't forget they are supposed to get chocolate every night after dinner!

I hope you are enjoying the advent season as much as we are!