Living intentionally but honestly

Last year I made a "green" Advent calendar out of recyclable materials (brown grocery store bag, cut up magazines, etc.) It held up pretty well, so the girls loved taking turns moving the gingerbread from pocket to pocket this year.

But I also got inspired by this post to make another type of Advent calendar.




I LOVED the idea of planning out activities for every day. Nothing makes me happier than living intentionally - having a plan and carrying it out. This is good and bad, as you might imagine. I think the girls have definitely humbled me in this regard though. I'm learning to make a plan, then plan for that plan to break. For example, I planned for 25 activities,ranging from the simple (read a Christmas book together) to the complicated (make a gingerbread house) to the already-on-the-calendar-so-this-is-kind-of-cheating activity (such as Christmas parties). But about midway through the month, things fell apart as our already-challenging three-year-old took behavioral issues to a new level. There was about a week there that it was all I could do to make it to bedtime without killing anyone, forget focusing on Advent. How's that for honesty?

Well, thankfully no one was hurt, and eventually I managed to pick myself up by my boot straps and determine not to be defeated by 30 lbs of will power. Cause guess what? Mama's got a LOT MORE weight and therefore a lot more WILL. So eventually we got back into the fun of things.

Another thing that I intended to do with this was to take a picture of our activity every day. Yeah, that didn't happen either. I did, however, take a lot, so here is what I have.


Turning over the first one: open one Christmas gift, which was...


Christmas pajamas!

Some of other other activities (in no particular order):


Going to the mall to get pictures taken in their Christmas dresses.


Going to the lighting of the town Christmas tree.


Going to see a live Nativity.


Going on a hayride at a Christmas tree farm.


Hanging with mommy on the hayride.


At the Christmas tree farm.


Cute girls at the Christmas tree farm.


Going to a party at Barnes & Noble where they read Christmas stories and had Christmas cookies in their pjs.


More cuteness.


Meeting Santa at the B&N event and showing him his likeness on her pjs.


I couldn't believe the "fake" Santa (aka, fake bearded) was the one they actually acquiesced to a photo with.


With my cute girl that night.


Making candy cane reindeer.


Making a gingerbread house.


Decorating a "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake.

Overall, I really did enjoy this and I *think* we'll do it again next year. December can just fly by if you let it, and I feel like having something planned every day helped us pay attention to each day of the season. Guess we'll see what three-year-old Lily looks like next year first. ;)