Happy Advent!

At home we continued our Jesse Tree devotions and even acquired some Jesse tree ornaments courtesy of Monkey and Bug's Sunday school teacher. The girls finished several Advent calendars: one involved adding stickers to a paper tree, another opening little flaps to see illustrations of the names of Christ, and a third was a computer program that had a video, game, or activity for each day. We also baked and decorated gingerbread cookies, listened to lots of Christmas music, played with nativity sets, and watched several VeggieTales Christmas specials.

The big girls got into the giving part of Christmas this year! We've never made the girls buy for each other or anyone else, but during this season we've always talked about celebrating God's generosity to us by being generous to others, and we've always gotten them involved in choosing alternative gifts for Daddy's family and giving through programs like Operation Christmas Child. This year Monkey and Bug decided they wanted to give gifts to each other, Lion, and Daddy and I too. They had so much fun choosing gifts, and they did a great job!

Guess which runner doesn't want to be here anymore?

Even the girls running club got in on the merriment. Instead of the usual activities one week, they did a Jingle Bell Run 5k. They were pretty excited about getting jingle bells to tie onto their shoes! Bug was highly motivated by the competition and finished in about 40 minutes, Lion pushed herself too hard at the beginning of the race and had to take a break partway through (this was her first time racing without an adult running partner to pace her for the first part of the race), and Monkey remembered shortly after leaving the starting line that actually she hated running long distances (she walked most of the way, but she did finish).

The Advent fun continued at church as well. We all enjoyed a potluck Advent breakfast one Sunday, the girls and I attended a potluck Women's Circle luncheon (so much good food!), and the church hosted an Advent festival one afternoon. It involved lots of crafts stations for the girls to choose from (we came home with some cute ornaments for the tree), a pizza dinner and Christmas cookies, and a mostly impromptu children's Christmas pageant (the kids chose their parts & costumes that afternoon, and a middle

Monkey, Lion, and a friend doing
Christmas crafts

schooler read Luke 2 punctuated with everyone singing appropriate Christmas carols). Our family was also asked to like the Advent wreath for the third Sunday. Bug even read the scripture verses, and each of the girls got to light a candle (with a boost from Daddy--that wreath is really tall!)

We had three little angels in the pageant!