Days 1 & 2

This year Jon & I were in Memphis when the Advent calendar started, so I had to leave some activities that Grandma & Grandpa Shogren could do while we were gone.

Here is Aaron staring at the Advent calendar.

Day 1 consisted of opening up the Advent book.  This is new to our family this year, but I've looked at it online the past few years.

This year, I finally pulled the trigger and bought it.  $40 is the most I've spent on a book since my college years when you had to buy those horribly expensive textbooks.  I was also a little scared to spend that much when it said the the covers of the books that were left are all imperfect.  When our book arrived, I was happy to see that the imperfections are so minor that if they hadn't told me they were imperfections, I would have never known.  The boys LOVE the book.  If you aren't familiar with it, each day has a different door to open with a short part of the Christmas story written behind it.  We've been reading it each night before bed. 

The big boys look forward to this SO much each night.  More than I expected.

The boys are already starting to have parts of it memorized and they get excited to do this each night.  I'm looking forward to doing this each year. 

Although I'm hopeful that Caleb sits for it next year instead of just attacking us while we are reading it.  Usually we wait until he's in bed now since he just wants to initiate wrestling.

I also left some of those chocolate advent calenders, the ones where you punch a piece of chocolate out each day.  I got them at the dollar store this year, so the chocolate is pretty bad and small but the boys like it.  For some reason, I am able to remember to read our daily book and do the activities, but I cannot for the life of me remember the chocolate calenders.  So, last night, the boys got to have days #6-9 in an effort to "catch up." 

Day 2 was a wooden nativity scene for each of the boys to color and three clues about where I had hidden a bag of gummi candy for the boys to find and share.  I was trying to keep it simple for Grandma & Grandpa as they were on day #3 of watching all four boys.  The boys liked the nativity craft and each have them set up in their room among their growing collection of Christmas crafts.  When I got home,they told me that my clues were way too easy and that they found the candy right away.