paper chain

day 3 of advent calendar....make a paper chain.
greta and i had been talking about making a paper chain to help us count down the days til christmas (even though that's exactly what the advent calendar is doing).
greta and otto worked on the chain for a while this evening. otto tired of it quickly, but greta was so into it i bet she could have done the whole thing by herself. they were both excited to count the links when we were finished and they were impressed at how long it is! it was super fun and makes for a neat decoration!

yo gabba gabba christmas!

day two of our advent calendar.....eat popcorn and watch a christmas movie.
we were running short on time before bed, so we settled for watching yo gabba gabba christmas episode. as you can tell from the glazed looks, i don't think the kids minded one bit.
they added the candy canes that santa gave them, and i think they'd call this a perfect end to a great day.

sending christmas cards

day one of our advent calendar....make christmas cards.

advent calendar

and so begins the season of advent. we kicked things off with our advent calendar. each pocket holds a tiny ornament for a small tree that the kids decorate. this year, the pockets also hold a paper that tells us something "christmas-y" we are going to do that day.....from have a christmas music dance party to go to festival of lights. so far the kids seem super excited about this. and i've spent WAY less time this year reminding otto to leave the ornaments in the pockets until the designated day. unlike last year.

advent calendar

the kids have really gotten into the advent calendar this year. and by that, i mean that if you are not watching otto like a hawk, he can be found grabbing all the ornaments out of all the little pockets of the calendar. i feel like such a scrooge asking him to leave them in the pockets, but isn't that the point?
greta and otto have a little tree, and each day one of them gets to find the ornament in that day's 'pocket' on the advent calendar and hang the ornament on the tree as we count down to christmas. they love it. they love everything about it. often they will stop and look at the ornaments already hung on the tree. greta likes to speculate which ornament is in which pocket, and i think (in a simple way) she gets that we are using the calendar to mark the time until christmas.