Advent Activities

I've been taking pictures, but haven't gotten them onto the computer until now.  Here is what we're doing for Advent this year...

Advent Calendar: Curly gets a piece of a picture every day that she colors and we add it to the calendar.  On Christmas day, the picture will be complete with baby Jesus' face being the final piece.  (Yes, I am that awesome.  I made sure to number the pictures to end with baby Jesus).  So far, she's enjoying it, but yesterday she was in a pretty bad mood and didn't feel like coloring so we'll have to do 2 pieces today.

Advent Wreath: I had 4 purple-ish candles that smell wonderful, so I painted one pink and added real evergreen from a tree out back.  I painted the candle with crayon wax, using an idea from here.  It was shockingly easy!  The hardest part was creating a color I liked, but I could have finished in 5 minutes if I were't so picky!  This was the easiest and least stressful wreath I've had, and I like it the best!

This is the first pink color--freakishly bright magenta! 

Nativity Scene: Each year, my mom buys each of us girls a new Fontanini nativity piece.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this set.  There are tons of characters so there can be a whole scene and not just the manger.  Each piece is gorgeous and they are hard plastic so Curly can play with them without me hovering nervously.  This picture really emphasizes the wrinkled paper that is the nighttime backdrop.  It took a shockingly long time to get it cut to the right size and it still ended up too big in some places.  I should have asked Scott to do it for me, this type of precise job is his type of activity... 

My wonderful brother made the rustic manger for us.