We've started our advent activities here!
You may remember that I made one last year out of tins and magnets and it was in the shape of a Christmas tree... yeah, it was a hot mess. The tins were way too hard for Olivia to open. The magnets wouldn't stay on the fridge. If you knocked one tin then a domino affect took place. I'm going to ahead and claim it a Pinterest fail. So I threw it out and started over this year. While I would love a Pottery Barn advent calendar, it was not in the budget. So instead we went with this $3 beauty from Target. ;)
I wanted cheap, easy for Olivia to use, and to make it more about the fun family activities we are doing together rather than caring about the calendar itself. I mean, it's obviously cheaply made, but it works. I didn't really want to be digging in each pocket for something, so instead I used craft sticks that I already had on hand to write on. I used festive stickers from my teaching days to add a little fun to them, and there you have it. If this system works, then I may spruce it up for next year--paint the back of the sticks or something. But I will be honest and tell you that I needed as simple as possible this year. So that's what I did.
Day one was open one gift. That one gift was, of course, their Christmas pajamas. Logan didn't quite know what to do at first, but he watched his sissy and figured it out quickly.
Olivia is really into nightgowns right now, and she doesn't have a ton of them. She can actually still wear her Christmas pajamas from last year, so I thought a fun fleece nightgown would be a nice change for her. She was thrilled.
Michael had just got home from work and was standing there watching, so this is Logan proudly showing off his new jammies to his Boppa. So cute!
They wore them that night, but I was at work, so no picture. But we will get one!
Day two was read Christmas books. Again, they were both so excited!
You may not be able to tell in this picture, but that is because the first 20 pictures I took were a blur of excitement. This is one of the only clear pictures I have from when they settled down. :) Remember last year when I wrapped them all to read one a day? And then Olivia opened them all one day while I was in the shower! I decided that while that is yet another cute Pinterest idea, we aren't even going to attempt it. So I put all of our Christmas books in a basket and brought it out. I have a lot from my teaching days, and then we've collected a few over the years. I keep them with my Christmas decorations, so they really are special when they make their one month appearance!
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