I love Christmas time!! I enjoy other holidays but Christmas is by far my favorite. Because of this I have tried to make it a tradition for our family to celebrate advent so that we can enjoy every day during this season and stay focused on the real meaning of Christmas. This Christmas I am even more excited than normal for a couple reasons. The first one is that Timmy is old enough to start understanding parts of what it means to be excited about Jesus! Obviously he is not going to understand all of it or really be interested in all the Bible readings but I love knowing that we are getting a chance to show him a love for the Bible and a love for the real meaning of Christmas. Allanna is still to young to understand but she is going to love the crafts, cookies, and watching the candles! The other reason I am looking forward to this time of reflection and anticipation is because I feel as though I have been extremely distracted for the last year. Its been a tough year with everyone's health which should have made me draw closer to God but instead I feel like I have been too busy to really draw near to Him. So I am really excited to have this time of renewed focus. I know that I shouldn't have waited so long to work on this, But God uses anything He wants to too help us get refocused :o)
I am mainly using two different websites for a list of verses and other activities for advent. Here are the links in case you want to follow along too :o)
http://www.teachingmom.com/features/advent.html
http://www.homeschooled-kids.com/advent.html
So tonight we will be lighting the first candle and will start reading verses about the prophesies of Jesus' birth and his 2nd coming. The kiddos just finished their first craft which they loved. We made little candle holders with empty baby food jars, glue, and tissue paper. They are still drying so I don't have a picture with the candle in it yet but here are a few pics of the kiddos working on them.
