Our Christmas Advent - week 1!

This year, I planned an "Advent" around books, crafts, and various activities.  I wanted to do something non-food related but that would be something that each of the boys could look forward to and I feel like this was the perfect thing for this year.  I'm the first one to admit, it can get overwhelming when you start looking at ideas to do for an advent or countdown so you have to just pick one idea and make it work.  I came across this idea last year over at Oopsey Daisy and also at Musings of Me.  Both are also doing this same advent this year but are also giving some new ideas. 

Each Saturday over the next few weeks I'll post our ideas, books and some photos.  Obviously we started on Thursday, December 1st and completed one on Friday.  Today, Saturday, we are actually cutting down our Christmas tree so that is our activity for the day!

This is our advent chart.  I have slips of paper that slide into pocket but I can't leave them in the pockets or the boys pull them out!  I just slip one in each day and let one of the boys pull it out.  We are also attempting to Hide the Elf (Elf on the shelf) but my boys are really not so interested in it so I am glad that I just bought a $2.00 elf at the store.  :-)  I also picked up a decorated box that is the perfect size to hold our activities. 

Day 1 -

 I place everything inside our activity box for the day  Our book on Day 1 was "Merry Christmas Splat" and I just LOVE this book!  It is so fun and Splat is adorable. 

 We also colored our own pictures of Splat and added google eyes (the boys liked the google eyes so Splat has about 10 eyes!! LOL)  The original plan was to blow black paint with a straw but I decided that wasn't such a bright idea and got out black markers instead! 

Once we finished coloring, we watched "Elmo's Christmas Countdown" and ate a special treat - Puppy Chow! 
The boys enjoyed this so much that they wanted to do more and were a little upset when I told them they had to wait. 

Day 2 -

Our second book is Morimer's Christmas Manger - it tells the story of a little mouse who learns who the baby in the manger really is.  So a great story - I just loved it!

We had a few activities that we did with this book.  I had some candy cane ornaments that we used to play with and Josh loved them.  I also found a great Toddler Resource having to do with the Nativity at Totally Tots that went along perfectly with the book.  I printed off various worksheets that I thought the boys would enjoy and they did.  Josh loved matching the letters of the word "Jesus" on a word mat. 

On this second day, Josh was pretty sick so I was surprised he even remembered to ask for the box.  He did though - in the morning - so we got it done and played!

I've already learned that my ideas and what the boys want may not match and that is ok; the main goal is for them to have fun.  They are most interested in the activities this year, which surprised me.  Nate loves books but the books are not attracting his attention as much as I expected. 

I look forward to sharing with you next week what we do throughout this coming week!