Our Three King's Advent Adventures: The Feast of Saint Nicholas

I was so excited to actually remember that this morning was the feast of Saint Nicholas before the feast actually arrived.  Nani and Grumpa had spoiled the kids quite a bit by sending on a Saint Nicholas day package, with pajamas for Christmas, a book for Sadie and Patrick and a Dora DVD for Mae, and one of the Shining Light Saint Nicholas dolls for each of the kids!  This morning they came downstairs to discover this:

Of course there was also a letter outlining our plans for the day:

If you click on the letter it should appear large enough to read!

Sadie found cuddle Frozen pajamas and a copy of the Frozen Golden Book along with her doll.

Mae found her own pair of snuggly pajamas and the ice skating Dora DVD with her doll:

And Patch found some snuggly cotton pajamas, a cute Teddy Bear book and his own little Saint Nicholas! 

Yesterday Sadie and I made sacrifice bead strands for each of the kids and they were a huge, huge hit.  I couldn't find Maggie's strand (which had rainbow beads with a pink cord), but the kids spend all day yesterday playing with them and hauling them around the house and trading them.

I made them with large wooden beads and parachute cord.  I tied a few rock climbing knots at the end and then burned the cord closed and so far Mae has yet to free the beads and roll them across the living room floor, so I'm cautiously optimistic that I may have made something that is Mae Bae proof.

As expected Sadie was the only one to use them as actual sacrifice beads, pulling a bead from the bottom to the top whenever she did something good or helpful or was kind to her brother or sister.  She was pretty much ecstatic to have her own pink beads:

To give you an idea of how big the beads are, here they are in my hand.
They look gigantic in the kids hands!

The search for the new baby King also went on through our living room and play room.

The sheep and shepherd still haven't found baby Jesus, but they did find the beads that we'd made:

 And Sadie discovered the Kings bending over a map, in front of our map wall, still searching for the baby King!

 Happy Feast of Saint Nicholas!  I can't believe we're almost a week into Advent!

Theme Thursday: Light

I know, I know, it wasn't what I would have gone out looking for if I'd have been carefully planning a post for today's Theme Thursday topic of "lights."  But as we were driving across town for an emergency almond milk run (because the only way to get Mae to take all her supplements is almond milk with vanilla, so having almond milk in our house in the morning makes my life about a hundred times easier) I saw this scene and I reached for my camera.  "Are you taking a picture of the car in front of us with all those crazy bumper stickers?"  Paul asked.

"No way," I replied.  "Look!  Look!  Gas is under $3 a gallon!"

"With a car wash," he pointed out.  

The car wash is a sore point for Paul because our van is most certainly not water tight and one more car wash might result in our floor boards falling off the car in a rotten state, but he would really like to take advantage of the sale and have a clean car.

"But still!"  I said, staring in shock.

Whenever this happens, when gas dips to some price we thought we'd never see again I try to look back and remember those faded days before I went to college when $2 would have seemed impossibly high... and now I'm cheering because it's under $3 (with a car wash).  

And I'm also kind of impressed that my little second hand camera took a picture at night with no flash and it actually turned out:

For more Theme Thursday (that is probably much, much more on topic and seasonally appropriate!  Could I not come up with something advent-y for TT?) head over to Clan Donaldson!

Blocks, Frogs and Unicorns: A Mae Update

I've been meaning to write a Mae update for a while now, since she's barreling past milestones just about every day.  I actually caught my favorite moment of the week on my camera when I glanced over and saw that she was stacking blocks.  I don't think I've ever seen her stack blocks in her entire life.  I've seen her destroy plenty of cities that her sister has built, so I was shocked when I glanced over and say this (and see if you can catch Patrick say "Aggie!" as he hands her a block at the beginning of the video):

Here are a few of my other favorite moments from the past week:

At the start of the week Mae was playing in the bath pretending to be a mermaid.  She was giggling and keeping her feet together and laughing when I would say they were her little fins and pretending to swim around the tub.  A few minutes later she looked at me and, in a clear little voice said:  "Ribbit!  Ribbit!"  "You're a frog now?"  I asked her.  She looked at me with a glimmer  in her eye and said:  "Hop!  Hop!  Hop!"

Mae's unicorn is so special I had to use the
"magic" mode on my camera to add a little
bit of sparkle to this shot...

She and her favorite unicorn have also been having a lot of fun.  Two mornings ago she ran across the room to her unicorn and said:  "Ride!"  After hoping on him (he's tiny!) she said:  "Go!!!!  Run!!!!" and after a pause "Away!"

She's also been giving me high fives and saying "Pat!" when she does it.  The word "Pat" is usually followed with a giggle and a glance at her brother, so it seems like she knows that the word sounds like his name.

She's also excited for therapy to begin each morning and I find myself shocked every time I glance into the room and see her sitting in her little chair doing activities!  I can hardly believe it's only been a month since therapy began!

The Wise Men, The Shepherd and some Sacrifice Beads

The 5th day of Advent has arrived and I'm taking advantage of Sadie's obsession with sacrifice beads to have the Kings bring some along so that we can make a strand as an art project today.  I found some sparkly "cats eye" beads that I had in my bag-o-rosary-supplies that ought to work nicely.  Here's the letter from last night:

The little shepherd display that I made was in tribute to something Maggie did yesterday that made me very, very happy.  I cannot recall ever having seen Maggie stack blocks.  They tried to get her to do it in cognitive testing but she wanted nothing to do with them in any way other than knocking them over. Sadie used to build with them all the time, and they tried to get her to stack or nest items in some of the various other tests and she would just repeatedly smash the blocks down.

Yesterday I glanced over and saw her sitting with a pile of five blocks and she was stacking them over and over again.  My heart leapt.  It's actually one of the next steps in development after holding toys in the hand and exploring them with the mouth, so it's a pretty big deal.  I was so excited that I was actually shaking.  And then, to add to the perfect-ness of the moment, Patrick reached over and handed Maggie a block and she took it and kept building.  

And so, this morning this is how the shepherds were arranged:

The Kings still haven't found their way to Bethlehem, and were discovered taking a joy ride on a certain one year old's push bike:

And here are the beads for today's project.  I have a feeling after all the talk of sacrifice beads yesterday on Holy Heroes that Sadie is going to be thrilled (maybe because she was begging me to make her another set last night since hers (mine that she swiped) got snapped some time ago.

 Happy first Thursday of Advent!

Advent and the Battle with Our Own Expectations

Yesterday a gaggle of posts began showing up in my facebook feed with a similar theme and it gave me pause.  I spent yesterday mulling over my thoughts as I wrapped up packages and folded laundry and cleaned the house.

The posts talked about the stress of Advent, the rush and bustle and they lamented the demands that we do all these things so that our children might be holy and the pressure that, if we don't do all of these activities in all of their pinterest-ly glory we'll have botched a chance at drawing them closer to God and it will be, quite certainly, the end of the world.

And while I don't think any of the posts I read were directed at this little blog, because frankly, I never assume that anyone other than my Mom reads it (Hi Mom!), I thought I'd talk about these worries and why I do blog about our Advent activities.

Every year Advent in our house looks different.  Some years I've been motivated to go out and find activities and attempt to get my kids to participate in them and it's ended with a flop.  Other years I've done nothing crafty and the world has not come to a screeching stop and my kids still got that Jesus was the reason for the celebration on Christmas day.  I've noticed, in general, the ebb and flow of activities from year to year in our little home directly relates to how pregnant I am, or whether or not there's a brand new baby in the house, which is to say, it is directly related to my energy level, which makes absolute perfect sense (at least around here!).

This is kind of what school
with her is actually like...
She's quite serious about it.

This year I'm motivated and excited.  Things have come together to give me a bit of time to make preparations.  In the mornings Maggie has therapy in the therapy room (right next to where we do our school work) and is completely occupied for three hours.  Sadie begins her mornings with her dearly beloved worksheets and while she occasionally will accept help from me, she doesn't need all that much (I'm watching her do fractions on her own right this second as I type this).  I try to do our quiet activities in the morning, so that we're not distracting to Mae.  And Patch is upstairs taking his 9am-11am nap, which he takes like clockwork every single morning, while sleeping through the noise and cheers of Maggie's lessons.  All of this gives me a bit of time.

It's also helpful that this month Patch is actually sleeping pretty well, which means that I'm at a point in the child raising cycle where I have a little more time and a little more energy than I have had in other years and more than I'll likely have in the future.

All of these factors have conspired to give me time to craft the Advent activities of my dreams this year, in the midst of what has been a rather stressful time.

Of course, as I said above, it's not always like this.  Some years have been frustrating.  The first year I made my Jesse Tree and I was excited about it, but the reality was that my kids were too little to take anything away from it.  Now that Sadie's old enough to be excited about our activities the reward of each little activity that I plan is pretty motivating for me.

Which I guess is a long winded way of getting around to saying that if Advent is stressing you out, take a step back.  Simplify.  Focus on prayer and preparing your heart for the coming of the King.  If pinterest or blogs are making you feel bad about your progression through Advent, close the window.  But maybe also give the people the benefit of the doubt about their motives for posting (because, while I can't speak to everyone's motives, I do believe that more than likely most people aren't trying to make others feel bad when they post about their Advent activities!).

It was especially interesting for me to read the posts I saw yesterday, because my reaction to all the pinterest posts is the absolute opposite reaction I've found myself reading about so frequently.  I love seeking out beautiful pictures on pinterest and blogs for ideas.  Blogs like Charlotte's and Melody's regularly inspire me.  They're words and pictures are just so beautiful.

And I love seeing the Advent pictures that my friends have pinned and have pretty much been using pinterest for that purpose exclusively for the past few weeks.

I know that it's likely my home won't turn out looking like a page out of a home decorating magazine (it will more likely look like a toy factory exploded), but I still like to scroll and dream and be inspired to do a little something extra.  Or I pin the idea and tuck it away for another day (or year) when I have more time and energy and, depending on the project, resources.  I don't tend to think that other people are posting these pictures at me.  I like to think they're posting them as inspiration.

Advent is here.  It will be gone before we know it.  Push away the things that are cluttering your mind and filling it with stress.  If you're one of those people (like me!) who actually find their minds growing quiet when they craft, then craft away.  If the idea of crafts makes you feel like having a panic attack, then think of activities that do fill you with peace.  After all, craftiness is not synonymous with holiness.  And Advent shouldn't make you feel like having a panic attack.

It's the season of preparation and anticipation and that's going to look different for different people.  So throw away the idea of some cookie cutter image and create the Advent that will draw you, and by extension the people around you, closer to the little baby whose birth we are eagerly awaiting.

A Fourth Day of Adventures with Our Wise Men

Yesterday morning when I came downstairs after getting dressed I discovered this:

You see I just couldn't help myself.  We have two nativities and I left one out for the kids to play with, while the one on the altar is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the rest of the nativity set (and especially the baby king).  The main reason I put it out is because I kept thinking of a particular Christmas and the fact that my kids would be pretty thrilled to have the nativity set out year round, so that they can do things like this:

Sadie at the age of two.
The animals were lining up to see the new baby king.

But when Sadie came down she just couldn't help herself.  The wise men were looking for the baby Jesus and she just had to give them a hand.

Which brings me to this morning.

The kids woke up to find this:

If you click on the picture it should come up
large enough to read.

 Maggie had already found the shepherd and he and his sheep were busy running around the living room:

But the wise men?  They were apparently quite hidden.  We had to play a game of "warmer/colder" before Sadie finally discovered what they'd gotten up to last night after another day of searching for the baby king:

Here are the first of Sadie's ornaments for advent:

And after bedtime I realized that of all the things we'd done during the day we'd forgotten to bring out my newest ornament, so today there were two.

The wise men had also arrived with the days worksheets, which I have a feeling that Sadie is going to be pretty excited about:

I have to say, I can't recommend the whole "hay for baby Jesus' manger" activity enough (that is to say, I love it!).  Yesterday Sadie insisted she help me do laundry, help me clean the house and she made my bed (perfectly!  I didn't even know she could make a bed!) when I told her she could go play in my room while I was giving Patch a bath.  This was all done in the name of making sure the manger was soft enough for the not-yet-here baby Jesus doll.  This morning she even gave her little sister her seat on the couch (which is pretty earth shaking if you've ever seen the competition for prime {prime meaning closer to Patrick} couch seats in this house).  I love that she is so excited about performing loving actions as little offerings she makes for God!

Does it feel like Advent is flying by to anyone else?  Maybe it's because it's finals here too, but I feel like we're just barreling along towards Christmas!

An Update on Yesterday's Prayer Request and Another Day of our Three Kings' Adventures!

I'm not sure I have words to express how grateful I am to all of you.

Can I tell you how hesitant I was even to post yesterday's post about my worries about the weekend sale's slowness and my worries about paying the bills?  I am the worst person at asking for help or even accepting help, even when I most definitely need it.  And so I broke through the pride that was holding me back and typed that post yesterday morning.

And the flood of orders that came in was amazing and humbling and had my eyes filled with joyful tears as the worries I'd been trying to let go of over the coming days were lifted by the great kindness of so many people.  So thank you to all of you who prayed and shared my store and sale and to those who went shopping too!  You are all so amazing.  And while I don't think I can even fully express in words what it means to me... thank you.

While the orders were still coming in (and I was nearly falling over each time I updated my screen), I got to work getting the living room ready for this morning's Three Kings' Adventure.  I typed up a letter explaining that a bundle of "straw" (scraps of felt that I cut up) had arrived with the Kings and that children who performed kind deeds would earn a piece of straw for the baby king's manger so that he would have some place soft to lay when he arrives on Christmas Eve night.  

If you click on the letter it should come up large enough to read!

Patrick was the first to earn a piece of straw when he crawled over and handed Paul the boot that Maggie was so desperate to get on her foot.

The Kings stopped their search after a long day and made a little music in the playroom!

One of the shepherd's has gone missing... a certain one year old likely knows (or knew) where he is but he isn't telling so... our solitary shepherd continued the search alone.  Hopefully the other shepherd shows up today.  I have a feeling I'll have to move the couch to find him!

Meanwhile, high up on the window ledge Mary and Joseph (minus the donkey that just won't stay up there) continued there long journey across the play room:

And that is the latest in our wise mens' adventures!

Thank you all again for being so amazing!

I'm linking up with Catholic Inspired!  And if you missed them here are Day 1 and Day 2!

Wise Men Adventures: Day 2

This morning started with a note.  

By the time we read it Patrick had already found the shepherds (and scattered their flock of sheep across the room... I'll have to send out a search party tonight), but Sadie listened with eager anticipation, squealing and running across the room to show me where the wise men had spent the night and pointing up to the window ledge to show Mary and Joseph's progress around the play room.

The shepherds had ended up in a perilous spot in more than one way.  Not only were they balanced high above the ground, they were right at toddler eye level:

The Kings on the other hand, found a much nicer spot to stop in their search.  And while the house was in reach of both Patch and Mae, neither of them spotted the Kings before we read the letter (although I should note that yesterday during family prayer time a certain someone climbed up and kidnapped the red camel and that two of the camels were later found in two beds in the inn in the other nativity set).

Sadie was also quick to spot the newest addition to the altar.  An Advent count down candle.

Here's a word to anyone thinking about an advent count down candle.  Before purchasing a candle, make sure it's not the kind of candle that burns clean down in a neat little hole through the center of the candle while the edges stand untouched.  Yeah.  That's what the candle above is doing.  So I'm now making a big deal about how it'll be Christmas when the flame reaches the bottom of the middle of candle.  If it can get down that far without being put out by it's own wax!

Tomorrow I'm planning on throwing in the whole "adding hay to the manger" activity (strips of felt I'm going o cut up).   Each good deed will result in one piece of "hay" being put in the "manger" to make a comfy bed for baby Jesus.  And hopefully I'll get that done slightly earlier than I got last night's project finished!

A Sale and A Prayer Request

The sale is still going on in both of my stores!  It's been a slow weekend and I'm hoping for a pick up this fine cyber-Monday morning (and having a bit of a panic attack since this will officially be my slowest Thanksgiving weekend in all the years I've been in business... I'm doing school with Sadie right now and trying not to cry!  Oh the stress of owning a small business and depending on it's income!).

I try not to talk about this sort of thing a ton (because oh my goodness wouldn't this blog be incredibly depressing if I did), but you guys get to hear about my worries and thoughts and honestly this is pretty much all I can think about right now.

If you're looking for a cute baby present or headcovering the code ThankYou15 will knock 15% off your order at checkout!

If you could share this sale or offer a prayer for me to trust in God to provide a little bit more right now it would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

WIWS: First Sunday of Advent Edition

Today was amazing.  Paul went with us to Mass.  I asked him which kid he wanted to be responsible for and he took Patrick and put him in the carrier and I took Maggie and Sadie.  I was ready to stand in the narthex but when I saw that the back pew in the kid section was available (a couple of pews that are set slightly back from the other pews.  They also have a basket of kid books on them.) I headed over and thought we'd give sitting in a pew a try.  

And she did it.  She was quiet the entire time.  She looked at the back of a golden book and was shocked that it wasn't the same as the back of her golden books because it had a few Sesame Street and Disney Characters thrown in.  The only time she spoke was when we were line for communion and she realized where we were going and threw her arms up in the air like she was going to cheer as she said:  "Yay!" in a sweet little sing song voice.

There was a sweet tiny baby in front of us and I saw her watching him and smiling and had to stop her once from going down to cuddle him, but other than that it was completely and blessedly uneventful.  I did catch her gazing at him a few times and smiling.

Can I say how much I love uneventful?

In other news the church looked stunning.  In addition to the advent colors (I'll stick with plural since there was that one rose candle!), the old crucifix was replaced this past week and the more modern resurrected corpus was placed in another part of the church (so you'll see it when you turn to leave).  The new crucifix is stunning.  It's quite possibly the most beautiful one I have ever seen.  It just transformed the front of the church.

And now, since this is a WIWS post, here's what I wore this Sunday.  I went with purple in my excitement to kick off advent:

  

This kid.  Dressing him isn't the easiest part of my morning.  I think he's taking after his Dad in terms of proportions.  His shoulders and chest are in the 24 month-2T range.  His sleeper size is also in that range too.  But his waist?  If I want to keep his pants up without a belt (and a belt wouldn't work with most of the pants I have for him) I would need a 9-12 month waist.  Which is why I almost always put him in the one pair of pants that he has that are adjustable at the waist.

Today I put him in 12 month pants, which look like floods but stay on him, and kept his sleeper on under it because it's cold and because he hates socks and loves to take them (and his shoes) off and throw them (while hoping that I don't notice) so that all the little old ladies feel sorry for the poor baby who's out in December with bare feet.  So sleepers under his clothes it is:

Mae was very, very happy with her new Thred Up sweater.  She was less happy about my attempts to snap a picture of it while she was busy working on her drawings.  She loves that board.

Lastly, here's Sadie in her fairy dress and her fairy jacket.

I'm pretty sure I don't like how she looks older and older in every single picture I take of her.

And could she slow down on the growing already?  At this rate it feels like she's going to be taller than me by her sixth birthday!

For more WIWS head over to FLAP!  I hope you had a great first Sunday of Advent!

The First Day of Advent: Our Wisemen's Adventures

Every year no matter how much time I put into preparing for Advent (the time of preparing ourselves for Christ's birth at Christmas!) I always feel like there's more that I wanted to get done.  There are just so many cute ideas out there for kids that I can see my kids enjoying.  I know that in the end I'll have finished the ones that mattered to me the most and I'll let go of the idea of the others for another year.  It's not a bad sort of stress, it's actually the kind that pushes me to get more done and since I enjoy crafting it's actually a lot of fun seeing how things turn out (even if I do end up longing for a few more days between Thanksgiving and Advent's first Sunday).  

I'd done a lot of sewing in preparation of my Advent plans this year, but last night I got down to the actual physical preparations in the living room.  First I cleaned and prepared the home altar, risking life and limb in the basement (I've been meeting more and more mice of late... last night one challenged my right to one of the toy camels that was in a box of toys he'd apparently made his home...) to find the missing members of our nativity set and our Advent "Wreath" (okay ours is more of a nativity candle holder):

 Once the altar was done I turned to my other plans for the night.  I used some of our toys to set up a little nativity village in the play area that the kids can play with.

Then I set up a second nativity play area on one end of the altar.  This nativity only contains animals at this point.  No one has arrived yet (the little Mary and Joseph dolls and their donkey are actually on the top of a window frame in the play room and will be slowly making their way to the stable over the coming days).

Earlier this year I began thinking of daily ideas that would be fun for the kids to do each morning when they wake up.  There are some secular traditions that I'm not a fan of (and you don't need to defend any of those traditions or try to convince me of their awesomeness.  Me not feeling all warm and fuzzy about them isn't a judgement on anyone else using them. I just don't feel like they fit with our family's celebration of this particular time of year) and I was looking for ideas that would help keep the focus of Christmas on the upcoming birth of our Savior.

When I found the Wise Men Adventure's over on Jennifer's Catholic Inspired I knew that I'd arrived at the right place.

Last night our Wise Men began their big journey.

I've added my own little twist to the way we're doing this particular activity.  Our Wise Men aren't the only ones searching the house.  Which brings us to the...

The Shepherds are also out there searching for the soon to be born King.  

Yesterday Sadie and I spent a lot of time talking about who would find him first.  She's cheering for the Wise Men (and is totally ignoring hints from Mom that they might be wandering around our house until Epiphany!).

Everyone started out on the altar last night, so that it would be easy for the little one's to find them while I explained what we were doing.  After tonight they'll be spreading out in their little groups and having adventures all over the house!

I left a note that explained what we were doing.  Sadie listened to it eagerly this morning as I read it:

It explained that the search was on and that there would be an ornament and a note each day, along with coloring pages to find with the Wise Men (because I loved how Melody is using the Wise Men to organize Advent and I totally wanted to copy her idea to help me organize over here!).  

 Today's note had the reading for the day that went with the Jesse Tree ornament (I sewed a little purple silk bag last night out of some scraps of fabric to put the ornament in) and it explained that we're preparing our hearts for the birth of baby Jesus now that Advent has arrived.  It also explained that most days there will be coloring pages and activities for us to do (courtesy of Holy Heros Advent Adventures!).

It also told Sadie that Daddy had gotten her and Mommy tickets to go to the nutcracker at his school today, which is why the little red nutcracker I found at Joann's on super sale is joining the Wise Men this morning and it told Maggie and Patrick that they'd be getting to have special play time with Daddy while we were out of the house.

So those are how my plans have unfolded so far!

Happy first Sunday of Advent!

A Peekaboo Injury...

Okay, this is probably one that will only interest our family members who are scattered across the map. And maybe those of you who are curious about how Peekaboo can be turned into a full contact sport.

Boomer really does seem to fit as a nickname: