Stylin'

A Snowy Day

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Holiday Fun

We've been having some holiday fun around here.  On Friday, we decorated a gingerbread house with Aunt Wendy.

Who knew that the best part would be feeding candy to Aunt Wendy?

Then, today, we put up the Christmas decorations!  But my memory card was almost full, so I didn't get very many photos.  I made up for it by getting this one:

Offerings from my tiny Zen master. (River rocks in the dishwasher.)

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Advent

We set up Devyn's first Advent calendar on Saturday. I used a cut set of bags from Ikea and tied them to our banister with our greenery.

I found a lovely poem about advent that I'm using to guide our little celebration this year.  

The first light of Advent is the light of stone--. Stones that live in crystals, seashells, and bones.
The second light of Advent is the light of plants-- Plants that reach up to the sun and in the breezes dance.
The third light of Advent is the light of beasts-- All await the birth, from the greatest and in least.
The fourth light of Advent is the light of humankind-- The light of hope that we may learn to love and understand. 

So far, she got a little felt Christmas tree on the first day.  Each bag has a felt star in it that she gets to add to the tree.  The second day, I gave her a candle to play with before we lit the candles on our Advent wreath.  Today, day three, I gave her a shiny river rock.  

She loves it.

And this is why I love my little girl.

We're going to use it to decorate our little nativity.  I built the stable out of toy blocks today.  :)  We're going to use her stuffed farm animals and I'm going to make people out of clothespins.  But she'll be able to play with it, which is the important part.

I've been thinking for a long time about how I wanted to celebrate the season, and I just decided that I want to do the stuff I love and so that's what we're going to do.

For the rest of this week: Tomorrow she'll get a piece of rock candy before we decorate a gingerbread house.  Wednesday, she'll get our copy of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and on Thursday, she will get a sea shell before we go to the aquarium. On Friday she will get some sprinkles to help me decorate biscotti for her teachers at MOPS, and on Saturday we will make salt dough ornaments.