Christmas Eve Eve

My family has a tradition of going to downtown Seattle on Christmas Eve Eve (as we like to call it). We first got on the light rail and rode it to Westlake where we looked in a toy shop and enjoyed our morning coffee (or hot chocolate) and the paper before we headed out on the town.

Our next stop was at the Sheraton Hotel, where every year there is a gingerbread house display with the most amazing gingerbread houses. The theme this year was train stations around the world and they had The Polar Express playing while we stood in line.

Then we went on the carousel. Andrew had lots of fun, but Josiah was not too sure about it.

Christmas Presents

This year I made most of the Christmas presents we gave. I started in the summer, so I had plenty of time to prepare them all. If you are interested in finding the directions for these, most of them I found on the internet and posted on my Pinterest boards. We picked marionberries from our garden and made them into jam for our neighbors.

I made some Christmas tags for presents for the women in my MOPS group.

I sewed some hot pads for my mom and sister-in-law.

I also sewed a sandwich cozy for them.

The sandwich cozy can then be used as a placemat for the sandwich.

Preschool Packs for my nieces. I found the pages to download and print from 1+1+1=1.

Headbands for my nieces using the hem of a t-shirt and some felt flowers I cut out with my Big Shot die cutting tool.

A car cozy for Josiah that I found on homemade by jill.

Tool belts for the boys. Micah even made them a little workbench (I'll need to take some pictures and post it).

Advent Activities

This year I found many great ideas on the internet for fun things to do with the boys for advent. One of the things we did was read The Christmas Tree Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs, and then we made our own Christmas trees using sugar cones, frosting and candy. Andrew loved eating his after he decorated it. We also wrapped up Christmas books, and had the boys unwrap one each night (I had no idea I had accumulated so many Christmas books). Some of our other activities were: making and decorating cookies, driving to look at Christmas lights, watching Christmas movies as a family, and having a movie night with our friends Michael and Lyndsay and their kids. We all enjoyed celebrating the birth of our Savior by doing things together as a family.