Celebrating Advent: Our Jesse Tree

This is one of the ways that Tom and I have decided to celebrate Advent with the girls. We found this idea on (In)Courage and all the work was done for me. There is an ornament for each day of Advent and a scripture reading that explains the picture and it's connection to the story leading up Jesus' birth. The kids are really enjoying it. Because of our Bible readings at breakfast, Lelia can sometimes tell us what story the picture goes with before she hears the reading.

Uma and Grandpa Jack

Goofing Around...

Classy!

We are breaking out the potty pants once again, for Lelia (not pictured above, please note). We wanted Lelia to get excited about wearing big girl underpants by having some time wearing them when we weren't actually training her. Clearly, it turned into a dress-up time for the whole family, Sedona style. She decided how she and Daddy were going to wear thier pants. Thankfully, I was spared :)

Family Activities

We got the kids all dressed up (in thier pajamas) and took them to Lights on the Bay at Sandy Point State Park. We drove around and from the comfort of our own car seats looked at all of the many lights displays that were set up. It followed a very nautical / Naval Academy theme for the most part, not a big shock being that we live in one of the sailing capitals of the world. The girls loved it. We heard lots of Oooos and Ahhhs from the back seats. That was my favorite part!

We took the girls to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum for the afternoon. I think the bulk of the excitment centered around the metro ride into DC and that's where most of the energy was expended too :) We only lasted about an hour inside the actual museum, and that might be stretching it a bit. I was walking through the museum with the girls totally aware of all of the wonderful things we have in our area to educate our children. We have so many resources right at our fingertips for our kids to actually experience the things we want to teach them about. I feel completely blessed to live in this area at this time of my life. I never thought I would say that after all of the many years I was "dragged" through these same museums for multiple field trips every year all the way through my education. It's amazing how drastically your perspective can change!