Advent Fun

This isn't the first time I've mentioned that I made an advent calendar last year but it didn't hold up well and there was no good way to store it so it was dumped at the end of the season.  I went around and around about what kind of calendar to make this year, scouring Pinterest, Flickr, and the web in general looking for ideas.  I narrowed it down to two:


Oh, how I LOVE this one!  There are two issues however...  Virtually nothing will fit in one of those little mittens, I didn't have time to knit them all, I couldn't decide on colors, I kind of want each girl to have their own they can take someday and I REALLY don't have time to knit two!  (ok, that's four issues).  I think I may work on this for next year just to hang from the mantel because I do love it so much.

This is the inspiration for mine. (found on Pinterest). I really like the idea of it but I wondered how long it would need to be to fit 24 numbers and I wanted their names at the top.

So... I ordered their names and numbers 1-24 in vinyl.  I got 2 boards, clothespins, ribbon, and glue from JoAnns.  When I got home with the boards I quickly realized the numbers were MUCH too big so I ended up getting 2 sets of numbers meant for board games or something.

 I painted the boards white, glued ribbon to the clothespins, and glued everything to the boards.

As I've mentioned, some of our days are activities, while others are small gifts.  I got a piece of red/white paper to write the activities on and hung them from the pins.

Here's Stella's finished with her wrapped gifts.  It's a bit more jumbled than I'd care for, but it seems to be working well.  So far the only issue is that without fail, Stella wants whatever Lucy has.  Last night I finally had to tell her that if she whines about what she gets again and wanting Lu's I'll be taking the rest of her gifts down and donating them. We spend a lot of time talking about having a grateful heart and how blessed we are.  I need to find some new ways to express that to her because I'm not sure she gets it.

I know "activity only" Advent calendars are big right now, but I like finding little things for them (mostly from the dollar section at Tarjay) and frankly, I wouldn't make it doing activities everyday for 24 days!  I like that they each have their own, I'm always thinking that one day I want them to each be able to have things to take with them when they move out.  It's crazy because I don't even know if these boards will survive the next year! Like I said, I'm kind of a nutty worrier of a Mama.