Advent Season - Keeping the "Christ" in Christmas

If you want a free resource to help you keep the Christ in Christmas...one that's done a lot of the work for you with activities, Bible verses, songs, etc as you prepare your heart, your family and children for Christmas, you may want to check out the Good Morning Girls 4 week study and their ebook on the subject, Advent Study: Keeping Our Hearts Focused on Jesus, which is free when you subscribe to GMG.

I have done a variety of self-created Christmas count downs in the past, but haven't really done Advent, per se, in the past.  I think that this year, I might give it a try - candles and all.  So it's appealing that they have it all compiled for me.

We'll see how it goes. 

I'll also continue my Christmas count down and incorporate the Advent activities into the countdown (because let's face it, there is no way that both will happen independent of each other).

Are we ready to discuss Christmas already?

School Fall Festival

Lest you think the Halloween fun was finished when the holiday itself was over, Jacey's school hosted its own Fall Festival on the Friday following Halloween.

Yet another opportunity for her to dress up.

Again.

As something completely different.

This time she was a Care Bear.  Only in her world, when she put on the 'helmet', her version of a Care Bear growled at people.

'Cause I guess that's what bears do, and since we don't watch the Care Bears, she really doesn't know any better.

She was priceless.  And adorable!

Halloween

Each year our sorority row hosts Halloween, and our kids absolutely LOVE attending their festivities.  We have invited many of our friends to attend with us over the years, and it has turned into one of our family traditions.

The kids love it.  They talk about the big houses.  They talk about the lots of people.  They talk about the games.  And they talk about the candy.  The good candy. (Come on, you know what I'm talking about. It's the type of candy you want to eat yourself but you don't necessarily want to buy to hand out to others. There, I said it.)

And we don't have to worry about checking the candy.  And we know that we can take our candy tax and they'll still have plenty for weeks to come.

I'm not kidding.

Weeks.

Really.  Weeks.

Since it's getting dark earlier now, we made sure to get a group picture as we started the evening off to ensure that we actually got one.

And then we realized that the ninja didn't have his mask on, so we tried again.  After several attempts, we got this.

Then we did a couple with just my sweet ones.

And when they had had just about enough of Mommy and her camera (let's be honest here - they were past that point, really), we went on to the houses and the fun!!

Such a great idea, a fun event, and a fabulous night.  I love that our college students put this event on for the community!!

After this event we went and visited Bubba (a retired professor that Mommy worked with for years) and played at his house for a while before finally calling it a night.  I don't think it took the kids 10 minutes once their heads hit the pillows to fall asleep!

MSC Hospitality hosts Halloween

The MSC is open again.  That means that the MSC Hospitality Halloween event is back in the MSC instead of packed into the location they have had to have it the past few years.

And the kids had a great time at this one (as always)!

The girls decided to change up their outfits.

And notice the pan to accompany Tatum's outfit....she came up with that all.on.her.own.  Yes, she is precious, you can say it (and if you don't know to what I'm referring, go rent Tangled).

We headed to the MSC and played games.  All of their games.

Jacey was drawn to the duck game, although she didn't quite understand the concept (try to pick the duck that corresponds with the number you're given - numbers are on the bottom of the ducks).  She just liked to pick up the ducks out of the baby pool and play in the water.  So I had to be super diligent to make sure she wasn't putting the ducks in her mouth or doing anything else that might make the germ-a-phobes in my family go haywire.

We also decorated cookies.  A couple of times.

The kids also did some face painting.  They just love getting their faces painted!!  I didn't get a good picture of Tatum's face before she actually cleaned it off when we got home.

And then I let Kellen go through the haunted house. He came out saying that he wasn't scared but that he didn't want to do it again.  Then Tatum begged to do it, so she and I went through when it was on its least scary level.  That wasn't a smart idea on my part - even though it's geared for kids.  So then, because it was nearing the end of the event and we were the last group through, some of the people who were working the haunted house (or room) were starting to come out.  One of them had one of their props, and so she and I went over to talk to him, and I had her feel the prop and we talked about how everything she saw was just pretend.  I think it made her feel a little better.  The college kids putting it on were fabulous and I think they felt badly that she was so scared.

Our nights leading up to Halloween are quite full, and I'm so blessed to be near so many fun and family-friendly events for my kids!!

Pumpkin carving fun!

After our Fall Festival fun, we came home to carve our pumpkin.  The one we had purchased a while back and declared we would not wait until the last minute to carve. Yeah, that one.

Daddy took off the top to start the process.

Daddy proceeded by getting the kids involved in getting the 'guts' out.  This time, we decided that we were going to try our hand at making pumpkin seeds, so we were a little more careful with those guts that we have been in the past.

 We tried to get Jacey involved in the gutting process, but that took some work. Then we tried to get her just to feel the guts once they were out and help us sort the seeds. That process worked out a little better. She wasn't initially interested, but surprised Mommy by actually patting and molding the seedless guts!  I'll consider that a HUGE sensory success!

And then Daddy had the kids actually help with the carving of the pumpkin itself.  All kids got a turn at the carving stage (with Daddy assistance, of course - but I apparently didn't get good shots of all of the kids carving).

And then we have our final product!

Fall Festival!

Our church plans a fabulous fall festival each year the weekend of/before Halloween, so we were so excited for it to come this year!  We made plans to meet up with friends, the kids dressed up - and so did I - Tatum asked why I wasn't dressed up, and so I went as a superhero, according to her - unfortunately their daddy's Spiderman shirt ripped as he was putting it on, so he was unable to join in on the dressing up fun.  We ate the hot dogs, corn on the cob, but I think somehow managed to skip over the cotton candy (yes, craziness, I know!!), and played a multitude of games, got candy prizes, did bounce and activity houses and played in the petting zoo.

Shortly after eating, we made our way to the photo op.

I have my favorites, which one is(are) yours?

Then we played some games.

And then the girls had fun petting the various animals while the boys were running around in the activity houses.  I think they were fighting each other with the inflatables at this point.

All in all, they kids had a really good time at the Fall Festival again this year!  I love that our church puts on this event for everyone and provides WAY more activities than there is time to complete them!