Advent - week 4

For the final week of Advent, we made Christmas cookies and cinnamon rolls (Savannah said "Do you know what my favorite candy is? Cookies!), visited Conner Prairie to see the gingerbread house competition and then made our own, read a book and watched a movie about Jesus' birth, made a nativity craft, rode the train at Sullivan's Hardware, visited the Children's Museum, and drove through the light display at Reynold's Farm.

We also watched several Christmas movies. The kids' favorites were Charlie Brown Christmas, The Very First Noel, and Rudolph. Their MOST favorites were Elf and Home Alone. They laughed big time!

The kids have been majorly pumped for Christmas this year. They run downstairs to open the Advent activity calendar and our nativity calendar. Our Elf on the Shelf came out this week (he's only with us a week since that seems like plenty of time to me) and they were very excited to see where he'd be hiding each morning. I've been feeling quite worn down in my third trimester (and had yet another trip to the ER to have my heart rate restarted this week) so I'm quite surprised we managed to do so much this year (looking at photos, I realized we saw Santa three times)! It's so fun to be around kids this time of year and share in their excitement, it is very contagious!

Children's Museum on Christmas Eve

making a gingerbread village

watching Home Alone

after Christmas Eve Mass

waiting to see Santa at Sullivan's Hardware after riding the train

first photo with ALL the cousins, including Toby all the way from California!