Advent Fun

We are working as a family to come up with our holiday traditions. This year we started working on putting together an advent for the season. We wanted to do some of the typical fun holiday things but then also focus on the real reason of the season as well. We didn't do all of the things that we wanted to this year (partly because we didn't have an official advent to keep us accountable and also because we were just so busy already) but here are some snapshots of some of the things we did! Also, there are a few activities that I did with Ember since we were taking a break from tot school for this month.

Reading "Elf on the Shelf" and hiding Elfie every day for Ember to find

I wrapped 25 Christmas children's books and we opened and read one every day

Aunt Ally sent us this adorable felt Christmas tree that we had lots of fun decorating and undecorating

Snowman pancake breakfast (paleo style!)

We cut out snowflakes (with the help of some You Tube videos)

Our local Aquaplex put on a free event with holiday crafts, pictures with Santa, free cookies and hot chocolate, and more. Ember was being shy with most things but she did get her face painted for the first time!

We did a puzzle as a family - Ember insisted on "handing" each puzzle piece to Dustin with her feet... haha!

Annual light parade downtown!

Sensory bin with packing peanuts, cotton balls, and blue glittery pom pom balls

Luminaries!

Holiday pizza night!

Decorating sugar cookies with friends

Used Q-tips to put ornaments with paint on a Christmas tree

We went to two holiday themed music classes - Ember and Addi had so much fun

Rudolf craft

Gingerbread House!

And Christmas Eve Service

We also read the Christmas story, did a few Random acts of kindness, and we watched "Elf". It was so much fun and I hope we can make it a little more official next year!

Christmas Tree Farm Pictures

One of the girls in our Lifegroup from church is a photographer on the side and was willing to take pictures of our family despite how busy she was! We are so happy with how they turned out and are thankful for these keepsakes!

Here are my favorites!

Thanksgiving Week

We had the privilege of heading down to Phoenix for almost a whole week the week of Thanksgiving. 

We started off at the Scottsdale Links Diamond Time Share (thanks to my mom and dad!!) for two nights! 

We enjoyed dinner with some of our friends that live in Tempe our first night. They came over to our place and we made dinner and caught up on life!

We started off the next morning with Wildflower for breakfast!

Then played at the park that was at the resort!

After nap time, we went swimming for a little bit and then watched Madagascar with popcorn that night! 

From there, we headed toward Mesa for an early Thanksgiving celebration with my family.

1st stop - ZOO! And my mom and 3 other families joined in on the fun too! 

(we randomly ran into Celeste, Asher, and Aria Olmstead at the zoo and Ember got to milk the cow with Asher) 

That night, we had a delicious ham dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving with our family! (We missed the Brucks this year!!)

On Thanksgiving morning, we all Facetimed with the Brucks and then headed over to the Perry's house where I got to see some of my best friends and their kids!

So great catching up with these girls!! 

Then onto Verrado where we celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with Dustin's family!

Corbin and Ember played and played the whole time. They just chased each other around and pushed each other in cars or on bikes. They had a blast!

Evans family pictures!

The next morning, we all took a walk to a restaurant in Verrado and had a delicious breakfast! Ember got to ride in the car on the walk.

Finally, we headed back to Scottsdale and stayed in the Hilton Garden Inn for 2 more nights.

 It was right next to Old Town Scottsdale which was nice! We walked there for dinner, breakfast, and then breakfast again!

Pool time!! It was surprisingly warm! 

Our last night before heading home, we drove to the Scottsdale Quarter for dinner at Zinburger.... and I am sure glad we did! They were having a Santa Clause Social and there were free pictures with Santa, live holiday music, and a tree lighting! It was perfect! 

(We didn't get a picture with Santa because we thought Ember would be terrified)

And we finished the night off right with another bag of popcorn! This little one LOVES popcorn :)

We had a great trip getting to see lots of family and friends and then also getting to relax some too! We truly have to much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and all year round! God is so good!