A-door-able Advent Calendar

I got a great idea from my Family Fun magazine for December. Someone came up with this super cute way to create your own advent calendar. I did some planning and actually was able to do it myself. I took a picture of mine and it didn't come out so well. I will let you just look above at the one I found in the magazine.

Basically, you come up with 25 days worth of family activities to build the children's anticipation during this season of advent. It wasn't hard for me to brainstorm fun activities our kids would enjoy. Some of the ideas I wrote behind the windows or doors were- let's decorate our Christmas tree, game night, let's go to a park, let's make cookies, we are going out to eat tonight, let's go rollerskating, Lego night, and the list goes on.

Thursday morning, December 3rd, the kids opened that particular day's window and found these words camp out in the living room. They were super excited and began their chatter about sleeping bags and such. Here are a few photos. It was so cute and they had a ball.

I let them watch Polar Express, a holiday favorite, before bedtime.

Here they all are just after being tucked in the first time. Notice I put first time.

Madelyn and Julian were such buddies that night.

Guess who wasn't tired.

You can't see his face, but this is Kalen. He had no problems conking out after a night of fun. He passes out when his head hits the pillow. He always gives 150% of himself to his day.