Two New Advent Calendars

First off, this is my 600th entry on this blog! I’ve been writing in this space for over a year and a half, and still loving it (except for rare occasions when an entire post disappears), and still so thankful y’all read it so regularly! So thank you!

Our Christmas tree looks so pretty first thing this morning, even with no decorations on it yet! We also moved the strand of lights from over the top of the record player, to the top of this row of four windows, and I’m loving it!

We loaded up in the car early this morning (Jeff and I got dressed, but Emmie stayed in her jammies), and headed over to Grammy & Papa’s house! She brought Sheppy with her (read yesterday’s post for that story), and her nesting doll.

And we had a delicious, home-cooked breakfast, and yummy hot coffee! I love finding old mugs in the cabinet, and using different ones each time.

After breakfast, Papa and Emerson went outside to throw corn out for the deer. I sat on the front porch with my coffee watching them, which was so nice.

I wanted to take her photo by the new Christmas flag, but the sun was in her eyes, and she was trying to shield her eyes with her teeny little hand. Luckily, Papa came over to provide some shade for a photo. 🙂

And then this little girl was being so silly, sneaking sips of coffee from a spoon with Grandmommie. (This is actually how I was introduced to coffee when I was little too!)

Then we helped get out & set up allllll the Christmas decorations. And Grammy surprised Emerson with her very own little felt tree!

Emmie had 1.5 hot dogs, cheese noodles, apples, pretzels, and cheese cubes for lunch. This girl can really eat sometimes!

Grammy got her down for a nap after her lunch, and then we worked hard doing all the decorations around the house.

This is her special “breast cancer survivor” tree that she decorates with pink ribbons and pink sparkly ornaments.

Here are just a few of my long-time favorite Christmas ornaments from all my growing up years. I “made” this first one when I was three years old at preschool, the second one I “made” in kindergarten, the third one was a souvenir from my college graduation trip to NYC in 2010 (with mama, Megan & Aunt Suzanne), and the last one is just one of my favorites because of the little sheet music and cute mouse.

After Emerson woke up from her nap, she was still super sleepy and having a hard time waking up, so she had lots of good cuddles with Grandmommie.

Jeff even fell asleep for a while on the couch, which is practically one of his favorite past-times (falling asleep on my parents’ couch).

Once Emmie woke up a little bit more, she got Papa to carry her around and help find Mary & Joseph.

And then it was time for another lovely afternoon walk! The weather has just been so perfect, and these super long holiday weekends are perfect with walks with family!

She loved finding all the leaves on our walk today!

I needed some help with some alto parts for the Singing Christmas Tree ensemble, so my Mama helped me figure it out. (I can read music and play piano, but this particular key had too many flats for me, and was a bit out of my league.)

After leaving Grammy’s house, we headed to Staples to pick up a special advent calendar we got printed. One of my favorite bloggers, Janssen at Everyday Reading, put out this amazing FREE advent reading calendar, with instructions on how to send it to Staples as a giant “engineering” print, for just over $7, and it’s so cool! (Go to her blog here if you want one for yourself.)

Since it was still kind of early, we decided to attempt the drive-thru at Popeye’s hoping it wouldn’t be crazy crowded yet, because we wanted to try the new sandwich that’s been so hyped up! We got there right at 5pm, and it took literally 30 minutes to get through the drive-thru, but luckily we weren’t starving and we weren’t in a hurry, and Emmie was in a good mood to wait. So we brought it home (we got one classic & one spicy to share), and dug in. Honestly, both were good, but definitely NOT on par with Chick-fil-A. (It was pure coincidence we were just there last night, but it was a very fresh frame of reference for comparison.) Jeff actually thought the spicy one was better than CFA, but I very much disagreed 😉 I’m very loyal to my CFA (I worked there for about three years during college), but really, I just think their sammies are better.

While unloading the Christmas decorations at Grammy’s today, we came across our old advent calendar from my childhood. I told her how much I always liked it, and that I’d even searched around a good bit online for one similar but didn’t find one I liked. So she said I could just take this one! I was so excited! Emmie helped me put all the little ornaments in their pouches, to get ready to start the countdown tomorrow! So even though it’s probably 20-ish years old, it’s still “new” for us, in our house!

And then we put up the awesome giant reading advent calendar we got printed at Staples! Isn’t it amazing?! It’s so huge! And so cute! We’re going to leave it up all month, and color on it here and there. The blue painter’s tape isn’t glamorous, but it’s getting the job done!

Along the bottom, are all book-related activities to do daily with your little one, like read a book & drink hot chocolate, or read a book about Santa, and even though I know we won’t be able to do each of these things (our schedule is crazy of course), it’ll be fun to do some of them!

After bath time, and a new set of jammies we found in the closet (I think Nana bought them for her a while back), she had to go search for Sheppy again. She made sure to check with Pretzel, but he didn’t have him…

We read “The Shepherd on the Search” again before bedtime, and then she gave us lots of hugs and kisses. And thennnn, we had another really rough bedtime again tonight. We tried all the different things, and took turns, but she was just really fighting it so hard. Eventually, Jeff pulled the glider directly next to her bed, so he could sit & hold her hand while she fell asleep. She’s actually been asleep for about 30 minutes at this point, but he tried to leave once & she cried when she heard the door creaking, so he sat back down again. Hopefully he’ll be able to sneak out soon, and she’ll stay asleep through the night.

This holiday schedule has really gotten us thrown off a LOT, so I’m really hoping that for next week, we can settle back into our usual routine, with easy, on-time bedtimes. It’s been rough on all of us these last few nights!