Advent Day 4 &5

Advent Day #4's message read:

Today we will honor our World Vision Kids!  We will go shopping for Mohau, Mlungeli, and Sikhangele and send them evelopes of cards and presents for Christmas.


Each of the older two children got to pick a couple things for their envelope.  We support three kids, each one shares a birthday with one of our children.  Ava's boy has been "ours" for almost 4 years now.  Someday we hope to meet these kids who we LOVE.  We get pictures and letters from them, but being able to hug them in person will be PRICELESS!

Whoops!  Should have washed Ava's face first;)  Here they are finishing up their drawings for the boys.

And here is little miss, who can't sit still long enough to really participate;)

Day 5 Advent Message reads:

Guess what?!  It's Window Cling Day!  You get to put window clings whereever you want on windows anywhere in the house.  YES!  even in your rooms!!

And here is where I wish I had some lovely, happy pictures of my clean, well dressed, adorable children (no chocolate on faces, of course) putting up window clings.  Their joy would be palpable in the picture as my dream of Window Cling Day became a reality of joy for my dear children.

What is actually reality is that we had a VERY hard day here at the Aneed home.  My children WERE delighted to open their message but immediately began fighting.  Phin started throwing a temper tantrum and being all around impossible to reason with.  Ava was egging him on.  I sent them to their rooms and moved window clinging to after naps....unfortunately naps did not help our misbehaving children and so within 5 minutes of their awaking I had taken Window Clinging away.  It sounds horribly harsh, I realize, but we have been dealing with some real disobedience the past couple of days and I knew this would "hurt" enough to leave a mark in their brain.  They were incredibly disappointed....though probably not as disappointed as their controlling mother.  No Day 5 advent activity actually occured.  Little joy in the season was felt here today, but my children's behavior DID actually improve.  Hard lesson learned to be sure!  And sometimes the mishaps make our need for our Savior every more apparent.  What would we do with our sinful hearts without a Savior?  Who would I turn to when my head's picture of what our day should be is confronted with reality?!