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?!

Advent Day Three- O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

 It was Chloe's day to open a door on the Advent box.  For an 18 month old, just the action was plenty exciting;)  The fact that there was something inside made her ecstatic!

Day Three's Advent Message says:

It's TIME TO DECORATE THE CHRISTMAS TREE!!!!!  We will have a special evening as a family decorating the tree and having a special dinner.  We will also read The Legend of the Christmas Tree.

 The first ornament out of the box...everyone wanted to go first;)  (The ornament is special- it is from Tanzania, given to us by our dear friends there.)

Wearing Santa hats while decorating has become a tradition.

 Cheers!  We couldn't forget the warm apple cider!

 Special dinner with Christmas Tree plates (it was very kid friendly- lasagne, fresh rolls, and mixed veggies;).  We read the aforementioned book at the beginning of our meal.

 Our kids love surprises, so tonight though having dessert in and of itself is pretty special, we had them guess what it could be all through dinner and made them hide their eyes when Marc brough it to the table.

 Frosty Tree Ice Cream Treats.

It was a hit;)  Who knew you could eat Christmas Trees!

This evening was pretty perfect, aside from Pandora's Christmas Station getting stuck on us a couple times.  Things don't always go as planned and there is always joy in the unexpected, but when a day GOES as planned, as this evening did, it is rare and a huge blessing.  I definitely am pondering today in my heart.

The Second Day of Advent- Everything is better when shared with friends

 Day Two's Advent Surprise Reads:

"Today is Christmas Decoration Preparation Day!  Let's turn on the Christmas music, invite over friends; we'll create ornaments with odds and ends."

Great mess is a sign of great creativity, right?   I invited Faith over today and I think she did more work than I did- Thanks, girl;)  Isn't it nice to live life with other people?!

Addie and Phin don't really play too much together yet, but they are starting to warm up more and more to one another.

Kamryn on the other hand is Ava's BFF and they are two kids cut from the same girly, dramatic cloth;)

The older girls made felted ornaments, all the kids made beaded ornaments and ornaments from a Rudolph kit from Michael's my kids begged for a while back;)  Faith and I drank diet soda and made candy cane reindeer and glitter filled balls  (all was at the kids disposal, but their attention spans are only so long;).

Advent Day One

I am so excited about Advent this year and IT IS HERE!  Ava, especially, is getting old enough to really grasp the meaning of Advent, the importance of this season of celebration.  She understands Jesus is our Savior and that adds such a miracle to the expectation of his birthday celebration.

Since Ava was onc, we have been doing The Advent Book.  We love it.  It tells the Christmas story, little by little, every day you open a different door, until on Christmas you read the entire story. It is a beautiful book and to this day the best gift we have received since getting married.

Ava was having a hard time waiting to open door one while I snapped the picture;) (On a side note, because of this picture and Chloe's chocolate smile, I noticed she had chocolate.  I had no idea where it came from and on further inspection, I found she was eating the wrapper and all of a mini Reese cup....she had pillaged from Ava's school bag!)

There are so many good ideas for Advent, but I really liked my friend Summars way of making each day, each aspect of the season a mini celebration.  I have planned a little something special for every day.  Some are just things we would do anyway, but focusing on doing them on a certain day adds to the excitement.  We have purposefully finished all our shopping and kept the month as free as possible, so we can focus on Jesus and setting our children's sights on Him.

Day One reads:

It’s Advent!  Advent Means “the coming that is awaited”.  The Jewish People waited a long time for their Savior to come.  Jesus was born on Christmas and their waiting was over!  Their Savior had arrived!!!  On Christmas we celebrate Jesus birthday, and as WE wait for that special day, we can remember what it was like to wait for him the first time.  Today is the FIRST Day of Advent.  Every day will we do something special in anticipation of the arrival of Jesus’ Birthday.  Today we get out the nativity set and we will alsoset out a special "manger."  All month when Mommy or Papa catches you doing something that honors God, we’ll give you straw to put in the manger.  The straw is a symbol of preparing our hearts for God.  When you honor Jesus with a good and loving heart that reflects him, you are showing a heart that honors him and you will get straw to put in the manger.

Our Little People Nativity set only comes out in the month of December.  They were thrilled to play with it again.  I wish I could have captured the best part...Ava clearly articulated the Christmas story to her siblings.  My heart melted when she said, "The angel told Mary to name him Emmanuel.  That means 'God with us'"(This is a rare moment when all three of my children are happily playing with the same item.  I do believe this alone could be my Christmas gift this year;)

Putting their hay in our manger. 

Day ones hay....not a great start and quite honestly, I was hard pressed to find positive moments in order to get this meager amount.  Their heart conditions weren't great for most of today.  I am excited about this visual reminder for my kids to be on the lookout for making sure their hearts are honoring Christ and therefore their actions are, as well.  (I cannot wait until they open Baby Jesus Christmas morning and lie him in the bed they have prepared for him!)

Booty Camp

I thought Phin would never be ready to Potty Train.  We've been talking about it and reading books for literally six months and every time we'd ask if we thought he wanted to try he'd say, "I'll do it tomorrow."  Suddenly, last week he started to talk about it as if he was excited.  I started to tell him if he wanted, we would start potty training when we got home from Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving.  At my parents, he sat on the potty 4x.  He was suddenly ready.

Monday we started Booty Camp.  Ava went to Booty Camp in Chicago; it was a great kick start to potty training and I loved the results.  I never had to remind Ava to go to the bathroom.  It was all "her responsibility". Wendy, the nurse who created and runs Booty Camp, raised six of her own kids.  The course taught Marc and I great parenting techniques in general.  That alone was worth the money!

The whole system is great.  You allow kids access to all the salty snacks they want and sugary drinks (only during Booty Camp, mind you- not as a regular diet;).  These make them thirsty more often and therefore they pee more often, which is pretty helpful during potty training; it is especially helpful with my children who both pee about 2x during the day, one of those being during nap!  You reward them for keeping their pants dry and you repeatedly tell them it is THEIR responsibility to listen to their body.  You say, "Great Job keeping your pants dry.  Remember is your body tells you that you need to go potty you run, run, run to the potty, take off your undies and poo or pee in the potty."  If you catch them having accident (which you will if they do cuz you keep them in their undies so you can see right away if they start going and you spend the whole day with them in the kitchen focusing on nothing else), you say, "STOP! pee" (or poo).

The guy was EXCITED on Monday about having access to juice and POP and chips and such.  By Tuesday he was asking for "just water"...turns out kids do, in fact, self regulate;)

MORE than thrilled with his big boy undies!!  He keeps wanting to change them to "try a new one";)

 My own adaption to the program- he got to pick from the "treasure box" when he had a success....over the second and third day, I quit offering the treasure box but let him chose if he remembered to ask.  By today, we was so used to going, he didn't even ask for a reward.

My bowl of M&Ms to reward for dry pant.  ONE M&M every time I asked him (if they were dry, of course).  On the first day you ask them VERY frequently so one at a time is plenty!  You start to space out how often you ask them on day 2 &3, as well as start increasing the area they are allowed to go in (expand beyond kitchen) and the amount of distractions you allow them.

It is Thursday, we started on Monday.  We had one accident Monday and one Tuesday.  We had a poop accident this morning (he started in his pants, but did finish in the potty and said he thought it was a "toot";), but otherwise accident Free Wednesday and Thursday.  And I don't have to remind him to go...he goes on his own.  LOVE THAT.  He has officially graduated and this weekend Papa is taking him to get a new Buzz and Woody (from Toy Story).  It's been an exciting week for my Three Year Old.  He is so proud of himself, as he should be, and has realized he is capable of taking care of himself.  He has also now started dressing himself completely in the morning.  I'm so proud of my little guy!  My Booty Camp Graduate!