Advent Calendar Days 5-11

I'm back for days 5-11 of our advent calendar! We had a loy of fun getting the house ready for Christmas this week. I swear, every December I have a perma-smile on my face until the New Year. I just love this time of the year... everything is so magical! Doing these activities as a family has really gotten us all in the holiday spirit and we couldn't be more excited for Christmas! I definitely think the advent calendar is a new tradition that we will be continuing year after year!

Day five: We did a few small things around the house to get ready for Christmas! We hung our snowman sign on the front door, put our poinsettia on the porch, and finished our Christmas mantle!

Day six: We baked chocolate peppermint cookies together! Man, these cookies were absolutely delicious. Dark chocolate, espresso powder, and crushed candy canes. We all gobbled them up! Cayden had so much fun helping daddy stir the batter!

Day seven: Can you tell this is when I got my new iPhone? YAY! No more scratched camera! That day Mando and I made our handmade Christmas gifts. We make something handmade every year for our families and this year we made peppermint hot chocolate in a mason jar. This Starbucks hot chocolate is amazing by the way. I've had about 5 cups since then!

Day eight: This was one of my favorite days just because it was so cozy. We are lucky enough to have a fireplace in our room and I love taking advantage of it! We played a few games of Uno by the fire and listened to Christmas music. By the way, I got my ass kicked at all 5 of those Uno games! Who knew I was so bad? Haha!

Day nine: Finally! We got our tree! I was so excited to bring that fat little tree home and I spent the rest of the night huffing our Douglas Fir. There is NOTHING better than the smell of a fresh Christmas tree!

Day ten: The next day we decorated our tree. Every year we pick out a new Christmas ornament and this year I got the little matryoshka, the big C is for Corona (Mando's last name), and Cayden got an ice skating cow because he is OBSESSED with cows right now! I still need to get a tree topper... can't find ours from last year!

Day eleven: My mom's neighborhood always has fun holiday events, and we never miss the Christmas festival. Santa comes to take pictures with the kids, there's hot cocoa and cider, a horse drawn carriage, a band, and they even bring in a ton of real snow for the kids to play with! Last year Cayden was only a few months old, but this year he was all over the place dancing and playing. He had a blast! I'm so proud of him for not freaking out when he saw Santa. He was actually really excited!

That's all for now! We have lots of more fun activities planned for this week and I can't wait to share them with you all next Monday! What are you all doing to get into the holiday spirit? Hopefully this Christmas season is as magical for you as it has been for us! XOXO

Advent Calendar Days 1-4

I've been meaning to do an advent calendar for years now. I have this cheesy store-bought Christmas tree made out of felt that I use as a countdown and I can't stand it, but I can never find the time to make one myself. This year I thought would for sure be the year... I even found the perfect one on Pinterest that I wanted to replicate! Then I got caught up in handmade markets, wedding planning, and you know, raising a toddler, and once again I just didn't get around to it. I wasn't going to bother doing the advent calendar at all since I didn't have an amazing handmade one, but at the last minute (literally on December 1st) I decided what the heck, I'll use the cheesy felt Christmas tree and do it anyway.

My sister, who DID find the time to make an amazing handmade countdown (see hers here) was kind enough to send over her list, and with that, some of my own ideas, and the help of Pinterest I came up with 24 advent activities. I really wanted activities that we could do as a family to get us excited for Christmas although some are more for Cayden and some for Mando. I'm going to share our activities here once a week through my Instagram pictures but  just to warn you, the camera on my iPhone is scratched (I have to wait until Dec. 7th to upgrade to the 4s, boo!) so you'll have to forgive the quality of my pictures until I get a new one!

Day one: Shop for Christmas decorations. We didn't need all that much this year, but we hit up Target anyway to see what we could find! We each picked out a new Christmas ornament, some stocking hangers, a candle, a poinsettia, and a new snowman sign for the front door! You can also see my cheesy Christmas tree countdown in this picture!

Day two: Date night. I wanted to reserve one night for Mando and I to do something alone so date night was born! We were supposed to go Friday, but my mom (who was going to watch Cayden) didn't get home until 11pm so we re-scheduled for Saturday. We went back and forth on what to do and in the end we decided to go to the movies. We are probably the most boring couple on the planet... we even saw a kids movie, haha! But it was nice to get out and spend some time together, and definitely needed!

Day three: Make a Christmas craft. Since day two was all about Mando, day three was all about Cayden! We busted out the fingerpaints to make a Christmas tree craft. I gotta be honest, Cayden was interested for about 30 seconds before running off, but he still gets excited whenever he sees the finished project hanging on our fridge! Hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

Day four: Have a special Christmas breakfast. Sunday morning I made some red and green pancakes for breakfast and cut them into Santa and Christmas tree shapes. It wasn't anything fancy, just a fun silly way to get into the holiday spirit! I love me some pancakes, yummy!

Anyone else doing an advent calendar this year? They are so fun! I'll be back next Monday to share days 5-11! XOXO