I love our annual Christmas countdown. We decided to scale back this year to reduce our stress levels and simply have fun. You know what? It's been the best countdown yet. We have all enjoyed it. So, here's a rundown of what we've done to spend time together as a family as we count down to Jesus' birthday.
Day 1 - The girls made these cute little ornaments for their Christmas tree.
Day 2 - Ryan took the girls on a Daddy-Daughters Date to Chuck E Cheese while I had an evening out with some friends.
Day 3 - I took the girls roller skating while Ryan had a meeting at the church. They absolutely love this! Lily has actually gotten really at skating recently, and Mia has improved tremendously. By the end of our evening, she had stopped using the skate helper and was going on her own.
Day 4 - Our family went to Botanical Gardens for their Night of Lights. It was beautiful! It was the perfect evening for being outside, and the lights were fantastic. We also had a lot of fun buying s'more packs and roasting the marshmallows over the fire pit.
Day 5 - We made pinecone bird feeders to hang in our backyard. The birds (and squirrels) enjoyed these.
Day 6 - We painted. I helped the girls make handprint camels to represent the wise men (though we only had room for 2 per canvas instead of 3). They then made other paintings on a new canvas. Lily made a nativity scene while Mia painted a rose bush.
Day 7 - We had 3D creations for the girls to make. Usually they love these, but for some reason, these were incredibly difficult. They wouldn't stay in place, we couldn't locate all the pieces, the glue wasn't working...it just wasn't happening. This actually left both of them quite frustrated, so we stopped before any of them were completed. These went straight into the trash can!
Day 8 - The girls made these little bead designs. Unfortunately, they weren't real Perler beads; they were a knock-off brand. This provided a very valuable lesson to the girls that just because something is cheaper, it doesn't mean it's better. Several of the beads wouldn't melt and they fell apart pretty easily; we've never had that issue with Perler beads.
Day 9 - We all enjoyed the ACCA Christmas program. Both girls had solo parts which was really cool. Mia had a one-line solo in one of her class songs (Angels Watching Over Me), and Lily played a piano solo of Angels We Have Heard On High. They both did a fantastic job. We were glad that Grandpops, Grandma Jan and Papa were able to join us too.
Day 10 - David and Jan stayed an extra day to celebrate an early Christmas with our family. What a treat! We surprised the girls by keeping them out of school for the day, and then we met up at Phipps Plaza. We ate an early lunch at Johnny Rocket's, and then we all thoroughly enjoyed the awesome theatre while watching Big Hero 6. Afterwards, we came back to our house to exchange gifts, and hang out. We wrapped everything up by enjoying dinner at Canoe. What a fun couple of days!
Day 11 - The girls put together Frozen puzzles.
Day 12 - We headed to Birmingham to celebrate Christmas with Bama and family! It was great to have us all together. We all had a great dinner at Firebirds and then headed over to Josh and Amy's house to exchange gifts. Bama was very excited to have her three granddaughters together!
Day 13 - We drove home from Birmingham, and the girls actually spent the night at Granna and Papa's house because Ryan and I had a Christmas party to go to. They surprised the girls by inviting Molly over too.
Day 14 - We enjoyed a special dessert after Lily's piano recital: ice cream at Cami Cakes - yum!
Day 15 - Christmas mad libs!
Day 16 - The girls used some of their own money for charitable purposes. Mia is sending money to purchase vegetable seeds to help needy families while Lily is choosing to help buy Bibles in others languages. Ryan and I are very proud of their choices.
Day 17 - The girls colored their own puzzles and then let their sister put them together.
Day 18 - The girls made gingerbread / candy cane necklaces.
Day 19 - To celebrate the last day of school, we all went to watch Annie at the movie theater.
Day 20 - We met the Henderson family at The Georgian Club for breakfast with Santa. Even though breakfast itself wasn't that great, we always have a blast with our friends.
Day 21 - Meme's Christmas party. We always enjoy this evening with our family at Jodi's house.
Day 22 - A lovely girly lunch with Granna at The Swan Coach House.
Day 23 - We made lemon sugar cookies to take on Christmas Eve to our local firefighters.
Day 24 - We delivered the cookies to our firefighters, and Mia made a sweet card for them.
That's the end of our countdown. Here comes Christmas!
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