Unforgettable Childhood

I have not been around for a couple of weeks. It has been crazy around here. Last week we spent a few days at the hospital. Our oldest had pneumonia. It was a little scary seeing her all hooked to the IV. They took good care of her and she is doing much better.

I hope to be able to get back to posting out here after the holiday hustle and bustle. We are busily trying to get our stuff together to leave town. To both Grandmothers’ House’s we go. We have clothes to pack, cookies to bake and gifts to pile in. And of course, the South Dakota weather is going to give us a headache. The forecast is snow and wind right when we are going to be on the road.

We celebrate Christmas with our kids tonight. A pasta supper with Candy Cane shaped breadsticks, followed by the lighting of our final Advent Candle and then presents. Christmas is definitely here.

If I don’t get back out here tomorrow, God’s Blessings to you during this holiday season!

This weekend I made up Graham Cracker Houses for my Daisy Girl Scouts to decorate with Candy for our Christmas Party.

Yesterday I let my other two girls use the two leftover houses. I had never attempted any sort of houses, gingerbread or graham cracker. It was not quite as easy as all the pictures look, but they had a lot of fun with it.

I promised my girls we would do a big house out of real gingerbread before Christmas. (Not sure when we are going to fit that in??)

Even though it was a little tricky to get the houses to stay together. I would recommend this project for Christmas fun.

A few years ago we decided that we were going to do an artificial Christmas tree instead of a real one. I got tired of picking up pine needles in July.

I decided that if we could do a tree farm and pick out our tree it would be a different experience, but just buying it in a little store lot, wasn’t worth it.

My husband worked on Saturday so the girls and I decided to do it without him. First we had to separate all of the colors.

Madelyn helped me spruce up the branches.

Taylor helped add the branches to the base.

It took a long time to get the tree all put together and the lights strung, but everyone helped. They could not wait to start adding the ornaments. I would love to have a theme tree, but we have too many memories on this tree to make it any different.

We could not find the Santa hats so the girls improvised with the Stockings for a picture in front of the tree.

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house.

Starting on Sunday night we lit our first Advent Candle as a family. This is a tradition that both my husband and I grew up with at our home churches. We decided a few years ago to bring this tradition into our home. Every holiday season I love to dig out the wreath and the candles.

We start with our little one. She lights the first candle.

The first candle represents Hope. We talked with the girls about the Hope we have in Jesus. The girls are already talking about lighting the next candle on Sunday night.

Welcome to Unforgettable Childhood’s Christmas for Kids Special Feature.

Each day throughout the holiday season we will feature one recipe, project, craft or tradition that you can do with your kids.

The holiday season is a great time to start new family traditions and make memories that will last a lifetime.

Today’s feature is: Christmas Countdown Book Basket

Each Christmas our family adds books to our Christmas Library. Last night when the girls were out of the house with their dad I wrapped 27 Christmas books that I had put away since the last Christmas season. Before bed one of the girls unwrapped one book that we read as a bedtime story.

Each night up until Christmas we will read a book from the basket. When we get to the last book it will be Christmas Day. There are wonderful Christmas books that we share together every holiday.

Last night the book we read was God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Bergren.

This is a wonderful book that helps kids realize that God gave us Christmas with the gift of Jesus Christ. I was sent this book from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group. We actually own three other books by this author titled God Gave us You, God Gave Us Two and God Gave Us Heaven. Tomorrow I will post more information about this title and Bergren’s newest book, God Gave Us Love.

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I am excited to tell you all about an event that I will be a part of in a couple of weeks over at The Girl Creative.

Creating Christmas Blog Fest will take place December 7-11. It is an opportunity for all of you fabulously creative women to share your Christmas Creations with everyone!

Diana over at The Girl Creative says, “Each day there will be a new category for you to link up to. Your posts don’t have to be from this year. They can be last year’s posts. You will get the chance to share your favorite posts from Christmas Recipes to Holiday Traditions to Creative Gift Wrapping Ideas to Handmade Gifts to Showing Off your Christmas Tree!”

I am already starting to think about my ideas for the event. If you haven’t checked out the Girl Creative you should stop by. There are great creative ideas for you to explore. If you stop by you can grab the creating Christmas button for your blog to help promote the event. I can’t wait!

We packed our boxes for Operation Christmas Child. It was so much fun. You can watch a little vlog of the girls packing their boxes. You can also click on the whrrl below to see pictures of the fun.