Ally was SUPER excited on December 1 to open the first drawer of our Advent Calendar.
Day 1 was a Christmas beading kit to make a necklace.
Right before bed we hauled up our Christmas decorations from the basement. Ally was thrilled to have her little tree in her room again. I love her pose! We let her put 6 ornaments on it before bed.
In the morning day 2 was opened – a $1.00 bill and a chocolate coin.
Aunt Cindy sent Ally a Frosty the Snowman Advent calendar to count down the days until our Disney trip. Ally insisted on opening that window up right after the drawer one.
We have been going to church this year, and every week we get an email from the youth coordinator about Sunday’s service and the children’s activities. This week it said that the church tradition for Advent is to have each class / age group light the Advent calendar each week. Ally is in Godly Play 1 and they were scheduled to start things off in week 1. The emailed asked that you arrive at church 15 minutes early to practice. I talked to Ally about it on Friday and again on Saturday and she was excited about doing something in front of the whole church with her class.
We got to there as requested at 1045 and were the first ones there. The coordinator and one of the teachers asked if Ally wanted to do something really special since she was there first. She said yes and they had Ally light the candle. The picture below is during the practice. I really wanted to take a picture of the event, but I figured that was not really the right thing to do in church. Ally was so proud of herself and for her role in lighting the candle.
This Sunday was a service project for the children and they leave the service to make bag lunches for the homeless, this happens once a month. The children come back and join the service for communion. Ally took communion with us, at this church they pass the bread and then the wine to you in your seats in the pew. After the bread Ally looked at me and said “that was yummy” she was quite excited for the juice in the little cup too, we had to wait for everyone to get their wine/juice and they we all as a congregation drank together. I know Ally did not really understand what it all meant, but I was very happy to have her exposed to the experience.
This week after the service there was an Advent themed craft event. It was all set up in another hall of the church, and Ally quietly asked me if we could go in there after the service. I asked why and she said “they have crafts in there” that’s my crafter girl! We usually leave church immediately after the service to get to Ally’s swimming lessons on time. But its hard to say no to Advent crafts! So we stayed a bit and let her do 2 crafts and then got to swimming – just in time.
Ally in her car seat on the way to swimming she is eating her 1st craft – decorate a cookie. It was loaded with sprinkles. The next picture was Ally’s other craft was a candle project – very cute in a walnut shell with fake moss and berries.
Later in the evening we talked about Advent and how it’s the church way of talking about Christmas, and at home we use an Advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas and at church they use the candles to count the weeks. I explained to Ally that this week, week 1 was Hope and each week has a theme at church. We talked about what hope meant and she is quite proud that she lit the candle.
We put out our Christmas decorations as well and when putting up our Nativity Becky explained each piece and Ally was soaking it all up and quite proud that she knew some of the story of the birth of Jesus. And interestingly she totally understood that Jesus had 2 dads; one who gave Him life and one who took physical care of him. Just like adoption and Ally’s own life story with parents.
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