The first week of Advent:



And almost-empty Advent nature table



Shadow box theater presentation of The Advent Garden story



First grader's recall of the story



The first real snow!



Which meant frigid temperatures for almost the entire month of December...



And derailed half of our outdoor school plans for the month.



St.Nicholas Day arrived that first week



And we baked German spice cookies

The second week of Advent:



Plants appeared in our Advent garden



We told the story of the Little Fir Tree (one of the stories--there are so very many)



Sariah was inspired to make her own flannel nativity



And she showed the results of her week's school learning on paper



The school room continued its oh-so-lived-in look



Preston stayed occupied with puzzles



Dallin eagerly worked on a gift for his cousin



We made botanical ice lanterns



And painted



Santa Lucia came to visit, bringing breakfast buns



And accompanied by her Star Boy brothers



(I had to clean my bedroom at midnight the night before, knowing that I'd be wanting to post pictures)



I took Sariah to our homeschool group's Advent spiral walk.

The third week of Advent:

Sariah waited so long to be able to light the pink candle on the third Sunday

The nature table grew more crowded as the animals came to visit

We did some more Christmas drawing and writing from the story The Fir Tree by Dorothy Harrer.  We worked carefully at being able to draw a tree.

We wet-felted Christmas ornaments (that still have not made it on the tree)

 We got more snow, and Dallin faithfully shoveled without being asked.

Daddy read much-loved Christmas stories

We had a family gingerbread-decorated party with cousins

It's a tradition spanning about eight or nine years now

And as for the fourth week of Advent?  Well, just as it does every single year, it kind of got ignored.  Oh, we lit the candles, and Mom completed the nature table (the kids kind of lost interest)... but we all know how it goes.  At this point you are just trying to survive getting-ready-for-Christmas.  About the middle of last week, I declared that Christmas break had officially arrived three days earlier than we had planned and school and it's attendant activities fell by the wayside.  Because I. was. done.  Yet not done, of course.  All of a sudden flurry-scurry-hurry mode got ramped up about 1000 times as I realized that half of the handmade projects I'd planned probably would never be done in time for Christmas.

I have great plans every year for the fourth week of Advent, and every year it seems impossible to have them happen.  I even planned to do half a week of week three and start week four early, but it still didn't happen.

Oh well.