Thursday, December 1, 2011

Advent TREE!!

Helllloooooo!
I am still here...if you are interested in my health and my recovery, check the bottom of this entry.
So two years ago I made some pretty awesome advent calendars...(check here for full entry)

and I still haven't made one for my boys...mostly because they love those crappy chocolate ones (because they get chocolate every day, Hello-o! They are getting the Trader Joe's chocolate advent every morning, yup - I send them to school high on chocolate. I am an awesome mom! Duh! ;)

So, I decided that I didn't really want to give them more stuff...I want to lean away from that kind of Christmas. I saw a flat version of this on Pinterest made with envelopes and foam core background. I wanted a paper calendar, one I could make, and useable for my lil' dudes. So I made a list of activities and borrowed some from  All Things Simple.
Here is what I came up with, an Advent Tree:



with important family activities that we can share together. And before some of you wise-guys ask (Leanna)...no, I didn't make the tree...it's from Target. What I did make, are the envelopes and filled them with an activity for each day.
For example:
 day one is: Read "Elf on the Shelf" together
day 2: Make teacher gifts
day 3: Pick mitten from mitten tree for foster kids
day 4: Watch "The Grinch"
day 5: can you believe it...I can't remember!

Luckily, I made a master list, with the dates all assigned and even some alternate days for the outdoor activities. I made each envelope out of a 4" square of scrapbook paper, scored on all 4 corner diagonals, folded in and rounded the upper corner. I then decorated the fronts and put numbers cut from my cricut. I can't fit them all on the little tree..so I'll pop them on as the others come off.
Hope you are enjoying the season of Advent!

and as for my health...
Here I am folks....recovering from my first treatment, which was both not as bad as I expected and much worse.
I didn't get as sick as everyone told me I would...bone aches for 2 days were actually endurable. However, the bone aches were like twinkling Christmas tree lights and would go on and off constantly...for 48 hours straight. And I couldn't sleep with the pain. And the worse part: I know I have to do this two more times. But, it could be worse and I could have to do more than 3 treatments...and there might not be hope for recovery. So I will take the aches and try not to complain about the pain...or groan out loud. Too often.
Thanks for the cards and love! I'll post more as I can...

3 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for the link to my blog. Love the little tree idea!

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  2. What an awesome project you have made. So cool that there is so much meaning in those 25 days leading to Christmas. And you have captured it by teaching your boys there is more to Christmas than things. There is togetherness and love. You are awesome!

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  3. I LOVE the idea of doing an activity advent instead of a candy one all the time. Although, I agree with your boys- the good ol' chocolate ones are GREAT!! :) Thanks for sharing this at Sassy Sites today!

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