Advent continued...

 On the 5th we watched this movie. If you are looking for a good Christmas movie for kids this is it. It is like 25 minutes, the story is really cute and it is seriously hilarious. Kyle and I loved it so much that we even ordered the second one, which I didn't think was as good as the first, but we still liked it.

If I were more on the ball, I would have had all the great Christmas books reserved for me so I could use them for the Christmas holiday. But I wasn't. However, thankfully my sister was and she let me borrow some of the ones that they weren't using yet. She is doing the whole, buy and wrap up a Christmas book and then let your kids open one up every night kind of thing. Which is an awesome idea. Anyway for the 6th, we read the stories she let us borrow.

On the 7th we dipped ourselves some pretzels. Easy peasy and very kid friendly. And is it just me, or do sprinkles really make everything better?

The activity for the 8th was our ward Christmas party. An awesome activity that I didn't have to plan, and we got dinner. 

And then last night, the 9th. We made these cookies. And can I just say, I'm not really a big cookie fan, but these easily made it to my top three list. They were that good. I looked at a lot of recipes but ended up doing a simple cake mix recipe. You take a cake mix, add two eggs a half cup of oil and 2 T flour. Bake at 350 for 9 minutes, then take them out and put the kiss on top. The kisses were peppermint flavored and I found them at Walmart. I only bought one bag but next time I go shopping I am going to buy a couple more bags. You know, to last me until next Christmas. Seriously, try them. They were so good.

A lot of the time I think I am a pretty boring mom. Granted we do have some really awesome and exciting days around here. But most of the time is it pretty hum-drum. So, to add some excitement for me and the kids during the Christmas season, I hurried and whipped up a Christmas advent calendar with a fun activity for us to do each of the 24 days before Christmas. And when I say whipped up I am being totally serious; this was all put together on the night of Nov. 30th.

On Dec 1st we painted our fingers and toes to help us get into the holiday spirit.

This took forever to do. Getting a three year old to hold still while we become festive is pretty tricky. Luckily I got a picture right after I finished because she had all the green dots picked off about 5 minutes later.

On Dec 2nd we made a fun treat - Amish rainbow popcorn- and watched a favorite Christmas movie.

The seeds were rainbow colors but the popcorn was not.

Do you know that movie this is?

On Dec. 3rd we cut out paper snowflakes. This was a hit to McKayla, who has recently discovered scissors.

And today, Dec 4th, we made reindeer cookies. This was so kid friendly, not very messy and not labor intensive. Makes me think we should do things like this more often. McKayla LOVED it.