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I made this advent calendar years ago and I fill it with an activity to do each day in the days leading up to Christmas.  Historically, I have just put blank pieces of paper in the calendar and then frantically tried to come up with something each day with whatever supplies I had on hand.  This year I want to do better!  So I’m trying to map out the month now to make sure I have all of the supplies I need.  Last year I was also inspired by this blog and I tried to add in some more Catholic stuff to the advent calendar.  With advance planning I’m hoping to do even better this year!

Here’s my list of Advent Activities so far.  They’re pretty much all from the aforementioned blog.  🙂

2. 1st Sunday of Advent.  Light the first advent calendar at dinner!
5. St Nicholas Day Eve.  Ok, I just made that up, but this is the day that the kids will put their shoes out for St Nicholas Day.  lol.
6. St Nicholas Day.  The kids will get a little (to be determined) treat in the shoes and we will probably watch a little show about St Nicholas.
8. Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.  I think we will have some white cookies.
9. Feast Day of St Juan Diego.  Hot chocolate!
10. Feast Day of Our Lady of Loreto.  Gingerbread Houses.
12. Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Maybe Pan de Dulce?
13. St Lucia Day.  We’ll make St Lucia buns!
24. Christmas Eve Mass!

As you can see, there are still loads of empty days.  Some of those will be dates that we have something planned (Kate’s Christmas party, a trip to see family, etc.)  and then some of them will be what I call filler days which can be done on any day.  I’m thinking this year, we these will include decorating Christmas Cookies, making an ornament, taking a walk to see the Christmas lights, basically I need to give it some thought.  But I wanted to share these date specific ones ahead of time.  🙂

My goal with advent this year is to have loads of fun while still encouraging the kids (especially Kate) to learn a bit more about our faith.  🙂

If you’re joining me for the first time, allow me to clear up any misconceptions.  I’m insane.  lol.

I’ve decided to hand sew an entire king size quilt out of tiny 7/8 inch hexagons.  Why 7/8 you ask?  Because I cut out my own templates and I didn’t really know that most hexagons were standardized at 1 inch.  Also, making them 7/8 of an inch allows me to get 4 hexagons from each charm square.  When means, you’ve got it, there will be exactly 4 of each hexagon in the finished quilt.

In an effort to finish this quilt before I’m 95, I set a goal to finish what I’m calling one block each month.  A block is 75 hexagons sewn together.  Then I go ahead and baste another 225 hexagons each month (the extra 3 from each charm square.)  I figure I’m going to need 64 blocks.

In October, I finished block number 8 (that I should have finished in September) which means that I am officially halfway through basting hexies!  I am also really sick of basting hexies.  lol.  So I decided that instead of moving on to block number 9, I would skip ahead and makes some blocks with some of the already basted hexies.  No surprise, but it turns out that it is much much much quicker to put together these blocks.  lol.

My new plan is to switch off every other month with basting and not.  So for November, I’ll do block number 9 and then baste the additional 225 hexagons.  In December, I’ll do blocks 20, 21, and 22 which will be made using already basted hexagons.  If everything goes to plan, I’ll continue this until January of 2020 at which point I will finish the 16th block.  Then just 8 more months of stitching already basted blocks and the blocks will be done!

Of course, then I will still need to make some more hexies to join all of the blocks, but I figure I’ll worry about that when we get there.  lol.

And then, because I’m truly certifiable, I’m planning to hand quilt the whole thing.  eeep!

October has been a doozy y’all.  We were supposed to go on an epic road trip with one of my good friends this month over Fall Break.  To say that I was excited would be a massive understatement.  The plan was to drive about an hour north of Lubbock on the first day to get to our staging point.  Then we were going to wake up and hit Palo Duro Canyon and Cadillac Ranch before heading on to Santa Fe for the night.  Then spend the day at this crazy place called Meow Wolf before driving to another staging point.  Wake up, spend the morning at White Sands, check out Roswell, and spend one more night on the road.  Then home!  6 kids, 2 moms, a 12 passenger van, and a whole lot of caffeine.  What could go wrong?

Turns out a lot can go wrong.  lol.

It started out going well enough.  We left at 9am as planned, and we only had to turn around once to get the little potty (forgetting that would have been an epic disaster!)  The van had enough room that everyone had enough space to be happy and we had plenty of devices.  lol.  I’m not a huge fan of screen time as a general rule, but they are totally necessary for a long road trip.

We stopped in some tiny town for a picnic lunch and found this super cool wall!  My friend Erin got this awesome pic of the kids.  We even pulled over on the side of the road at one point and snagged a cotton ball for the kids to check out.  Things were going a little too well…

We made it to Lubbock around 3:00 and drove around for a bit looking for a fun park.  We finally found one and let the kids out to play and run around for an hour or so.  Everyone was having a blast.  We loaded the kids back up in the van and we were driving about 5 minutes away for dinner when all hell broke loose.  Mia started puking.  A lot.  We pulled over to clean her up and my friend’s son got his hand shut in the back of the van because it was so dang windy.  I honestly thought his finger was broken.  Thankfully it was just bruised.

At this point we had to decide if we wanted to A.  Drive on another hour to where we had non refundable hotel reservations.  B.  Get a hotel room in Lubbock and then reassess in the morning.  C.  Abandon ship and drive home.  The thought of unpacking the entire van only to deal with a puking child all night before loading up a (likely) puke covered pac n play and driving home smelling that the whole way was too much for us so we just drove home.  There were many many tears, but in the end it was the right decision.

We finally made it home around 2:30 AM and RaptorDad took over Mia care.  Poor thing just couldn’t keep down anything.  Monday morning I took her to the dr and they gave us a prescription for zofran, but told me that if she couldn’t keep down the zofran that we needed to think about taking her to the Children’s Hospital ER.  Well, she rallied for a bit, but woke up from her nap and promptly emptied the contents of her stomach.  🙁

So off to the ER we went.  They ended up doing a CT scan of her brain because of her history of enlarged ventricles (so glad!  We were in the ER a month ago for vomiting and they decided not to which made me nervous.)  and everything was normal.  Such a huge relief.  The CT technician gave her a binky.  lol.  Mia loved it.  They also gave her IV fluids and IV zofran.  Poor thing was so dehydrated that they had to bring in 2 separate “IV experts” before finally finding a usable vein in her foot.

I think the scariest part was when the ER attending told me not to wait so long next time before bringing her in.  🙁  She just went downhill so fast!  I mean, from the time she started vomiting to the time we made it to the ER was less than 24 hours.  And she went to the pediatrician in the mean time!  Still, it was a good lesson for me in listening to my mommy instinct and not being so concerned that other people will think that I’m overreacting.  Also, so so so so so so glad that my friend listened to her mommy instinct in getting us home when I thought we just couldn’t drive anymore.  I can’t imagine if we had been on the road for 6-8 hours with Mia as sick as she was.