The best laid plans...

The past 3 days of advent activities haven't quite gone to plan.

Day three - "Let's pack a picnic dinner and eat down at the waterfront". Yes, we ate a picnic dinner. Technically we had water frontage, but not the type I had planned. Due to some rather heavy rain and storms, which has been pretty constant these past few days, we ate our picnic dinner on the lounge room floor, while listening to and watching the rain outside.

Despite being washed out, our picnic dinner was quite enjoyable. Peachfuzz especially seemed to like the novelty of eating dinner on a rug on the living room floor.

Day four saw us reading our "Can You See What I See - Night Before Christmas" book. This is one of my favourite holiday traditions. I bought this book two Christmases ago, on sale at a local book store for about $8. Given that it had just been released, I think that was a pretty good deal! I love having it as a "coffee table book" each December, for family and friends to pick up and browse when they have a minute or two. It's a gorgeous book full of picture puzzles, with lists of things to search for in each picture.

Because I love having this book out and ready to curl up with whenever the mood strikes, I had to make this one of our earliest advent activities. I didn't want to get it out until after we had a chance to sit and search together as a family. There is a little man who is featured in every picture throughout the book. We spent about 10 minutes with Peachfuzz, finding him on every page. After she was in bed, Papa Bear and I got about halfway through searching for the list of things on the first page, before we were both so tired we had to call it a night. But the book is out now, and we are enjoying looking for a rabbit here, or an elf there, whenever we get a spare few minutes.

Today's activity was supposed to be to make Christmas cards for our family. I had some grand ideas involving paint and handprints, but as so often happens with small children, our day didn't go quite to plan, and said craft project was never completed. We did have fun making the beginnings of a reindeer painting with Peachfuzz's handprints. I'll post pictures of it tomorrow, after we finish it off.

Other than advent activities, I have been busy with a bit of Christmas crafting. I signed up for a Holiday Traditions Exchange, and I have been madly trying to make my handmade decoration to send to my swap partner, which is due out next Monday - eek! It's nothing too fancy, but I've been enjoying putting this little package together, and can't wait to share photos next week after I've sent it. As soon as this package is ready to go, I'll be moving on to a Christmas stocking for Mr. Dimples, followed by a dozen or so little components of various gifts for the kids and a few other people. Life is never dull!