December traditions at the Johnson house...I love traditions don't you?

I love doing an advent calendar with the boys each year and I made this one a few years back.  Since we can't fill it with chocolate anymore (dairy allergies stink!) I decided to do a bucket list of sorts this year.  So each day I put in an activity we could do together.

Day 1:  Decorate our Santa Bags

Memaw made these awesome Santa Bags for us...I love this idea, it's a new tradition at our house.  Each of us decorated a corner of our bag.  Every year we will add a little something to our bag...so by the time the boys are ready to take their bags to their own family homes, what a story they will tell.  :)  On Christmas Eve we put our bags in front of the tree for Santa to fill with goodies.   

Red of course picked the Alamo! 

Peanut painted a Picachu...I forgot to get a pic of the finished picture - we had to let the yellow dry before adding the finishing touches. 

I put a flower on mine. 

Daddy painted an awesome tree! 

Day 2:  Make your own candy canes! 

Day 3:  Make Christmas Cards 

We decided to make Christmas cards for some of the soldiers on our Hearts for Heros mailing list. 

Bug made a gingerbread man for his card. 

Here is their finished cards! 

Day 4:  Write letters to Santa 

The boys decided to send their Santa letters to the North Pole via Bernard instead of the USPS. 

Day 5:  Make Christmas ornaments - we did the salt dough cut out ornaments. 

Day 6:  Read a book and drink hot chocolate!  Yum!  Have you ever read Amelia Bedelia?  She cracks me up...she is so funny and so very literal...I love it!   

Day 7:  Pop popcorn and watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas! 

Day 8:  Take a picture with a Santa - well there just happened to be one on the tree we decorated for Uncle Pickle - it was a tiny one, but oh so cute! 

Day 9:  Make your own snowman!  Well since Texas didn't make any snow, we had to go with the foam kind...lol.  So we pulled out the foam and jewels and yarn and got to work!

Are they awesome or what?  Bug and I decided to go with the less conventional ice cube snowman, Red wanted to keep it traditional with the snow balls. 

Day 10:  Drive around and look at lights. 

This is one of our favorite December activities!  We went up to Marble Falls for the lights on the water display...what a beautiful display it was!  We loved it!

Check out all these lights! 

I think this was my favorite - the flag with fireworks! 

Red decided this was Bernard feeding his reindeer.

Merry Texmas Ya'll! 

Santa was on a cocoa break, but Daddy and I decided to have a rest in his chair!  hehe! 

Check out the tunnel of lights!  Cool! 

Day 10: Sting Popcorn

We hung our string on Uncle Pickle's TV cabinet.

Day 12: Have a snowball fight - well again, Texas failed to give us snow, so we had to come up with some snow of our own...marshmallows anyone?  LOL

We waited until dark because that's just more fun right?

Four kids running around the yard, hurling marshmallows at one another - can you say FUN!!! 

Then we had to clean up Uncle Pickle's yard!  We played "marshmallow basketball! 

Day 13:  Call Memaw and Papa and sing a Christmas Carol - we chose We wish you a Merry Christmas! 

Day 14:  Decorate Christmas Trees - they are quite eclectic aren't they?  LOL

And that would be where we fell off the advent calendar wagon...life got busy as we did more traveling and visiting and just enjoyed Daddy being off and being out of school.  So we skipped some days, but oh well...we'll try to do better next year!  :)

A birthday cake for Jesus!  Check out all that icing!

Day 16:  Decorate a cake and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.  Have you ever decorated a cake with 3 little boys - well if you haven't you are sure missing out - it is lots of fun!!! 

They were so excited to try out the cake that we forgot to sing!  LOL - so we added some candles, sang to Jesus and then ate another piece!  LOL 

Day 18:  Make a gingerbread house - this was fun and very messy.  Check out this crazy bag...I ended up taping both sides which split, but still ended up with very messy hands!  LOL  Oh well it's fun, fun, fun! 

Here is our finished house...a little messy...lol!  Bernard was impressed I do believe! 

I am going to have to come up with some new ideas for next year...hmmm...better start thinking it's only 12 months away!  LOL

Until next time, we-