Our Advent Continues

I realize that it is now mid-December and I haven't been keeping you up to date on our activities every day. And since I have been fairly good at keeping up (until recently, but anybody can run out of steam, right?) here's what we have been up to:

{December 2}: Build a blanket fort. Read a Christmas story in it.

The girls liked this idea even though it was a bit lost on them. I tried to make it in the living room with two chairs and a blanket, but Lily kept getting excited and knocking it over. I managed to get it to stand up long enough to read a Christmas story my sister sent to us last year. Once we were through, Ava took the idea off to her bedroom, where she got me to put up another set of blankets in the little space between Lily's crib and the changing table. Then she spread all of the remaining blankets on the floor inside the fort and around the fort, making a nice little cozy spot. Lily called it the "bear cave" and the girls enjoyed playing in it until bedtime.

{December 3}: Gather pinecones for decorations.
This activity didn't happen, but I don't think the pinecones were still there to collect anyway. I am pretty sure we just listened to Christmas music or watched a Christmas show instead, which is our go-to activity.

{December 4}: Make a special treat and watch a family movie.
I decided to indoctrinate my children and put on Elf with Will Ferrell. Boy do I love this movie! Elliott bought it for me for Christmas last year and I think it might just be one of the best purchases we have ever made. I popped some popcorn (Lily's favorite) but Ava wanted a special Kettle Corn that we received as a gift and ate all of during previous movie days. So after I convinced her we had no more, we settled in. Lily, as usual, got a little bored about halfway through but Ava did pretty well. Now she asks about "Buddy the elf" and tells me how silly he is. Lovin' it!

{December 5}: Go to Cowboy Christmas.

There is a park up the street from us called Floyd Lamb. It originated as a ranch/resort of sorts back in the days of quickie Vegas divorces of the 1930's, where you would stay for 30 days until the divorce was finalized. Now it is owned by the city and you can visit for picnics, fishing and the like. There is a large population of geese and peacocks (!) which roam around and plenty of ponds for fishing.

Cowboy Christmas happens annually and we decided to enjoy it as we did last year. It was a little cold this year, but the girls had a good time with the petting zoo portion. Lily loves farmyard animals and the highlight of the trip was a goat butting her in the stomach and knocking her over as she screamed "goat!" and went running for it. She didn't think it was so funny, but I sure did! They have other activities, such as Santa Claus and bounce houses, that our girls aren't as enamored with so we stuck with the animals and enjoyed the cold day.

{December 6}: Visit the Bellagio and Four Seasons.

Sunday after naps we went down to the Strip and stopped first at the Bellagio to visit the Conservatory. Bellagio changes out the decorations seasonally and it is always a wonder to behold. This time they had polar bears built out of carnations, a toy train that Lily loved to watch go by, and even a snow machine, which I am pretty sure were just soap bubbles. So beautiful! Afterwards we went down the street to the Four Seasons because I had heard they had a fabulous gingerbread display. Finding the parking area was such a a fiasco I was ready to give up, but Elliott convinced me to keep going. We discovered that in order to get to the Four Seasons we had to walk through Mandalay Bay, so it took us awhile to find the display. When we did I will admit I was disappointed. Although absolutely brilliant, it was smaller than expected and didn't hold the girls' attention as I had hoped. The upside - the air smelled like yummy frosting since it was all put together with sugar. I, of course, chose not to bring the camera since I had no idea how we would manage to take pictures and kiddie-wrangle the three little ones and missed out on a number of gorgeous photo opportunities. Note to self: dress girls up in their Christmas outfits next year and go to the Four Seasons to take pictures in front of their gorgeous Christmas trees.

{December 7}: Color a Christmas picture.
I did a Google search for Christmas coloring pages and printed out one of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Lily and Ava both enjoyed coloring it, but I have to tell you how impressed I was with Ava's skills. She has grown so much in the last couple of months of preschool. She colored Rudolph with a brown body, red nose, and yellow antlers, all the while trying to stay inside the lines. When all was said and done, you could tell exactly what a reindeer would look like. She did a fantastic job!

{December 8}: Take our babysitter a treat.

We have a regular babysitter these days and I am so grateful. Her name is Maddie, and since she just turned 14 I am hoping she will be with us for awhile. Anyway, I decided one of our activities would be to take Maddie a treat, so I put together some fun things for her, like homemade candy and an iTunes gift card, and put it in a bag with the girls' Rudolph coloring pages. I did check with her mom beforehand to make sure they would be home before stopping by. The girls' loved visiting her and seeing her house and puppies. While there I went off with Maddie's mom to see her sewing room and check out her Christmas quilt (wow!) and the girls told me afterward what fun stuff they did with Maddie, like coloring on her chalkboard. What a fun little outing!

{December 9}: Visit Opportunity Village.

Opportunity Village is a little like Santa's North Pole with fun stuff to see and do. But my girls wouldn't know, because we didn't go. I ran out of steam this day and it was cold out. So instead we just did something else Christmas-y, like listen to Christmas songs on the TV music channel. Oh well!