Advent has had a great start around here. I took some much needed time away from social media to allow myself of the graces of more space and time. It has been incredibly fruitful for myself, my marriage and my family. There have been wonderful feast days to celebrate, lots of past traditions and even a few new ones. There has been a lot of reading, cuddling around the fire, laughter and family time. It is good for heart, really good.
Here is the first few weeks of our Advent in pictures!
St. Andrew's novena is my FAVORITE novena of the year. This year our families intention is very near to my heart and God's ability to support us and answer our prayers always continues to simply amaze me.
Blessed is She hit it out of the park again with this year's Advent journal By the Manger in the Morning. This book, my bible, and my cup of coffee gets my day going right!
I love decorating our house and we continue to add more Advent decorations instead of simply Christmas decorations. We have our Advent tree with purple, pink and silver decorations which we love and I adore this simple "Wait in Joyful Hope" decoration which amazingly switches to saying "NOEL" for the Christmas season!
One of my favorite things EVER might be snuggling up with a good book to a fire with Christmas lights. It is so beautiful and amazingly peaceful, which can be rare to experience with a house of four little boys!
Every year I try to do a handprint craft with the kids to capture those little growing fingers in the current moment! With having four children this year I thought it would be really fun to do this cute Advent craft with their handprints as the greenery. I love how it looks and glows with the light thru the window!
We have a new tradition this year of writing in an Advent journal together as a family (plus I adore how it has the St. Andrew's Novena prayer on it!). We can record prayers, stories, drawings or whatever is in our hearts. It think it is a really special way to come together as a family as our children continue to get older and have more personal thoughts and reflections.
We have been slowly bringing Advent and Christmas crafts and art projects into our school work and they bring so much joy to the kids. Our three year old has recently gotten into the Dot Markers and he will sit and do his "ink projects" while the older kids work on structured school work. It is wonderful!
Outside activities have been slowing down and we have had a lot of time home together as a family. It is good to focus on family and watch our boys truly develop friendships and their amusing imaginative play!
We were even able to sneak away for some adult time, which is always enjoyable, but especially fun during Advent! We are off to a good start!
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