Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Count Your Blessings

Advent Season is days away. As I was putting up our Christmas decorations I realized we have a lot of advent calendars! We have one that LA made for us that is a board with 25 ornaments hanging on it and there is a small tree that goes with it. I have this in my bay window in the kitchen. We have the paper ones we got last year, and we have a beautiful one that my Nana made, it is like a hanging quilt with beautiful ornaments around the edge that you bring to the middle (hard to explain, but beautiful).

I recieved in the mail yesterday, from my Nana, a piece of paper. It is an Advent Calendar where for each day of the Advent season you count your blessings and add what you are thankful/grateful for.

What a GREAT IDEA! We will defintely be doing that with Aubrey this season and I thought I would do it here in some way... either sidebar or start each post in December with it. Haven't thought it all the way through.

**I also saw this super cute craft that Aubrey and I MIGHT have to try. It is a button tree.

**I did stop the Silly Songs because I was all tapped out. What I have posted is changed on a daily basis - the words, the names, etc. So I would just be repeating myself and I do that a lot anyway.

**I had not been to the gym in 2 weeks, went this morning and felt great, a little sore but great. I missed you, gym. I will be back on Friday morning!

Another new little thing I will be starting is Aubrey Land. Aubrey has an EXTREMELY active imagination. And she has not ONE, not TWO, but THREE imaginary friends. They have names, families, stories, etc. They are interesting and funny and creative. I couldn't stand it if I forgot about it as she grows. So here is an introduction to the characters... and again I haven't decided if this will be a sidebar thing or just random post thing:
  • Chotty - her first imaginary friend and the name went through many permutations before settling here. She is about 6 years old, according to Aubrey. Has lived in New York City and the shot tower in Baltimore, her mommy ran away because she was not a good listener (I dealt with this swifly), and she can sometimes be a bear or a pink puppy. When she is in her girl form and bear form she can drive and Aubrey set me straight that she can't drive when she is a puppy because that is just silly. Chotty recently moved away and Aubrey will need to use her vacation time to go visit her (seriously, this is what she said). But Chotty came back and had turkey with us for the holiday.
  • Kalli - this is the 2nd friend and she usually plays the bad witch or mean girl part. She steals toys and is not nice. She is not in every story like Chotty. But she does have a part in many storylines
  • Winslow - this is a monster that lives under Aubrey's bed. He is not nice. He steals toys and stuffed animals from lots of little "gurls and boys" beds. And he kills mice and he will kill you to if you look at him. He has started to come out more and more and I am hoping to turn him into a fuzzy pink monster who isn't stealing so much as helping to clean up at night.

So I will keep the stories coming so I have historical data to refer back to.

**Molly's temper is flaring again and she has some new teeth coming in and this is leading to biting... so any tips or tricks in that arena are appreciated. I will be ordering/looking for the book "Teeth are not for biting".

5 comments:

Mommy said...

Tommy ate quite a few ice-pops while teething. The ones in the plastic tube - sometimes he got to chew on it without me even cutting them open! (I did wash them before freezing them) Then when the unopened one defrosted - I re-froze it.

anne watson said...

That button tree is adorable. I think Claire would like making that too!

Just make sure no one but Aubrey talks to Chotty and everything will be fine. :)

Tell AG that her friend "Megan" misses her too. :)

rebekca said...

I love Aubrey Land already. I'm not picking favorites, but if there was a front runner, it would have to be Chotty.

I love that she is so imaginative!

And I LOVE the craft. At first, I was jealous with the whole pink thing, but then I figured that Sebi and I could do it with masculine Christmas colors.

Wait. It has just come to me.

Green buttons with the other colors as the pins (for ornaments!) I can't wait to go to Wal-Mart tomorrow to buy supplies!

Unknown said...

Look for "Teeth are not for biting" at the library. I know that you only have the book for a bit but it is better than nothing.

Jessica said...

Hmmm...we have not had any biters, although Eric has a horrid temper and is absolutely unbearable when teething (which has been the past year now). Cold things are your friends...popsicles, frozen gogurt things (also very messy), and we even have a sippy cup that you put in the freezer that also seems to distract Eric for a while. Oh, and cups with straws on them, so they don't have to suck as hard. Good luck!