New Traditions....EEEEECCCCCCCCCCCCCKkk!

My attempt at trying to start a new tradition in our household has not come without it's own struggles.  In my mind we would be all sitting around a fire (if we had a fireplace..which I'm totally scared of, so why I would have that in my Norman Rockwell moment is beyond me.) and we'd be laughing, sharing our deepest thoughts, drinking hot cocoa, and there would be no fighting but only saying a kind word to one another.  Ahhhhh.....bliss.

Sooooo, I guess you could say, it didn't really happen like that.

My first goal was to start doing advent every night.  But to do that we needed an advent wreath.  Well, trying to do this without buying one, I decided to make one. 
"Ohh it'll be great," I thought, "We'll make it together. It's easy, all we need is the plate and I've got the rest of the paper here. Easy peasy rice and cheesy!"

So about 3 days later and several break downs later, we had our "homemade advent wreath."  I loved it.  It wasn't a normal wreath, but it was ours.  I picture that some day, years from now, we will be looking back on it and commenting how much Mommy lost it and laugh at the thoughts of perfection that I tried to establish during this time.

For the last 13 nights we've been doing the nightly readings, singing (which, by the way, Nick only wants to sing is jingle bells), praying, and lighting of our fake candles with our fake flame.  And as frusturating as some nights have been, I've fallen in love with it and I know our kids have too.  Each night they run up to the table when we say it's time to do the advent and they ask what's do I get to do tonight.  They might not hear everything we say, but they have been capturing the beauty that is starting to unraval in the story we read each day.  I love hearing the prayers that each of them say.  Anna goes on and on...talking about those we've never met.  Mason keeps praying for his brothers and sister and his beautiful Mommy, and his handsome Daddy.  Nick keeps saying thank God for the animals or thank God for God...and so forth.  Matt is forever saying...mamamamamamama...dadadadadadadada...blalhslfnaskvit.  And Mike and I fill in the other spots.  I don't want the time to end.  Thanks to those who gave me this idea!

Try it sometime, you won't regret it.  And in replace of my Norman Rockwell moments around the fireplace, is my idea of the madness that comes into our house each night as we attempt to light our "candles." Hearing Nick sing, as low as he can, the words to Jingle Bells.  Anna being the sweetheart, full of life girl that she is caring for those she has never met, and Mason keeping it close to home. (He just got a marshmellow gun...and as fun as it is, we will not let him close out everything we do at the table with a honorary shot.  It's starting to get to us, it scares Matt. And I keep getting hit in the rear end with a marshmellow for some reason.  This has nothing to do with lighting the advent wreath, I just wanted to share this moment that we had.) MERRY CHRISTMAS!!