day4 started off with a very happy little boy after finding a snack size Hershey bar accompanying his #4 envelope in the notorious blue stocking. He was even more EXCITED to find out that he could eat it BEFORE breakfast. I made sure to stress only candy from an ELF can be eaten before breakfast though! Our activity for the day, per Delbert, was to make cookies and paint snowmen on the window. We spent the first part of our day coloring pictures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and listening to Christmas radio on Pandora. After dinner we made cookies with Aunt JoJo, but in the interest of time we went with chocolate chip cookies and precut sugar cookies courtesy of Nestle and adorably painted with snowmen, Santa’s, and Christmas trees- simple and most importantly SWEET! We are adding painting snowmen on the window to tomorrow’s agenda.
Day 5 was back to school in our house. Josh has been tracked out since mid November so he was definitely ready to go back, even if he did not think so! Delbert kept it simple today with an idea to make the house smell like Christmas. Unfortunately, with the busy day we had there was no Christmas-ee smells lingering in our house so… we will have to add that to tomorrow. 
Day 6 was a special day in our house as it would have been my moms 51st birthday. Delbert left Josh some Star Wars stickers and told him to read a Christmas book, which we planned to do before bed since we always read a book or two at night. The day involved the usual; school, work, etc., but our evening was special since we attended a Night of Remembrance ceremony at Hospice. It was a gorgeous and unseasonably warm evening which made walking the glowing paths of luminaries all the more special. Josh was interested in the names on each memory plaque so as we walked we read the names and the sweet messages their loved ones wrote. At my moms memorial service in February we sent memories and messages to Heaven on the wings of pink balloons, and this evening was no different. Gathered at the luminary placed in memory of my mom, Thomas and Joshua let 2 balloons go with their own messages attached and we watched them float in to the night sky as they made their way to Gammy. Losing someone you love is so hard, but sharing an evening like tonight with friends and family makes dealing with the lose just a little easier. Happy Birthday to the most beautiful angel in Heaven, my mom.
Day 7 started out like any other day… since December 1st that is! Josh waking up and running downstairs to see what Delbert left in the blue stocking has become a regular activity, and this morning was no different. Josh was excited to find some M&M’s enclosed with the day 7 activity and decided they would make a perfect breakfast. Our day 7 activity was to make edible ornaments for the birds, which meant peanut butter and birdseed were in our evening’s future. Since the last few days have been busy with back to school and other events we were a little behind on our Advent Activities. It was decided that the evening would be reserved for catching up which meant making the house smell like Christmas, reading a Christmas book and of course ornaments worthy of a feathered feast. Our list was ambitious but with oranges and cinnamon on the stove, shepards pie in the oven and Mickey’s Christmas carol on the TV we got it all done. Some lucky birds will have a very tasty breakfast indeed! I’m not sure what Delbert has in store for us tomorrow, but Joshua is planning some more Christmas cookies since his Mickey Countdown calendar told us to “dig out our Christmas cookie recipes”… Thursday here we come!Day8 was a special morning because along with the countdown card from Delbert Joshua had a letter from Santa, a Santa Claus pencil puppet AND a KIT KAT, So… once again chocolate was a main course for breakfast! I may have to have a talk with Delbert about leaving an apple or a bowl of cereal next time! The letter from Santa was just to let him know that Delbert had been sharing behavior reports with him and he was pretty impressed but would like to see Joshua work a little harder at listening to all the adults in his house and not just his mom. Delbert told us it was Craft Night so we decided to make some salt dough and roll it out to make ornaments. We made dogs, angels, trees, snowmen and circles. We also made a print of Joshua’s hand and wrote “2011”. Then we had to bake them for a long time so they would dry out. Once the ornaments were done baking we set them aside to cool. We are going to get some acrylic paint and decorate them this weekend.
Day 9 was a simple day, just a countdown card that said to watch a Christmas movie. I think Delbert knew that mommy was going to have to work late so we would not have time to do much else. Joshua stayed at Grandma’s after school until mommy got off work. He was excited to have his friend Jacob there with him also. They had breakfast for dinner, which is Joshua’s favorite, and they watched “Santa Claus is coming to town”. 16 days till Christmas
