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Through my various online homeschool buddies I heard about an ebook that came out called “Truth in Tinsel“. It’s a wonderful daily advent devotion for little kids that isn’t as over their head as some of the Jesse Tree books. You do a daily reading from the Bible with the children and a simple craft that goes along with it. Then there is a discussion section at the end. Nadia and I had some great conversations during this and she had some really sweet responses to the readings and questions that followed. Each craft is a small ornament to tell the story of advent – I bought little trees on clearance in January for when the girls do this together in 2012.

Nadia working on the scented dough to represent the frankincense and myrrh.

Here are our crafts (we missed the crafts on some days -but still did the readings with all our other activity in December, but we almost completed the full 24):

Light, Kingdom, Zechariah

Gabriel, Mary, Mary and Elizabeth with pregnant bellies

Song, Sun, Joseph, Joseph’s pillow (for his dream)

Bethlehem, Stable, Clothes, Sheep

Shepards, Temple, Star

Wise Men, Gifts

Click the photo above to see the whole album. (It has 60 photos)

We decided to try out Prairie Lights in Grand Prairie this year after talking to several people who go each year. During the week it’s $20 a car and I have to say that it’s an amazing display. Near the end they have a Santa’s Village set up with a few carnival type ride and LOTS of carnival food (we planned ahead and stopped at a drive through just before entering the park). They had a chance for kids to talk to Santa and if they wanted to they could have their photo. Amelie wanted no part of it, but Nadia really wanted to talk to Santa and for the first time ever said she would like a photo. It turned out adorable!!!

In Santa’s Village they also had a laser light show (not worth it) and a walk through forest (totally worth it). The girls enjoyed being out of the car and telling us all about the cool lights.

Nadia loves the Nativity scenes.

I thought this was cute since “The Year of the Dragon” is coming.

After the walk through forest we went back out to ride something called “Bear Affair” it was a tea cup sort of ride where you were mostly enclosed in a giant bears belly. Mike got it going so fast that I couldn’t stop laughing. The girls loved it and Nadia tried to turn the wheel to make it go faster. The girls rode the Carousel 3 times and we shared a caramel apple. You can go on the carousel and Bear Affair as many times as you want in the price of your car admission.

It was a very fun night out and we plan on going back each year.

Amelie notices trains everywhere we go. We can also hear train horns from our house and each time she hears one she says, “Choo choo!” I knew she would get a kick out of riding the mini train so we headed over. While waiting to catch the train the girls had fun running around chasing Mike and I.

I completely expected the place to be jammed with school being out, but it was basically deserted. So we got to sit in the front car!

Amelie was intently watching everything we passed and commenting. She also asked to go in the water, but I told her it was too cold to swim