Christmas Book/Advent Tradition UPDATE

Happy ALMOST December 1! I truly do love the Christmas season as all the joy and tradition in brings. Most importantly, it gives us time to focus on the birth of Jesus and that he is truly the greatest gift we could have ever received. I get teary eyed just thinking about His story...

It's November 30th and I am once again, busy wrapping 23 books for the special Christmas/Advent tradition we do in our home. I have gotten so many questions over the past few years since I began posting this on social media. I LOVE this tradition we do as a family. It's something I remember doing from my childhood. I love that my boys look forward to this. This year, the older boys are excited to read the books they unwrap as well as read the books the younger two unwrap to one another. Let's hope for minimal arguing of who gets to read the book that night (haha!). Below is an updated list of the books in this years 23 wrapped books...if you want to read more about the tradition and see other books I've used, visit my post from last year HERE

Don't mind my furry friend, Ramsey, enjoying the cozy fire. She wasn't much help...

Ten Christmas Lights by Teresa Imperato - an adorable counting book with little lights that glow when you push the button.

Seek and Find Charlie Brown, Rudolph, and Snowman  - I have a few Seek and Find book lovers in this house. Always fun to take turns finding the different items on the pages

Little Porcupines Christmas - by Joseph Slate, this book is about a porcupine who can't seem to find a place in the Christmas play. He feels very left out and his friends make fun of him. However, in the end, he saves the day by becoming the star on the tree. 

What Do Snowmen do at Christmastime - Excited to add this book to the mix this year. I love the illustrations in this book.

Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson -if you haven't checked out any of the bear books, you should! They are so sweet, they rhyme, and have adorable illustrations

Everyone is Invited to Christmas: A fun book about enjoying the true meaning of the Christmas season....JESUS! The illustrations are beautiful and fun with all the woodland creatures.

A Birthday Party for Jesus: By the same author as Everyone is Invited to Christmas, it's about a bunny who wants to know the perfect gift to bring Jesus for his birthday. 

Jingle Jokes: In a house full of boys, you need to have some good jokes.

Bizzy Bear: Christmas Helper - Excited to have this one join the mix this year for our youngest who is 2.5. He will love how intereactive the book is. Bizzy Bear books are wonderful for toddlers. They teach great learning concepts but also allow the child to be intereactive in the book which helps to keep their attention and work on fine motor skills.

God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Bergren - one of my favorites! I usually wait 'til the week of Christmas to open this one

Baby's Santa Mouse by Michael Brown - I'm not sure this book is even available anymore. I have the copy that my mom put in my Christmas book basket from when I was a little girl.

The Sweet Smell of Christmas by Patricia Scary - another book from my childhood. I have the one from when I was growing up, but the scratch and sniff has been worn so we have a new one for the boys. It's an adorable story about a bear who finds all the smells leading to Christmas (gingerbread, candy canes, Christmas Tree, hot chocolate, and more). This one is a favorite in our home.

Don't Push The Button Christmas Adventure by Bill Cotter - if you haven't tried interactive books with your 2-4 year old, you need to start! Don't push the button books are some of our favorites! This is just a silly Christmas version of the book

Santa's Favorite Story - by Hisako Aoki and Ivan Gantschev - I love this book because it blends Santa and the Christmas Story. The animals in the forest find Santa sleeping next to a tree. When he wakes up he tells them of the story of Christmas, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Beautiful but simple pictures about the story of Christmas. This is one of my favorites that I have found.

An Otis Christmas by Loren Long - in a house full of tractor loving boys, Otis is a favorite.

Mortimer's Christmas Manger by KarmaWilson (author of Bear books - a sweet story about a mouse who makes a home in the nativity scene but then each night keeps coming back to find that Jesus is back in the manger and has to keep removing all the pieces until one night, he hears the family telling the story of Jesus and decides he doesn't need the cozy bed anymore. We read this during the week before Christmas.

Humphrey's First Christmas by Carol Heyer. A beautifully illustrated book and story about the journey to the manger from the Camel's perspective.

Mistletoe the Christmas Kitten by Joe Troiano - a story about a kitten who looks different from the rest and doesn't have a cozy home to go to. He rescues some stranded kittens on a blistery Christmas Eve and finds them a cozy home to live in and get adopted into the family as well. 

Snowman's Story by Will Hillenbrand This is a FAVORITE of mine. It is a book with no words, just pictures. The boys love taking turns telling their own version of the story. We've heard some very funny ones, and some pretty creative ones. You can each take a turn per page or have someone tell the whole story. This book is a blast. I believe it can also be found in Scholastic Book Orders.

Goodnight Manger by Laura Sassi (same author as Goodnight Ark, beautiful pictures) - when we received Goodnight Ark as a gift, I was blown away with the beauty of the pictures and loved that it was a goodnight story about Noah. I was so excited when I found Goodnight Manger!

Construction Site on Christmas Night by Chronicle Books - all the boys in my house LOVE anything that has to do with construction trucks. We love the Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site books and I just added this one to our collection for this year to be opened. I'm excited to see the boys reaction to it when they open it.

Little Blue Truck's Christmas by HHM books - we love Little Blue Truck books and I think my youngest will enjoy opening this one this year.

Where Do Diggers Celebrate Christmas? by Random House Books - another new one that was added this year to our collection. There are 3 books that have similar titles and we love them all in our home. This should be a fun one for them to open!

The Jolly Christmas Postman by LB Kids - I remember reading the Jolly Postman when I was little and loved it. I found the Christmas version a few years ago and picked it up. Now that the older two understand some of the classic fairy tales (with some thanks to Super Why), I think they'll enjoy reading this one.

On Christmas Even we read the Christmas Story from our bible with the boys. This book is wrapped in a special golden box and is placed under the tree. Throughout the month we discuss with the boys why the golden box is the most important gift under the tree. The older boys are now great readers and have begun to read us the story of Christmas from their bibles on Christmas Eve.

Easter Basket Ideas

It's been a while since I've posted. Since that time, I decided to create a Facebook Page for Raising4Warriors in hopes to share some of the crazy daily life going on in my home, share blog posts and posts from mom mentors that I follow, as well as link up my blog. Since Easter is only a few days away, I thought I'd share some Easter Basket ideas that I do at home. We like to keep it simple and not go too crazy with Easter Baskets. We do not do the Easter Bunny in our home for those that are wondering. I typically try and keep the baskets similar between the boys because it just helps with less arguing about one brother getting one thing and another not. Just want to keep the peace if I can and since we don't go crazy with the baskets, it's easy to do. This year, though, I tried to find something unique for each child that they would enjoy. To be transparent, we budgeted $20/kid for Easter baskets. Some of that get shuffled around as the youngest isn't getting as much as the olders, but it all works out in the end so it appears everyone has the "same" amount of stuff. I probably used between $25-35 above the budgeted amount between my grocery store reward dollars and kohls rewards money to get some of the items to fill the baskets with as well which is nice. This is similar to what we do for Valentines Day Tubs of Love as well. I'll try and snap a pic of the finished baskets on Easter morning and post it here.

In our Easter Baskets you will find:

Candy - not much, but each child will get a candy that is their favorite. For my boys it would be Starbursts, Hershey's Milk and Cookies bar, Sour Worms, and Jelly Beans. I found 4 Ring pops for $1 so I'll add those in as well.

Money- each child has 1 plastic egg with their name on it and I will put in $1 for them in that which they think is awesome. As they get older, there may be less "toy" items and more money or a gift card.

Yellies - Brekan, our 2nd oldest, bought one of these with his birthday money a few weeks ago. It's quite funny actually and if you don't mind your kids yelling at a toy for a few minutes, it's quite comical. I got 3 for the other boys so we can have yellies going all around our house for a short period of time. Note that I didn't say all day, this will be limited for my sanity but I thought it was fun. I think they came out with Easter yellies for the season (little bunnes). But I thought the spiders were cute and Jehnsen (our youngest) walks around petting it saying "bu" (bug).

Mini Grass Grow kits - found these at our local grocery store and thought they were cute. The link shows the type I got, but I know I only paid around $1 for each little one, not what they are asking for on amazon (don't pay that much for one)

BeyBlade Micros - found these at Target for around $2 each and snagged 3 for the older boys, not sure if they'll work but they looked fun and the boys are in to BeyBlades right now.

Dragon Mystery Pack - We loved the new How To Train Your Dragon 3 movie that came out a few months ago. I found these mystery packs at Target for around $2 each for the boys. We have some of the toys, but the boys like little mystery packs of items and I knew this would be a good filler.

Easter Spot It - Found this at Target for Leyton because he is my Spot It Game Lover. Couldn't find the link for the Easter game on amazon so it may only be a Target exclusive thing, but any spot it game is wonderful in my opinion for ages 3 and up. We love Spot It! and probably have 5 different themed tins at our house from Dory, Planes, Shapes, Letters, Junior, and Camping.

If you follow my personal Facebook page you have seen the past few weeks how much my youngest, Jehnsen (almost 2) loves to draw and color. He recently found a sharpie and colored his neck, then he was coloring a picture of a penguin the other day while I was doing dishes and when he came up to me he was covered in Black/Blue WASHABLE (praise Jesus) market on his face...those colors are harder to wash off, but I did it with good 'ol soap and water. He's so adorable though it's hard to get upset. He will be getting Color Wonder Daniel Tiger paper in his Easter Basket this year. He loves to color and he LOVES Daniel Tiger so I think this is a win-win for him. No mess coloring clean up for me and coloring fun for him!

Mystery Hot Wheels packs - found these at Walmart. Again, my boys like all those little mystery pack type things, these were $1 each.

LED GUNS for Jehnsen - the boys love to play laser tag and this will allow their youngest brother to "play" with them. I found a 2 pack at Hobby Lobby.

Hatchimals - One of my boys thinks these are the coolest thing, so I found a few at our local grocery store buy 1 get one 50% off and got him 2 for $3 which I thought was a good deal. They came in single egg packs.

BOOKS: The two older boys will each be getting a book. Hidden Scrolls for the oldest, he has this last book in the series to read and Weird But True Animals for the 2nd oldest (they love to read me these in the car)

Zoom O - I found one at Walmart for $15 and then got another single one at Kohls with my Kohls Rewards. The 3 olders will get these. I'm thinking they'll be fun for outside on a not so windy day.

Daniel Tiger Magnets - A friend gave me this set at a Mom2Mom sale, I glued them to cardstock and then laminated and glued magnets on them for the fridge. I think Jehnsen will love these.

Bounceback Mini Sphere - Leyton (5 years old) saw one of these at the zoo the other day so I found one on Amazon and got it for him. This one is a lot larger than I was anticipating, I thought it was smaller, but it will still be fun for him I think.

Playing Cards - Our boys are really in to Michigan State after NCAA basketball season, I found this set of playing cards for our oldest so we can play war and do multiplication fact war with each other.

Hopefully this helps you with some ideas as you get ready to put together Easter Baskets in your home. What are some fun things you put in your childs Easter Basket? I'm always looking for new ideas for next year or to add to my stocking stuffers list for Christmas!

Tubs of Love

I'm excited to share about a fun family tradition that we started with our family when our oldest (now almost 9) was 7 months old. Each Valentine's Day we create a little "Tub of Love" for them. For one thing, the name is just cute and fun (hehe). It's a simple Rubbermaid shoe box size tub, I've decorated them with stickers and their name. They get the same one each year (like an Easter basket or a stocking), lined with tissue paper on the bottom, and filled with a few simple items for them. It's a fun way for us to share some love with our boys on Valentine's Day. Sometimes I have let them open them in the morning. But now that they are older, we are going to have a fun Valentine's Family Dinner (heart shape strawberries, cucumbers, carrots, no boiling baked ziti, and garlic bread with special valentine cupcakes...keep it simple around here) and then share their tubs of love with them. Below are pics from the past 8 years of doing them (still need to add tonights picture after we open them), one year they didn't have the tubs because we were living in my in-laws basement while building our current home and I think the tubs were in storage...we made do and kept the tradition!

First Tub of Love 2011

 2012

 2013 (no pic with kids, but at least a pic of the tubs)

 2014

 2015 (tubs were in storage)

 2016

 2017

 2018 (no kid pic apparently, but we had a pic of the tubs!

 2019

I was just approved to be a part of a book launch team for a new book that will releasing March 5th. I love book launch teams (this will be my 3rd one) because you get to preview the book before it's released and then share how amazing it is with all your friends! The book is called Memory Making Mom: Building Traditions That Breathe Life into your Home by Jessica Smartt. Seriously, this book is already amazing and I'm only on Chapter 4. It's all about how to set aside the distractions of life and focus on our families. It's about how to create traditions with your family that your children will remember as they grow up and look back on. It's not a book to make you feel like you aren't doing enough, it's simply suggesting that you take time to do simple things on a regular basis (which builds the tradition) and then continue to do them. I have been challenged to think outside the box and really look at my daily life and what things are being a distraction and what things I can do to make connections with my boys. 

Starting the book has allowed me to think of some of the traditions that I love doing with my family. Our Advent Book tradition, our Birthday Balloons (they get 1 balloon per age each year and we do a photo), Tubs of Love at Valentine's Day, just to name a few. But the book is also challenging me to think about how I can be less distracted and more engaged with my boys on a daily basis and build traditions in to our daily, weekly, monthly routines.

If you want to pre-order the book, you can do so HERE