Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

The season of Advent is upon us!  I'm so excited because this year our church decided to celebrate Advent for the first year, and we have decided as a family to start Advent with Monkey.  I looked through a lot of different ideas and settled on the Jesus Storybook Bible curriculum since she has just turned 2.  She still doesn't understand what we are doing, but she loves to read from her Bible, so she will at least sit still long enough to listen.  She also loves putting ornaments on a tree, which is something she gets to do each night with this.

I decided to make an Advent calendar that we could use for years to come.  I took to the internet and combined a few ideas to make one that I really like.  My trusty Cricut came through again to make this project super easy!

This was not taken in the best lighting, but you get the idea.  Mom and I headed to JoAnn's a couple of weeks ago and found everything we needed.  We happened upon this metal board by accident, I was just planning to use a cookie sheet until I could find something that worked.  This happened to be perfect!  I went to the wedding aisle and found the metal favor tins with clear tops.  We picked out a pack of coordinating paper and some magnets to attach the tins and then added the bow to hang it.  I measured and cut the circles and numbers out with the Cricut.

Next, I wanted to make ornaments that went along with the Jesus Storybook Bible.  I found this website where another mom and her husband had already completed this project and had a free printable for the ornaments.  I changed mine up a little bit and attached them to wooden disks with Modge Podge and added ribbon so we could hang them on our tree.

  Luckily the size of the paper fit perfectly onto the wooden disks which fit great into the tins!  Each ornament has a picture that corresponds with the story we read for the night.

After we read the story and open up our ornament, we hang it on our branch tree that is in the foyer of our house.  I had a florist friend make an arrangement out of some branches from our front yard for a shower and I ended up leaving it up because I liked it.  I thought it would make the perfect Advent tree for the year.

I love it!!  I love the idea of our family spending time each night reading God's Word in anticipation of the celebration of the birth of Christ.  It helps my mind focus on why we truly celebrate during this season.  This family tradition will change throughout the years as our girls get older and we can go deeper, but for now, this is a very special way to start.