Christmas Pictures Galore!

Our Advent Activities

This Christmas season, we have had so much fun doing Advent activities with Camryn. I got this idea (as well as some of the ideas for our activities) from a super cute blog I frequently read, so I bought an Advent box on clearance last year at Target that we could start using this year. Each day when Camryn wakes up, we move the snowman on the Santa calendar and discuss what the date is:

Then she opens the Advent box for the day, where she finds a slip of paper with a new activity:

Some of our fun activities this season have included:

- Watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a family.

- Get Christmas stickers

- Send a Christmas card to a friend

- Read the Christmas story as a family at bedtime.

- Visit Santa:

- Watch the Backyardigans Christmas special as a family.

- Open presents with Jeff and Sarah Ellen:

- Wear new Christmas PJ's:

- Go caroling:

- Get a pink Christmas tree for your room (she saw this at Wal-Mart and asked for it, so we decided to surprise her with it one day as a treat!):

- Watch the Grinch as a family.

- Make red and green pancakes for supper:

- Ride around town to look at Christmas lights:

- Watch White Christmas.

- Make Christmas cookies.

Although this has definitely been work for Mommy coming up with something new each day, it has been so much fun to see Camryn run over to the box each morning to find out what her new activity will be. Plus, it has given us lots of extra "excuses" to do things as a family, so I think we will end up making the Advent box a tradition in the Burley household!

A Very Burley Christmas

This past weekend we had the Burley family Christmas. We all got lots of great presents, ate tons of wonderful food from the annual Christmas spread, had enough chocolate to last us until next Christmas (see picture below), and, of course, played several rounds of Christmas Bingo. Here are the pictures from our fun Burley Christmas Day.

Notice the tiny little baby stocking in the middle - CUTE!!

Love this!

Checking out all the stocking goodness

The baby's stocking stuffer

Opening presents

The 2.5 lb. Whitman's Sampler - WOW!

The cute pics

Playing Guess Who

Craft time with Grandma

Adorable little cousins