Grand plans

I'm going to give daily blogging a whirl in the month of December.  Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it, too.  And it may be horribly boring for anyone that is not my mom, because some days are just mundane.  I have quite the backlog of photos, though--pics from Halloween and the NYC marathon and soccer....yep, those all happened unblogged.

Today was the first Sunday of Advent at our church.  Instead of the traditional (to our church) milk-and-cookies party, we had a whole Advent celebration.  We have a new pastor and he's fond of changing things up, and I don't mind at all as long as it involves snacks. :-)

The Advent celebration started at 1 pm, so we had time to kill after the early service.  So the kids and I picked up Panera brunch and took it to Grandma.  Anna volunteered to carry the bag:

Anna is so incredibly helpful lately.  She emptied half the dishwasher, cleaned her room, and carried the grocery bags into the store on Saturday--I guess she knows Santa is watching.

Then we went back to church for lunch and Christmas crafts and stories:

When we got home, Will and I started decorating for Christmas while Anna napped.  Here we are....Oak Ridge Boys Christmas CD blaring, me untangling lights, Will trying to figure out the train configuration that fits on our table (there's only ONE way that it works---I need to take a picture so we'll have an easier time next year.  I think I said that same thing last year.)

Flush with Christmas spirit, Will dressed himself up as Old Saint Nick (this masterpiece is all his own doing):

Wait!  Of course he needs a toy sack:

Now both kids are in bed and I'm trying desperately to stay up until midnight to see if there are any good Cyber Monday deals on some way essential kid toys.  I guess I can let you know how that turns out tomorrow.  Day 1 done!