The First Week of Advent

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. We went to Mass this morning and the girls really enjoyed seeing the beautiful purple incorporated into the garments and altar as well as watching as the first candle of the Advent Wreath was lit. We will also light the first candle on our wreath each night this week at dinner time.

We've been talking all week about making some sort of Advent Calendar. Annette at Seasons of Joy inspired us to incorporate stars into our calendar and this is what we came up with.... originally I was thinking of doves.
We are calling it our 'Advent Spiral Calendar' and we just love it :) Each day we will add the star that is associated with that day until we reach our center and can place the Christmas Star on as God's light comes into our world.

Here is our nature table with our calendar above it - waiting for it's first star...

"The first light of Advent is the light of stones. Stones that live in crystals, seashells and bones..."

We change our table display weekly depending on the verse. This week we found all of the beautfiul stones, crystals, rocks and seashells we have in our collection - we again were inspired by Annette's idea to start Mary & Joseph far away from the manger and made a path of the stars that we will hang on our calendar. Each day, we will add a star and move Mary & Joseph closer and closer....

Here are some photos of the process:

Stamping each star with the appropriate number...

Daddy helping with the brads and drilling the stars...

A perfect little box Daddy made for us to keep our stars in... he also made one for candy - the girls can have a small candy each day when they add a star...

Painting the board...

Setting things up... hmmmmm look at those sneaky little fingers I caught when taking this picture LOL!

Blessings to You & Your Family!

xoxo