Christmas Mural

One of our very favorite Christmas traditions is our Advent pocket quilt. My mom made it for us years ago and its one of the first things the boys want to get out when the decorations are pulled out! It's evolved over the years as to what we do with them, but we've enjoyed the same system for the last couple years. Each morning, the boys open a pocket. Inside, there is a Christmas joke, activity card- like bake cookies, look at lights, bring treats to a neighbor, see Santa, do a craft project- and a little toy of some sort- this year, they're loving little figures that come from .25 machines! We haven't had as much free time to do our activities like we usually do, since Grant is at school all day and we always have gymnastics or something to do in the evenings. So while we've always been a lot more active in our activities in years past, this year, I had to let some things go. It broke my heart to do so because my fellas just eat up these types of activities!! But we've managed to do some special activities here and there! I'm always strategic when it comes to which activity card goes in which pocket day. No use putting "go look at lights" on a night we have gymnastics till 8:00. Just not going to happen! So while I planned to do a Christmas mural on a Saturday, I did not plan on having Mason and Luke here, but it was the perfect addition to our already fun activity!

I started by painting Merry Christmas and then I let them go to town. I had out a palette of all the paints, glitter glue, markers, and do-dads to decorate with. This kept them busy for SO long! I loved listening to their ideas being thrown around. They each did kind of keep to their own little area of the mural, but they came together at the end to do the christmas lights across the top! After it was all dry, we hung it on the wall above the basement kitchen table, which was the perfect backdrop for our cookie exchange party we had the following week!!

I hope we can continue these special activities for years to come!