Day 4 - Family Wreath and an Advent Book Recommendation

Day 4....After our Battalion Family Christmas party we came home and the kids went running right to the calendar, eager to open the tiny door and get started!

First, we mixed up some yellow and blue paint to make a nice Christmas green color. Then Daddy made his handprints on the page.

Next, I make my handprints on either side of Peters. We each did 4 handprints then it was time for the kiddos to do theirs. We decided to mix up a little more blue and make a darker green for Joy and Joshua's prints.

Joshua printed next...

After he was done we mixed up some light green for the two littlest to use. I don't have any pictures of them doing it though since it took BOTH Peter and I to get their hands in the paint and on the paper without everything else getting covered in it! So here is our (almost) finished project. Our wreath ended up not looking very much like a wreath since it doesn't have a hole in the middle. Peter's hands were too big! In order to fit them on the paper, his prints had to be almost overlapping.

After the paint dried we added a pretty bow and some red and white 'berries'. It's now hanging on our wall and I think this is one I will treasure and save to bring out for future Christmases. I just love the collage of all of our handprints together on one page. It looks even cooler in person when you can see the definition and details of each one.

Lastly, I wanted to share this wonderful book that we have been reading together through the Advent season. We received it as a gift from some of our sweet friends here and started reading it together the first Sunday of Advent. It is called Jotham's Journey and the story is broken up into sections, one to read each day of Advent. The littlest ones are not into it yet but they still like to listen for most of it. Joy however is very much enjoying it. Each day sort of ends in a subtle cliff hanger so she is very eager to read the next day's chapter when it is time. Joshua thinks it's a pretty exciting story so far but has a little trouble with the fact that there are not really any pictures. I think this will be a new tradition we add to our Advent celebration each year, we are really loving it.
I heard that there are three other books in this series so you can read a new one each year for four years, then start over again with Jotham's Journey if you wanted to. I haven't looked into them yet but I am hoping we'll be able to find them and add them to our collect to rotate each year. I think it's such a neat idea and the other kids will really enjoy them as they get older too. Anyway, just thought I'd share since we're only a week into it and you could probably catch up easily if you still wanted to read through it this Advent season.  :)