Only a Mama knows: Advent Days 16-23

The advent fun continues!

Day 16 - Family board game night! I don't care much for Monopoly, we play UNO and Life a lot, so this go-around we settled on playing a SpongeBob memory card game. Tim won with the most matches, I lost with the least amount of matches, and we all had fun!

Day 17 - Make bird pinecone bird feeders! Super simple and fun to do; all you need is some pinecones, twine, peanut butter, and bird seed. Tie the twine around the pine cones and make a knot, slather the pinecones in peanut butter, dip the whole thing in birdseed, and hang! Easy peasy and the birds love 'em!

Day 18 - Go to a drive in movie! The Sunshine Mill Winery in The Dalles, OR has huge screen hanging on the side of their building. I knew that they did movies in the summer time, but didn't realize they were doing Christmas movies in December! We looked up the movie lineup and settled on National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. This was the kids' very first time going to a drive in and we had so much fun! Grandma and Grandpa also came with us in their truck. I made little snack bags for the kids and Gma also made brownies, so we had plenty of snacks and junk food to see us through the movie! Timothy was in the truck with Grandma, Anthony was in the car with Sam and I, and Molly and Grandpa started the movie outside the car, but had to move into the truck once it started to rain. The rain didn't ruin the fun though, it added to it! We will definitely go again next year. We laughed our butts off and I would love to add a drive in movie to our annual advent list!

Day 19 - Attend the Ownby Rd Christmas party! We attended our annual Ownby Rd Christmas party at our neighbor's house. Lots of fun, lots of chit-chat, lots of kiddos running around. It was nice to get caught up with all the neighbors, most of us have been laying low and haven't seen much of each other. It was really mellow, as always. Just everyone chatting and stuffing our faces full of food, lol. No photos. I don't typically take photos at the Christmas party as I like to spend the evening just relaxing.

Day 20 - Build gingerbread houses! This was equal parts fun and frustrating. It started out well and everyone was having a good time, but then houses were falling apart and frosting was flying, haha. Anthony and Timothy were annoyed their houses weren't cooperating, but they stuck it out, did their best, and rolled with it. Molly's was the only one that didn't break apart! She was super proud of that fact, lol. Not sure we will make this a part of our yearly advent fun, but it was an enjoyable evening spent listing to Christmas music, watching Christmas movies while we waited for frosting to dry (....but not long enough apparently!!), and laughing with the kiddos throughout the whole process!

Day 21 - Play the left/right gift passing game! True, we did this activity already, but we decided to do it a second time, and this time Grandma and Grandpa joined us. The gifts were simple, just some candy, but what the gift is never matters, it's the fun of listening to the story and passing the gifts around and hoping you're the one that winds up with it in the end! This go-around I got a gift, and so did Molly and Grandpa! Papa likes to be the one to read the story, but next year I'll make him join in as well!

Day 22 - Have a hot dog and mallow roasting night in the shop! The original plan was to have a large bonfire outside where we could roast weenies and mallows, but it was really windy out to start, so we decided to hold our evening in the shop! We invited all the Grandparents over, as well as our neighbor's, and had a good 'ol fashion shop roast! Sammy and I started a fire and cooked hot dogs and sausage on the stove. We had a whole bunch of other sides as well, to make a complete meal. The kiddos also roasted mallows in the fire! When we were all done eating, Grandpa was able to set up a mini telescope so we could all look at the Christmas star, Saturn, the moon, and just the sky in general. I'm glad the wind died down so we were able to do that. We really had a great night!! We jammed to Christmas tunes (as well as other music!), ate lots of food, the kids played for hours, and we all got to just hang out, relax, and enjoy each other's company.

Day 23 - Bake cookie! Here we are, the day before Christmas Eve! We are gearing up to go to Grandma Cathy's house for Christmas Eve like we always do! We usually snack all day, and Grandma usually handles all the snacks so the rest of us can take it easy and just eat, but I needed to make sure we had cookies for Santa (and our bellies!), so baking some cookies was on the list for today! Molly is at Grandma Cathy's house helping her prep everything for tomorrow, so it was just the boys at home to help. We made peanut butter blossoms and everyone's favorite, my chocolate chip cookies. We will bring some to Grandma's tomorrow, set some out for Santa tomorrow night, and have some set aside for our snacking pleasure on Christmas day as well!