The Brooks Family: Advent

I love the season of Advent, it's probably my favorite time of the whole year.

Preparing our hearts for Jesus.
Remembering his first coming and looking forward to his second.

I also love the Christmas story. So many prophecies fulfilled in this tiny helpless babe. The God of Heaven sending his son down to be born in a lowly stable to a poor (in money, but rich in faith) family for me. Jesus leaving paradise to come live in a broken, cruel, hurting world. It's truly the best miracle we've ever known.

So every night we read a little part of that story and talk about some of the attributes of Jesus. And we also throw a little fun into the mix. I used to do daily Advent blog posts, but clearly that's not happening these days. Here's the rundown of the first 8 days...

On the first, we wrote a Christmas letter to our sweet Celeste (our Compassion child), and that night I couldn't get her off my mind. So I prayed for her some more and tried to come to peace about the fact that I was born into unbelievable riches and freedom and opportunity, and she was born poor (like Jesus) and had to be separated from her family (somewhat like Jesus). God is mysterious, and I don't understand His ways, but I pray that I am doing what he wants with what He has given me.

On the second, we did some Christmas cookies after school...

This girl is such a great helper in the kitchen!

Nailed it.

That night Charlotte went to the Swingster (our local high school drill team) holiday dance clinic.

Cousin Vanesa (our Swingster!) was working the clinic. So fun!

On the third, we went to buy our Angel Tree gifts from our Share trees at church.

On the fourth, we watched 3/4 of a Christmas movie (some old cartoon one...I can't even remember) while we downed pizza for dinner, and then James and Charlotte headed off to the Daddy Daughter Dance!

Those shoes! It was a shoe-drama filled night that (unfortunately) ended in little heels for Charlotte. Who's 6. Ugh.

After Char stepped away, Grey jumped in front of the tree and said, "My turn!"

LOVE. And then He tried to tell Hunter to come over for a picture, but H was not feeling it.

The boys and I ran out the door pretty soon after James and Charlotte left, because we had Hunter's first basketball game of the season!

They didn't win, but they had fun! And Hunter has really improved from last year. Super proud of him for being more aggressive.

On the fifth, we headed downtown to the Reliant Lights Your Holidays lighting and fireworks show. We met our good friends, the Fawkes, but somehow I got no pictures of their kids. We hung out at Klyde Warren Park first, and let the kids play...

The fireworks were ok, but that was definitely a one and done sort of thing for us:)

On the sixth, we did our annual northpark day and had fun as usual!

Yesterday I worked late, so James took the kids to buy ornaments for the tree. This is Charlotte's...

Not even kidding. A margarita. It now hangs on our Christmas tree (in the back).

Charlotte and Hunter shopped for family in their school holiday store yesterday and couldn't wait for Christmas to give us our gifts, so we got them that day! This is what Hunter bought for James...