Some New Traditions

Last year we didn't do too well with Christmas. Remember Johanna's trip to the ER Christmas Day? This year we are starting early just in case anything happens over the actual holiday... okay not really that's just my excuse to have a whole month of fun stuff to do! I wanted to start a few family traditions of our own so one of them we started this year was making bagged lunches for the homeless shelter downtown.

The Overman's were so generous to help out, thank you so much GiGi for purchasing all the supplies and Lori for taking us to Costco and helping us pack the lunches. Man, how did I get it so easy this year, I just need to drive the lunches down to the shelter. I know there will be plenty of full bellies and thankful hearts so thank you guys so much!

 Anyway obviously Johanna is a little young to grasp the concept of 'it's better to give than to recieve' but that didn't stop her from having a blast with helping out. She would eagerly reach for food "apple! apple!" then she'd plop one into a bag.

 "This is so much fun!!!"

We also made some Christmas count-down rings with my Mom's group. Each ring has something fun to do that is Christmas-y themed. Each morning Johanna pulls off a ring and we get to do what's written on the paper for that day.

Considering Johanna is too young to really know what's going on, we've got a lot of 'read Christmas books' and 'watch Christmas movies' this year... shhh don't tell!

Nana got Johanna an Advent Calendar so at night time we open up the day's box and read the bible verse inside. Johanna likes to open up all the boxes because she doesn't understand the concept quite yet ;)