advent ideas

I love Advent...
the preparations
the stories
the goodies
the beauty all around

I love all the advent calendars that are out there,
especially this one that my friend Katherine Marie did last year.
You've got to see what she's doing with her kids this year.
It's AMAZING!
I wish I had more time, energy and creativity to pull this off.

But I did make time to put together 25 books and wrap them.




Tonight there were two books since we didn't open one yesterday
because we were at church pretty late.
Should be interesting to see how they do tomorrow when there's only one book!




We've also got a few other advent countdown things going on around the house.




Greg found this fridge magnet one at the Family Christian Store.


And there's always the child's advent wreath that I posted about last year.


And I won this super cute printable advent countdown Christmas tree craft!
The advent calendar is from Julie Marie's etsy store...
and I won it on Elizabeth's blog, Twelve Crafts Till Christmas

I don't have it all put together yet but it'll be super cute once its done.

What do you use/do to prepare for Christmas and count down the days?