5,4,3...

( This is Eve today.)

Christmas is so close! Keeping gifts a secret is getting harder. Jeddy thinks he has guessed 3 of his already! Sunday was lots of fun. Jeddy and Ella were a part of a Christmas program at our church, so after the service they presented (along with other kids from their Sunday School). Lily was a shepherd. That was interesting! This was her first time ever doing anything like this. Let's just say  she was definitely getting a lot of attention! (Mom and Dad were horrified when she laid down on the ground to play with her stuffed animal sheep...)

After this episode of our lives we visited a friend's house, but by the time we got home it was too late to do the advent. So we did two on Monday! 

On Monday Mom went out for some Christmas gifts, so we kids had the house to ourselves. MWAHAHAHA! Charity burnt baked an apple pie while I played on the piano. I don't know what everyone else did. Mom said we'd do one of the advents when she got home. 

She lied.

Well, not exactly.
She went upstairs to wrap gifts and came down to make dinner. So we didn't do the advent until Dad got home. Elijah found both of them. He gave one to Lily. One of them said something about " we got to visit friends for the advent".

The other one said,
"We'll have dessert, courtesy of Charity, though slightly burnt it may be...

Then we'll get comfy on the couch and watch Masterchef on the T.V."

If you read Elijah's post about Saturday, you know that we watched Masterchef then. Unfortunately Mom thought we still had another one recorded. 

We didn't.

Dad thought of something better to watch. "Star Wars:Episode 1: The Phantom Menace".

So we watched the first hour of Star Wars: Episode 1. 

We didn't do a Barbie on the shelf. Sorry.

Tuesday, or "Christmas Eve Eve's Eve" (I know it's very confusing, but that's what the boys call it) was fun. We started the day with a barbie on the shelf! A treasure hunt was arranged.

It started with a clue on the counter from Barbie, which led to the candy cupboard. This led to Ken holding the next clue in the fruit door in the fridge, which led to a boot, which led to a mirror, and lastly (is that a word?) to under the Christmas tree. I think my clues were pretty good!

Ella and Lily took a minute to understand the whole clue thing. They found this in the candy cupboard after about 30 seconds.

"Your next clue is hidden in a small brown boot,

personally I think its really cute."

This one read,

"You'll find the next one where you see yourself,

it may be on a wall, mirror or shelf"

Lily had seen this one before so she found it.

They found this hilarious!

Addy was a big help!

That afternoon Charity said," I can't wait to see everyone's faces when they open their presents!"

Lily said, "Yeah, I can't wait to see my face when I open my presents!"

Elijah and Dad went out shopping for Mom's Christmas gift, so we did the advent without them!

Jeddy got to help Mom. 

Prayer found it!

Sorry this one's a little bright!

It says,
"A treasure hunt for candy the main floor through,
who will find the most? Will it be you?"

So we hunted for all the leftover chocolates and cookies from packages we had opened! I found 4, Prayer found 5, Keona found 3, Ella found 3, Lily found 2, and Charity found 2! It was fun. Like an Easter Egg hunt with less candy!

We girls went to the basement after that. We older girls played Doctor Mario and then watched LOTR. Then we went to bed! So there was our life for the last 2 days!
3 days till Christmas!

Six? Six Days!

Hi! This is Elijah posting today!

Today we woke up and were planing to relax, (and play video games), when Mom remembered that she and Prayer had to go out for lunch because Prayer won the best snowflake challenge. So they went out and everyone else stayed home and played video games :) or watched a movie in the basement. That is what we usually do when Mom goes out. Don't tell her :). When Mom and Prayer got home, Prayer and Eve did the Barbie on the shelf.

In case you didn't know, she is on the top shelf in the home-school room. She is sitting on a giant Santa hat, on a stack of papers. So Ella and Lily both tried it on pretending to be Santa.

                                                       Then we took a normal picture.

( Lily wasn't cooperating)

So after the Santa hat got boring, we watched Master Chef junior. In this episode, the kids got blindfolded and they had to eat and smell the food made by the judges for them. The food was pan-fried chicken and carrots and turnips, and a few other things. Then, the kids had to try to create a replica of the dish, without seeing what it was. Dad was watching it with us,(which isn't usual) and he saw the chicken and decided he had to have some. So for the remainder of the show, Dad was shopping for chicken he could eat with his carrots, potatoes, and beans. Then he cooked a gourmet dinner for him and mom. I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of his dish, I didn't think about it. After he made and ate his meal, we relaxed and played video games again(it was Saturday! Why not?). After we relaxed, ate dinner, and did chores we relaxed a bit more. For dinner we had pasta.

After we had dinner,(and did chores), we did the advent. 

I wasn't going to look because I was taking pictures, but I looked anyway. I found it in Lily's toy kitchen, and knew it was meant for her and so I called her and told her she should look in her kitchen. So Jeddy ran over and pushed Lily trying to get there first. I held him back while Lily took the advent. He now says he was just gonna give it to Lily. Lily brought it to the living room and tried to read it on her own.

After she read a few words, Dad read it. I once again forgot a picture and I am very sorry. The inside said "the best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear," which means that we watched Elf and ate popcorn and chips.

 

It is a movie about a human adopted by elves trying to find out figure out where he belongs. After the movie, we all went to bed, and that was the end of it. Oh, and also Ella is rabbit-sitting.

This is her friend's rabbit, Steve. (this picture was taken when Charity was blogging. I can't take pictures that well) Speaking of pets, earlier today I let the dog outside, and sadly I forgot about him. It so happens that dogs like meat! Justus, our dog, tore apart a garbage bag and spilled garbage all-over the garage and then wouldn't look at it when Mom asked him what he did! He just stared away and wouldn't look at the garbage. And this was all two days late for me to blog about it! So, I stole one story from Keona, and one from Charity. That is all I have to say! Bye!

7 days until Christmas!!!

Hey Everyone! Charity is blogging today.

So yesterday was fun. We cleaned up, and ate lunch.

Then Addy went to nap.

 Then we went to watch Master Chef... Only to realize we had none recorded on our PVR .:( So Mom decided to do the Girls Christmas nails instead.

 Me, Prayer, and the boys decided to play on the PS4.

 ( Mine and Prayer's nails were too short to paint.)

I'm sorry to say we didn't get any pictures of that.

So, once Addy woke up from nap, me and Mom made dinner. Well, Keona helped a little.:)

We made a shepherd's pie that was filled with; potatoes, beef, and, corn.

While that all cooked or whatnot, I rolled out some pre-made sugar cookie dough and baked about two dozen cookies. Then me and Mom made lots of different colored icings... but we didn't ice them yet! 

Then we waited. You see, all day us kids had been excited because Mom had told us Grandma was coming over. Just as we finished dinner, Mom went outside to help her out.

( Grandma had said she was bringing dessert.)

Grandma had brought cookies, iced tea, and powdered donuts.:)

After Grandma had settled down a bit it was time for the advent.

Eve found it.

And, because she doesn't like mint, she gave her candy- cane to Dad.

Here's what it said.

Grandma didn't want a pic by herself.:)

So now it was time to ice the sugar cookies!

The poor blank sugar cookies looked so lonely without their frosting.:(

No worries! We fixed 'em up!

So we all went into the dining room, and Mom gave us a demonstration on how to ice our cookies.

Then we all attacked the poor lonely cookies with frosting!

 

We all got to ice four cookies. There were two blank ones leftover so Dad devoured them.: ) 

I don't know who's these are, I think they are Prayer's.

So after that we ate dessert. Most of us didn't eat our cookies because the icing was still wet; we ate the cookies and donuts Grandma had brought instead. Then we talked to Grandma and then once she'd left we went to bed. 

You're supposed to hear from Elijah tomorrow!

A week and a day!

Warning... There are a lot of pictures in this post!

Thanks to me! (Prayer)

I can't believe there is only a week and a day left till Christmas!

Anyway...

I basically spent all morning outside. We played hide-and-seek. Then we played

capture the flag. It didn't work very well. The forts with the flags in them were impenetrable. 

We had fun until lunch. Then it was time for Jed and Ella's friends to go home. Mom was meeting their Mom halfway to our house. After Mom dropped the kids off, Charity, Elijah, Jed, and Ella had a newspaper route. They earned $39 in tips!!! I was shocked. They were also given a box of chocolates.

Later on...me and Eve were playing Lego in the boys' room. We then heard Mom tell everyone to go upstairs for the advent! In the middle of the afternoon! Okay, it was like 4:30, but still! Normally we do the advent at night! We went to search, sadly with no hints from Dad. Elijah found it.

His smile looks so fake it drives me crazy! :)

While I was taking this picture I noticed that under our tree was getting really full, and I thought I would share...

Notice the matching wrapping paper! We managed to get all our gifts so far in the same wrapping paper! Anyway, here's the card...

You got it! Breakfast for dinner! That's why we had to do the advent before dinner, because it was dinner! Mom got started right away. Charity and Eve helped. I took pictures and watched Addy. 

The menu was...

Pancakes

This soon turned into...

(Notice the steam?)

After pancakes there was scrambled Eggs...

Addy wanted to pose and say, "Cheese!" for me so I took her picture...

Sorry about the background...:}

We also had toast.

Now for the Barbie on the shelf. Yes, we didn't do it until dinner time, but at least we didn't forget! right?

Barbie decided to make chocolate milk for Ella and Lily to have with their breakfast/dinner.

(She made some for herself as well..)

Barbie ate at our table tonight!

Their chocolate milk...

And their pancakes...

Mom made them "E" and "L" pancakes.

Lily said they were awesome!

That about sums up our 8th advent! I hope you enjoyed my post!

Merry week-before Christmas!

~Prayer~

Fun, Friends, and Countdowns!

Hey, this is Eve. 

So yesterday we decided to send Ella and Lily up to their room so we could do a Barbie on the Shelf.

Just a heads up, this was completely and totally Mom's idea.

Yes, we taped Sugar to the wall.

We had some help.

Lily and Addy freaked out.

So after this "experience" we wrapped some gifts, ate lunch, and watched Master Chef Junior.Then we painted.

Prayer took the little girls and got them some water colour paints. I attempted to paint  Mistletoe, but that didn't work. Mom wanted to take a picture. Addy came up to me and said,

"Eeeeeee?"

(this is what she calls me)

Me-"Yes, Addy?"

Then she points at Mom and says,"Cheeeessee!" 

So we got our picture taken.

That night Jeddy found the advent.

So last year we made a Snowflake "chain" thing for the first time. So Mom decided to make it a tradition. 

Dad said whoever makes the best snowflake wins lunch out with Mom. Mom said he had to judge. Dad said he would judge after work tomorrow.

TOMORROW

So Mom had to leave after lunch with the littles to go pick up a friend's Rabbit. What Ella, Jeddy, and Elijah didn't know was that their friends were sleeping over!So Elijah (who stayed home) was very surprised when his friend walked through the door!

We did the barbie on the shelf while they were out, It was a note that said something along the lines of " Me and my friends are hidden around the house, find us! if you find me you get a treat!" Ella's friend found it.

Charity however found the advent.

Inside was the winning snowflake! It was Prayer's.

And the advent was Charades.

The teams were all the girls vs the boys and Charity.

Here Ella is being a Christmas Tree.

My favorite one was Mom and Lily doing Santa Claus!

So there is advent number 10, and 9!