It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

When I was growing up we had a homemade advent calendar that was a felt Christmas tree with 25 felt ornaments that snapped on to it. I remember being so excited every year when we tacked it to the hall closet door and filled the pockets with the ornaments. My sister has it now at her house, so I asked my mom to make one for us. It arrived today, just in time to hang the first ornament.

The ornaments have Velcro on the back instead of snaps, which sticks right to the felt. She added ribbons and buttons to represent strings of lights, too.

Ryan enjoys picking out each day's ornament, though he doesn't quite understand actually putting them on the tree yet.


I decided to take him to meet Santa this week, knowing full well that he would probably freak out and not sit still long enough to take a good photo (and I wasn't excited to pay mall prices for that photo, either). We spent a little time outside Santa's house so Ryan could watch other kids sit on his lap. This is actually my favorite photo of the whole event - I think it captures the moment perfectly.

When it was finally our turn to go in and meet Santa, Ryan just wanted to explore the "house" and the decorations around him. When I finally plopped him on the Big Guy's lap, he said "down!" and tried to wriggle free. They took one photo, but it was not Christmas card worthy, and then Santa said, "oh, I think he needs a diaper change". Yep, my kid peed on Santa. Merry Christmas, y'all!!

After I changed his pants (soaked through!) we played on the toy cars - THAT was the highlight of Ryan's day.