Advent.

Here are some photos from our Advent so far.

We finally bought the same advent wreath that I had when I was a kid. It has images on it about the salvation history of Jesus. I love it, and the kids do too.

We went to a party and took photos by their tree ( white lights) we set up our own tree (the colored lights)

The kids have been playing with the manger toys, and we've lit a few fires.

We will be staying in MD for Christmas. We are looking forward to Clark's Christmas concert at school next week. He's been practicing a lot. He really loves music and singing!

We made cookies.

It is a sad news day, so we stayed busy all afternoon making cookies. It's was our first year making Christmas cookies. We made red and green sugar cookies, and peanut butter cookies, and pnb cookies with Rolos in them. They are all very yummy.

The kids weren't convinced that these drop cookies couldn't be formed, so they experimented with cookie cutters learning finally that .... No.... It can't be done.

Once there was a tree

And that tree got sick and had to be removed. 

The tree and the men and their equipment. 1 cherry picker, 1 giant hook truck, and a tree eater, and a big truck for the tree crumbs. 

He's smoking AND cutting the tree with a gasoline powered chainsaw.

He liked the audience! 

and here's the big tree trunk grabber truck!

you can see the dark, diseased tree part on the right. 

After the men left, I cleaned up the stump. 

and we honored it. 

by sitting on it and making it feel useful 

and then the stump grinder truck came. 

and the tree was gone.