Advent: Take 2

So far, so good. We have been really doin' it live, Advent style up in here ya'll. We've read tons of awesome Advent and Christmas books. Why, oh why, didn't anyone warn me that I was going to weep when I read Clown of God by Tomie dePaola? I was already getting teary-eyed at his performance for the infant Jesus and then when he dropped dead I started bawling like a baby. Lenny gave me a look, but he was too interested in the story to worry about "what's wrong with my face," as he likes to say whenever I cry. I was not expecting that ending. Which is weird because upon second reading it seemed pretty obvious that he was going to die.

Poor, poor Giovanni. Rest in Peace.

Lenny and I made a little manger from popsicle sticks. After this happened I read an article which says that the manger was hewn out of a stone, because all mangers at the time were made like tiny stone bathtubs. LOL at baby Jesus taking a little swim in the manger. I guess trees were too presh to waste on a feeding trough... puts a different spin on the whole nativity scene. It's a good thing, since this is the fate of the manger we worked so hard on:

Snapped in half and jammed into our ornament-less tree.

Apparently Lenny thought it needed some decoration.

We have been doing our Advent wreath every night when Chris gets home from work, and then we sing a verse of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." Lenny is ripping my heart to shreds every night with his sweet cherubic voice. Tonight we got a special operatic ending that dragged on a wee bit too long, which caused the entertainment factor to fade away quickly, but we still laughed. (Oh, the things we do to humor that boy.) 

I have been trying reeeeally hard to stay off my laptop during the day, but this morning before Lenny and Carolina woke up, I saw that I made my first Etsy sale ever! EVER!!! Well, that got me all worked up into a tizzy and I was glowing with pride checking out my Etsy page and my PayPal account waiting for the payment to come through... apparently I had the wrong email address associated with PayPal so I had to do a bit of navigating on the Etsy page to see how to change that, and then send some messages back and forth with the buyer (she probably regrets ever purchasing from me now haha) and it kind of took a while. And then I got to work on the sewing machine and whipped up her order, leaving the kitchen looking like a disaster zone with thread and cut up paper and crayons and popsicle sticks and cut up plastic bags and pieces of felt and socks and napkins and library books everywhere. The thread and the felt were from me... the rest was from the two year old. I guess he needed something to do while I was busy. On second thought I really shouldn't have let him play with scissors and library books at the same time. 

No library books were harmed in the making of these superhero masks.

Probably through the intervention of St. Thomas Aquinas (patron saint of booksellers).

Let's just say I have some work to do in the realm of paying attention to my kids. Carolina, God bless her, slept through the whole ordeal. Tomorrow is another day, though, and I plan to start fresh with the mindset of mindfulness. Anyway, I love Advent and I am looking forward to Gaudete Sunday coming up. Ever since I was a little girl I always loved the "pink week," mainly because my birthday usually falls during that week and because girls love pink! I have been jamming so hard to the song "Gaudete" by the band Steeleye Span. Watch and enjoy.

Linking up with Haley from Carrots for Michaelmas for her Advent Unplugged series. Love this beautiful mama and her awesome insights!