{Keeping it Real} Advent with the Ronk's

Monday, December 31, 2012


Claire {kind of} hated our Advent story times. And... by kind of I mean she cried and tried to get away from us EVERY night while we read from our Jesus Storybook Bible. 


Even though Claire wasn't in love with our new advent tradition, the rest of us were! 

Just so I can reference it next year, here is what we did for each night of advent after we read that night's story! 

December 1st- Gift, Little People Nativity Set
December 2nd- Gift, Christmas CD
December 3rd- Milk and Cookies during Storytime
December 4th- Zoolights
December 5th- Decorate Bathroom Tree
December 6th- Decorate Sugar Cookies
December 7th- Christmas Boz Movie Night
December 8th- Gift- New Christmas Book, Starbuck's with Daddy
December 9th- Cookies on new Christmas plates
December 10th- (Mommy's surgery) Sleepover at Grammy's
December 11th- Window Clings
December 12th-
December 13th- Singing Jingle Bells, while shaking Jingle Bells 
December 14th- 
December 15th- Ronk Family Christmas 
December 16th- Extra Christmas Story
December 17th- Shopping with Grammy and Auntie
December 18th- Snow paintings (Black paper, white paint, q-tips)
December 19th- 
December 20th- Claire's Birthday! 
December 21st- Sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa Ronk's
December 22nd- Movie Night! Beauty and the Beast
December 23rd- Go see Christmas lights 
December 24th- Christmas Eve! Christmas Jammies
December 25th- Christmas!

{There are totally a few days that I can not remember what we did. (How can I not remember what happened just a few days ago?!?! Weird!) I think that means it was something little like a cookie or a piece of Christmas candy}

I'm excited for next year's advent because I plan to add in some service opportunities since hopefully Kenley {and Claire} will be more able to understand serving others!

I also plan to give the girls their Christmas jammies at the beginning of advent so we get some extra Christmas time use out of them! 

Christmas Morning Stockings!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Christmas has come and gone and now its time for me to post some pictures of it! 

Christmas Eve was celebrated with my {crazy} family at my parent's house. My family definitely knows how to do a white elephant! I came home with a gigantic real megaphone and Brian came home with a Christmas candle set that My Aunt has had wrapped for over 10 years... Haha! We didn't get home until after midnight but the girls were troopers! Kenley fell asleep on my sister's bed but Claire was still going strong until we got home and put her to bed!

The late night meant that the girls slept in very late. Usually I am a big fan of sleeping in, but we had a very full day planned ahead of us so we finally woke Claire up at 9:45! I just couldn't wait any longer! 

We did stockings with just us and it was really fun. It's great that we are able to be so close to family here, but as the girls get older I am really wanting to start our own traditions with them. This year we did the stockings together just our little family. 

I love shopping for stocking stuffers! The girls had very full stockings!

Headbands! 

See those crayon rings next to Claire? I got them at Michaels for a penny! A PENNY! They were in the clearance bins without tags so I took them to the front to ask how much they were and they rang up as a penny! I promptly went back to the clearance bins and bought all that they had including some crayon necklaces! 

Dora Sunglasses! I had lots of success shopping the party favor isle for stocking stuffers! 

Most of the stocking stuffers the girls received will be great to add to their church bags! I try to have different stuff in the bags each week so that they stay interested. That also means that the girls received LOTS of stickers in their stockings! Stickers are like toddler crack! :)

I didn't snap a picture of B's stocking but I put 8 tubes of Blistex in there. He loves the stuff and is always losing it so I stocked up for him! :) 

On Christmas, I ordered Pottery Barn velvet monogrammed stockings right when they went on clearance! I can't wait to fill them up next year!! 

26

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Happy Birthday to the most wonderful husband, father, and man I know! Love you B!

Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday with their families! 

Our little preschool had our Christmas party on the 19th! It was a little crazy since we kept the little kids out with the big kids, and I am sure that each and every child had a melt down at one time, but we still had lots of fun! 

I made reindeer donuts! I saw the idea on The Larson Lingo (I love her blog). 


I also made these adorable snowman drinkable yogurts! 

I'm kind of obsessed with how cute they are! 

I saw this idea on one of my favorite blog's Meet the Dubiens. She makes the cutest lunches for her kiddos, I totally want to be like her! 

Party pictures! 




For craft time, I cut tree shapes with my silhouette and let the kiddos decorate them with stickers and glitter glue. For the second craft (that I didn't get any pictures of) the kiddos decorated foam ornaments with foam stickers, they turned out super cute, I'll have to post pictures of Kenley's finished ornaments! 


Miss Amie did a Christmas Story... kind of... The kiddos were a little crazy at this time so she condensed the story a bit :) 

Auntie Amy lead cookie decorating time! 


Claire's 

Kenley's 

We exchanged gifts after decorating the cookies, but I didn't get any pictures... For some reason Claire received 2 microphones... Um... I'm wondering what this says about our girl! :)!  So in addition to the karaoke machine from Grandma Ronk and those microphones.... Our house is loud! :) 

Merry Christmas Everyone! 

Claire's Woodland Brunch 2nd Birthday Party!

Monday, December 24, 2012

Claire's Woodland Birthday party was a success! 

I made the invitations with my Silhouette software, of course! 


Since she has a birthday so close to Christmas I thought it would be a good idea to have a brunch party so that hopefully more people could come to her party since most holiday parties are in the evenings. 

We served Greek yogurt with granola and berries, apple and brie mini quiche, clementines, and grapes. I definitely recommend that you try the apple and brie quiches! Super delicious! 


The lighting up in the ballroom isn't great so this picture doesn't do the table scape justice! I made Claire's name banner out of wood grain scrapbook paper that I cut with my handy dandy silhouette machine. I laid a moss table runner on top of the table cloth and had a moss basket to hold the silverware, it looked super cute and woodsy.... but... did you know that moss smells funny? I didn't.. until the party. 


Also, you can't tell in this picture but the platters with the quiche on them have a wood grain pattern embossed on them! They were a super great timing Target find! 

Mini mushroom cupcakes! I made the cake platter by covering two cans with wood grain scrapbook paper and then stacking two wood slices that I bought at Hobby Lobby and Michael's. I had a hard time finding the wood grain scrapbook paper but the girl scouts (@Michael's) came through for me :). It's a really cute set of papers, I made the food label tags with the leaf paper punch-outs that come with the set! 


Orange Juice, Chocolate Milk, and Coffee Punch! 


Coffee Punch

-2 qts Boiling Water
-3/4 Cup Instant Coffee
-1 Cup Sugar
Mix together and Chill

Add 1/2 Gallon vanilla ice cream to punch bowl
pour coffee base over ice cream and add 1 cup milk
let sit 15 minutes before serving!

Family Pictures! 



Kenley and Barbara! 


Presents! 



She is OBSESSED with this tea set that Jenae and Leif got for her! If you need a present for a 2 year old little girl I highly recommend this! 


Cupcakes! 




Amy told Kenley to give her a princess smile... 



It's official, Claire is 2... I guess it's time for me to start planning Kenley's 4th birthday party! ... and Claire's 3rd Birthday party... you know me, I already know what both theme's will be :) 

Claire is 2!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Since Claire's birthday was on a Thursday, we chose to have her party on the following Saturday. We still wanted to celebrate on her actual birthday though so we had a family dinner with my parents, my uncle Kenny, my sister, and Brian's parents! 

Family picture with our new 2 year old. This is the best we could get :) 

Mommy's girl.. 

Her shirt says "I'm the best present ever" I thought it was very fitting with how we now know what an extra special gift from God she was! 




The next two pictures are my favorite! I can't decide which one I like best so you get to see both :)

Someone gave her a chocolate right before we were going to open the presents....


This toy has us considering banning Grandma Ronk from buying presents ever again.... 

Kenley to picked out a doctor set to give to Claire. She colored the wrapping paper too! 

Happy Birthday to our sweet (and feisty) 2 year old! 
 
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