Advent Days 1-5

Jackie has really been enjoying her advent calendar activities each day and so far I haven't completely forgotten to fill the appropriate stocking on the advent calendar.  Although I have been forced to get out of bed just as I was settling in to go fill it once or twice.  Each night I write a little note and wrap it around a piece of candy.  The note has the day's special activity.
This is what we've done so far:

Day 1 - go to a party at The Bedoya's house (friends) and bring food to share and a toy for a charity.  Jackie enjoyed picking a toy and going to play at her friend's house.  I enjoyed wine, food, friends.

Day 2 - Making Gingerbread Houses at Emilia's house.  I should have bought the huge pre-made one at costco like everyone else!  Our kit required that I assemble it and it's a village of little houses so it takes a little more finesse to handle the small size.  We've only assembled one house in our village so far, and that house is starting to look sad because my little elf keeps eating off of it!

Day 3 - Daddy Daughter Day - Chris had been gone for several days so Jackie was itching for some daddy time.  They spent a good 24 hours attached to each other (literally because she even slept right next to him - practically on top of him!).  They also went shopping to buy me a present for Christmas.  And Jackie wanted to get Gracie her own cat bed for Christmas so I let them go pick one out.

Day 4 - Drop off the gifts we bought for our adopted family at our elementary school.  We adopted a local family that is financially struggling this year and we bought each member of the family a few presents.  We had finished this shopping a couple of weeks ago but it was finally time to drop them off at the school.  Since Jackie was such a sweetheart and a big help (especially picking out gifts for our adopted 4 year old girl), I gave her the same strawberry shortcake video she picked out.  So on this day she got a present and she gave presents.

Day 5 - Operation Stuff a Stocking.  I read this great story in the Poway Chieftain about a local girl scout who started this program when her older brother was deployed. There is a YouTube video about what she did and how she did it.  You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu-kyJrPy3Q  Well, Jackie watched this video with me and she was really interested in doing this.  So I set aside this day to complete a stocking.  We decided to make one for a female soldier specifically.   We headed to Target and purchased a $1 pink (of course) stocking and walked around the store looking for things to fill it with, like toiletries, snacks, a notepad and pens and a puzzle book.  Then Jackie drew her soldier a picture.  She drew a map of Who-ville because we had just read 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' and watched the old animated version of the story.  We had also watched the old 'Horton Hears a Who'.  I can't believe I didn't take a picture of it.  Really there wasn't much to see, mostly scribbles.  But I liked her description of what she thought she had drawn.  On the back of the drawing I wrote a letter to the soldier thanking her for her service and her sacrifice.  Jackie had a few simple things to say, like Thank You.  We are hoping that our soldier will write us back so we included a notecard and an addressed envelope.  After we finished stuffing our stocking and writing our letter, we hopped in the car and drove the one mile to the girl scout's house to drop off the stocking.  Unfortunately she wasn't home.  I know Jackie was really hoping she would be.  But they had a big box to put the donations in.

 When we got home I was busying myself around the house getting dinner started, etc. when I heard Jackie talking to herself and pretending to write a letter.  "Dear mama, I love you so much.  Thank you for helping me fill a stocking for a soldier."  Beaming with pride over here!