our advent calendar

i wanted a very simple advent calendar and while i love the fabric ones people make to use every year i like the idea of making a new one each year. i guess i hope when dmitri is older he can help make a paper advent calendar each year. this years calendar i made alone since dmitri is 13 months and not very helpful he did play with the crayons while i worked though and he kept me company. it is just envelopes hanging on a string with numbers drawn on with crayons. i am happy with it. it is for the entire month of December so it goes to 31 and no candy is inside it (although rob wishes it had candy) instead it just has pieces of paper with a fun thing to do each day and many of the things are easy and simple activities we might have decided to do any ways. one of the fun things is i shuffled the papers and so most of the days i don't know what the activity will be. i like that it will be a surprise for me! my activities include baking an apple pie, going to the beach, looking at stars, having a family music night and a family reading night (where rob reads out loud but if dmitri wants to pay with the books we may just curl up and listen to a favorite audio book) all simple easy non stressful things. when dmitri is older we will do more elaborate things i might put a treasure map in one day and we could go to museums and stuff.