Ode to a Peanut Blossom

Gone are the days of the pop open paper - (WOW! To reveal a picture of a toy drum) Advent Calendars. Not really. We actually have one, and I remember fighting my sister to open the door to find things such as cardinals, tops, and bells.

We don't really like the chocolate advent calendars, because we didn't want Max to eat a chocolate every morning either, so those were out. Swirling on the internet are ideas of Activity Advents or Holiday Activity Calendars, so after reading a bunch of cool ideas on the internet and being inspired by Celia's Activity and Book Calendar, I started the search for a holiday calendar for Los Lemleys.

I'm not crafty and don't have a ton of time, so making one was not really an option. We're not religious, so I didn't want one smattered with the nativity or baby Jesus, so after looking and looking, I found one on Pottery Barn. It was more than I wanted to spend, but I talked myself into it quickly, since we'd be using it for years and years to come.We received two packages from Nana on Thursday which were fun to open and it included some of my favorite Yankee Candle holiday scents, our new Rudolph tree topper and the calendar.


I'd like to have an activity every day. Since we got this late, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it happen during the week, since those days are hectic.

Our activity yesterday was just a Fun Family Friday: John made pizzas (with Italian sausage- YUM!), then we sat down as a family and watch Curious George's A Very Monkey Christmas which Max enjoyed.

Today I made, my favorite... and an American classic - to me it stands up there with hot dogs, hamburgers and apple pie. The delicious PEANUT BLOSSOM. Who doesn't like a Hershey's Kiss nestled smuggly on top of a peanut butter cookie? WE DO, WE DO!


Last night we tried to go to the Luminary in Kobe, but as we stumbled out of the train station, we met a wall of people. There was a two hour wait in a line moving as slow as molasses to the beginning of the luminary, so we skirted around it, walked down the only creepy alley in all of Japan, parked the crew on a curb, ate cookies, watched a street performer, then headed home. John and I got on the wrong train, so our trip home was a little longer, but we vowed to learn the rails a bit more over the vacation!