A King is Coming

This Advent season was marked with two very special new traditions that I'm sure we will continue for years to come. In perhaps one of our best parenting moves of 2018, we made some changes to ensure that Hannah got involved in the best possible children's ministry that we knew of, and man has it just blown us away! Hannah's little spiritual life has just blossomed and it's the best thing ever to get to watch it develop in her.

A few weeks ago all the kids at church got a special little box with advent candles in it and some cards to map out the advent story with. It came with a script to read along with it and we've been doing it every Sunday leading up to Christmas. Hannah loves it, and I do too. She loves watching the candles get lit, and she's learning at a very young age what the journey of advent means. The other Sunday when we were getting everything out of the box to do the story she looked at me and said excitedly "Mommy! A king is coming!"  Yes child!! You get it!!!!!! I was beyond excited.

So when I pack up all the Christmas decorations and things in a week or so, you better believe this little box with a few purple, pink and white candles will be packed up with the greatest care because it is no doubt the best and most precious gift we received this Christmas. Hannah's excitement and wonder surrounding this little ritual were absolutely priceless.

The other special tradition that began this Christmas season was reading a bible story in her Storybook bible every night and hanging a corresponding ornament on her Christmas tree in her room. Each night we'd read a story, starting with God creating the world, through various other old testament stories, all leading up to the grand finale of the Christmas story. It's been wonderful because the symbols on the ornaments are helping her remember the bible stories- like the rainbow is for Noah's ark and the star is for God's promise to Abraham, etc. She had so much fun hanging her ornaments and watching her tree get more full every night. I was sad when we hung the last one last night. We are so in the habit of reading a bible story every night now that we just continued it tonight even though we didn't have any more ornaments to hang. Maybe I'll make her some to go along with the New Testament stories we're reading now! :) Merry Christmas Hannah bug! We love you so!!!!