advent calendar

I have been wanting to get one of those nice advent calendars that you can put little things in.  When I was little and we lived in Germany, we always had the ones that had a piece of chocolate every day.  Until recently, I couldn't ever find any of those here.  The last two years we did have the chocolate ones, but this year I wanted to do something more meaningful. I wasn't having much luck finding one I liked.  I did  find two, but one had doors that would have fallen open too easily and the other was almost $40, way more than I wanted to spend.  But, about a week ago, I saw an idea on someone's blog for using 2 inch mint tins from Wilton (I got them at Michaels in the wedding section).  They had used velcro to mount them on canvas, but I used magnets and put them on a cookie sheet (which I spray painted).  I think it turned out really cute.  Inside are little ornaments, including a nativity set, to go on one of those miniature trees.

Here's the whole thing.

And here's a close up.

Halloween

The day before Halloween we went to "Haunt the Zoo".  We had never been before, but we had a great time (other thant the super long line in the beginning).  All the treat stops are sponsored by businesses and most give out really good stuff.  The kids got two snack size chip bags and and 8 oz Dr. Pepper along with the old standbys like m$m's.  At all the treat stops, and several places in between, there were scenes that the kids could pose by.  Dylan was Obe-Wan-Kanobe and Shianne, who was originally going to be a princess, decided to change to match Dylan and be Queen Amadala (which was fine with me because it didn't require a change of costume).

Shianne and Dylan being eaten by a shark.

Shianne in the fairy forest.

Shianne kissing a frog (no prince though).

For Halloween night, we went to my parents neighboorhood, which we always do because hardly anyone in our neighboorhood passes out candy.  William (our puppy) went with us.  I think he was more excited about trick-or-treating than the kids.  He would run up to all the houses.  We usually tried to keep him back a ways so he wouldn't upset other people's dogs and he would whine that he couldn't go all the way to the door with the kids.

Dylan used one of the lightsabers we have for the Wii which really lights up, though it's hard to see in the picture.

William was dressed as a hot dog.  It kept slipping to the side and he wouldn't stay still, so it was hard to get a good picture.