Advent Calendar

This year we decided to do a family advent countdown devotional. We are using Thriving Family's outline which you can find at http://www.thrivingfamily.com/Features/Magazine/2011/advent/2011-advent-calendar-week-1.aspx
We are looking forward to introducing Desiring God's advent devotion guide as well. You can find it at
 http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/free-advent-devotional-guide
We believe it is important that you teach children the true meaning of Christmas and not leave to it just being about being good to receive presents from Santa. Don't get me wrong we totally go all out with Santa. We make the cookies, egg nog, write letters, and even have a family tradition of having Fenwick the elf visit the kids. If that is all our kids walked away with each year then we would be failing them as parents and giving them a false hope. It is vital that they know that the core meaning of Christmas is about the birth of Jesus and that He was sent to earth to live a perfect holy life and to die for us horrific sinners because of His righteous grace and love for us.

The kids and I thought it would be fun to make our own advent countdown calendar this year. It was pretty simple and we just used leftover scrapbooking material to make it.

We just added string to connect papers, punched out circles and added christmas stickers to make the beneath pictures, used premade squares to write the numbers on, and then hot glued the squares above the circles.

 Adi and Noah had fun writing the countdown numbers on the squares

Adi was excited to life the first number :)

Kefir

I have really been looking into the benefits of kefir and how to make my own. Thankfully a few friends have been nice enough to help me learn more about it. I am looking forward to starting my first milk kefir batch soon. But for now I have been using plain/unsweetened milk Kefir from Trader Joe's.
Here is a web site that has been really helpful to me while I am still learning about Kefir.
http://culturedfoodlife.com/Kefir.html

Some Fun Facts about the benefits of Kefir:

• Kefir has been called the “champagne of milk
• Kefir is a fermented milk which contains a mixture of several species of lactic cultures.
• Kefir is a remedy for digestive troubles because of its very low curd tension, meaning that the curd breaks up very easily into extremely small pieces.

Another great thing about Kefir is that you can use it in a variety of foods and drinks. We have made ice cream, smoothies, muffins, and now today bread.

Pumpkin Kefir Bread
Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside
2 cups white/whole wheat flour
2 TBS pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl
1/2 cup unsweetened natural applesauce
3/4 cup raw local honey
3/4 cup raw sugar or sucanat
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla
2 TBS molasses
1 can pumpkin
1 cup milk kefir

Once the wet ingredients are well combined add the dry ingredients slowly.
Pour into loaf pan and can also make 6 muffins
Bread 325 degrees for 40-45 mins
Muffins 20-25 mins