Advent-day 6 and 7

We had a busy weekend with church and friends. On Sunday night one of our friends had dinner at her apartment-with African food (mostly North African) being the theme. There was Moroccan chicken, chickpea crepes, greens with ginger, rice, beans, fruit salad-good stuff. Needless to say we got home really late that night (the kids fell asleep in the car in fact) so that meant we would continue our Advent celebration on Monday night. So last evening our reading was from Mark. The passage is Mark 1:1-13, John the Baptist preparing the Way for Jesus. My favorite verse from that passage is~I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" verse 8.
After our reading the girls received a Charlie Brown coloring book and some markers. They colored for a little bit last night before the fell asleep. Today we have been somewhat off of our normal schedule. School got out early today because of this~

yes, snow. Lots of it is heading our way and I know tomorrow will be a full snow day for us. With the girls home maybe I can finally have them help me finish up the Christmas decorating. Also this evening we got around to making some cinnamon dough ornaments~

I saw the cinnamon dough recipe in a magazine but I changed it up a bit here's my version~
1 large jar of ground cinnamon (3.88 oz, 110 g)
about 1/4 cup of all purpose flour
2 large tablespoons of ground cardamon
2 large tablespoons of ground cloves
2 large tablespoons of salt
1 cup of unsweetened applesauce
small amount of water
combine all ingredients, if dough is on the dry side add just a small amount of water until right "dough like" consistency is achieved. Place some extra flour on waxed paper and roll dough out (not to thin, not to thick) and use cookie cutter to press out shapes. Punch small holes at the top of the ornaments (I used a wooden skewer from my kitchen drawer to punch out the holes). Let the dough dry out for 2-3 days. Paint, decorate, or just leave plain.
They smell delightful!