This week went nothing like I'd planned! I realized halfway through the week that I'd forgotten to post our Week Three Advent plans (for this week). In the end, that's probably a good thing, because we didn't get much accomplished. The feasts of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Santa Lucia kept me very busy last weekend, so by Monday I was ready for a more relaxed schedule.

On Monday, we read Per and the Dala Horse and The Tomten. I had planned that we would make tomten ornaments, bake cookies in traditional Swedish shapes and paint Dala horses, but we only managed to start painting the Dalas because *I* got terribly sidetracked and had Elon cut out a bunch of little gnomes/tomtes with the scroll saw to paint.
On Wednesday, the kids studied their CLAA material and we read The Night of Los Posadas by Tomie dePaola. I had to finalize my Christmas Day menu, since we'll be having family at our house this year, and we also planned our Christmas baking.
On Thursday, the twins helped out at the Salvation Army toy distribution all day and had a blast (they're hoping to help out at a soup kitchen next week). An added bonus was that they made the evening news. :-)

And that brings us to today, which is our annual Christmas baking day. Honestly this week has gone by so quickly, I hardly feel prepared, but here's what we'll be making today (and probably tomorrow as well):

• Chocolate-Mint Truffle Cups
• Salted Caramels and Salted Chocolate Caramels
• Chocolate Thumbprints
• Buttery Pecan Rounds
• Cranberry Noels
• Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies
• Coffee Toffee
• Gingerbread Men
• Sugar Cookies

Suffice it to say, I think we're on Christmas break since very little school work got done this week! This weekend we've got tons of craft projects to get done as well, things that we didn't get to previously, so I'll be posting those as we get through them.
One last note ~ we ended up with two copies of Per and the Dala Horse by Rebecca Hickox, because I forgot that I'd ordered a used copy on Amazon, and purchased a copy while in Lindsborg. If anyone would like the extra (new) copy, please leave a comment & on Monday we'll randomly pick someone to send it to. It's really a very beautiful little book!