Our Thankful Tree

Five years ago, looong before the invention of Pinterest, Little Man and I made a thankful tree craft.

(You can find the detailed post here.)

I have been wanting to do one with our family for a while now, but this year is finally the year where Olivia "gets" the things I'm trying to do.

With Little Man I made it a one time craft.  He painted the tree, he put glitter on the leaves...  For ours, I wanted it to be a daily thing.  I think ideally people do it for the whole month of November.  I wanted to do it every day until Thanksgiving.  Truth be told, though, I think I'm going to put my Christmas decorations up the weekend before Thanksgiving (it's late, y'all).  So ours will be more like 20 days of thankfulness.

Everyone knows I like to be crafty, but Michael has an artistic side to him as well.  So to make this a family affair, I asked him to make the tree.  I showed him a few examples and sort of explained what I was going for.  We didn't have as much brown construction paper as I had thought, but I found a ton of brown paper that came in a package.  (Michael: "See.  My hoarding can come in handy".) :)  He made the tree while I used my  silhouette to cut out leaves and letters.

This is our tree 11 days in... It turned out to be a tad bit bigger than I was expecting, but I actually love it. We didn't have anything on that wall yet anyway, so it worked out.

Olivia has really gotten into it, and she has asked on multiple occasions, "What are you thankful for?"  Some of the things she has been thankful for so far are: Mommy, Boppa, Logan, Grandma, preschool, swimming lessons, her princesses, her friends, ballet, her picnic basket, and her kitchen.

I look forward to making this a November tradition with our family.  It may not always look the same,  but it is a good exercise (especially right before Christmas) to look around and remember and be thankful for all that we have.

Today I am thankful for all of the Veterans that have served our country. I have so many in my family--grandparents, uncles, cousins, brothers...  I am thankful that we live in a free country.  I am especially thankful for my very own hottie marine. ;)   Happy Veteran's Day and THANK YOU!