{Gratitude} The Thankful Tree

Well our Thankful Tree is in full swing now and YES it did end up in the bathroom where it is free from the "Paper Shredder" a.k.a. "Lily"

We still have a month until Thanksgiving so it's not too late to make your own tree!

All you do is cut a tree out of brown paper (the kind they use to wrap mail packages) and if you're not a drawer like me then just cut a stump out of brown construction paper, It's not about the looks anyway!

 The real purpose is to let your kids think on thankful things!

Elijah likes to hang his on the branch that coordinates with whatever the date is...like if it's Oct.12th then he wants to hang his leaf on the 12th branch and heaven forbid if there is already a leaf there! This has helped provide a lesson for him in being flexible, yes, he can even be thankful and have fun if his desired branch is not available, geez! he reminds me of someone! ;)

Ava has gone from drawing pictures of what she is thankful for to wanting to write it herself, so she tells me what word she wants and I write it on a piece of paper for her to copy and write on her leaf. She hangs it with such pride, which is why I leave it right where she put it...even if the stem is sticking straight up in an un-natural way, I'm starting to realize who Elijah reminds me of! ;)

Even our guests get in on the Gratitude! Cousin Cloee was thankful that she 'had a fun day with Elijah and Ava' 

Avery and I fill out leaves sometimes too, it's good for the kids to see what we're thankful for and who are we kidding, we could use a reminder to be thankful as well sometimes!

The only thing that I wish I had done in years past, but will start this year, is to keep a few of the leaves that stand out or are extra funny to hang up next year when we start our tree. I know the kids would get a kick out of some of the things they have been thankful for in the past...I remember the first year we did this Elijah was 3 and he was SO thankful for our new trash can from 'Wa-mart' because it had a lid!