The Thankful Tree

At Thanksgiving, the kids and I decided very last minute to create a thankful tree. It wasn't anything fancy. Using paper grocery bags, I created a few tree limbs and  gave them free reign to color and cut out leaf shapes to go on it. I confess I was really surprised to see how small many of the leaves were and ended up cutting out some basic ones myself, just to be sure they would be large enough to write on. Part of me wanted to make a glamorous, beautiful thankful tree we could use year after year, but this one ended up being perfect because the kids felt ownership over it and were so excited to write down something they were thankful for each night at dinner. Especially Ellie. She thought this was the greatest thing ever and would add to it over and over again.

I didn't take any pictures of it once we added our thankful things, but I've kept the pile of leaves hanging around until I finally took a picture of them today. I want to remember what my kids and their sweet little hearts are thankful for. We only did this for the week of Thanksgiving when we were all together. I'd say we came up with a pretty good list for one crazy week.

The Davis Family Thankfuls 2012:

wolfs

dinner with my family

dogs

cats

love

apples

a healthy body

happiness

USA

the Priesthood in our home

food

others

volleyball

sports

teddy bears

flowers

me

United States of America

family

hearts

being able to run

hot water heaters

moms and dads

Any guesses who said what?

And, just because this picture is awesome, we can't wait to see Ellie in about a week, and I felt the need to begin a sentence with a conjunction, here is a cute little moment that I couldn't bear to let pass.

Ellie finished her after-dinner jobs really fast and then got to draw while Aeryn did her vacuuming. It's nice to know that one of our kids understands the value of expedience.