The Thankful Tree

In the beginning, I thought I would do this at the very beginning of the month so we could use it every day leading up to Thanksgiving. I wanted the boy's hearts (and mine) good and thankful.

I hate that Thanksgiving gets skipped over so often so my desire was to create a tradition in our house that would stick in their little minds...much like the Christmas traditions do. I really want to cultivate gratefulness right before we shoot headfirst into a predominately "gimme" season.

(I want my boys to be grateful all year, of course, but also to make this season a little special. You get what I'm saying.)


So, when is Thanksgiving? Oh yes. Exactly one week away. This is the story of my life.

Some of you may do things like this too....there are tons of great ideas out there that are similar to this one.

Here's what we did.


Yesterday we went to the park with some friends, and picked up these branches (this picture hates me and won't obey me so just turn your head, ok?)....



I found some leaf templates online, printed them and had the boys color them whatever their little hearts desired....




While they colored, I wrote down what they told me they were grateful for. Then I cut out all the little leaves (see, if I had planned ahead I would have used my mom's cricut) and wrote some of the things on their grateful list on the backs....


Punched holes in them and made loops with ribbon through them. There REALLY should be a machine for that.....


Let the boys enjoy hanging them up....



"Is this what you want me to do, Mom?"



"Hello, ladies. I am amazing and surprised all at the same time. I'm on a horse."


Manny freaked out a little here but he's fine now....


And there you have it.



The goal is to take a leaf off each evening at dinner to talk about what we love about that thing/person and then turn our thanks to the Lord who lovingly gives it all.


I'm flirting with the idea of leaving it up through December when we'll badly need the reminders to have grateful hearts.


So, now I want to hear from you! What do you do/want-to-do to cultivate thankfulness in your home?