The Thankful Tree :D

We woke up this morning with runny noses.  All of us.  I am fairly sure its because of the change in weather... allergies and such.  We were wiped out from our Halloween activities last night so I declared it a lay low day.  Lay low days in our house consist of movies, popcorn, crafts and lots of ummm... lying around in our pjs.  It's basically like a lazy fest. 

When going through our craft bins (BINS-yes, with an "s"...Hobby Lobby addict) I typically have a plan of action.  This morning... it was more of like a grab and go.    In between sorting papers and pom poms, I remembered reading someones status on facebook;  "Day 1 of thanksgiving:  I am thankful for...."  And wallah!  It was decided we needed a thankful tree.

This project is super self explanatory, but for memories sake, I'll blog it :)

I took two sheets of that awesome sand colored preschool paper. (usually found in giant bulk packages and perfect for littles to rip, color, shred, etc.)  and taped them together to form a poster sized picture.

Then with my crazy mad art skills (OMG.  or not)  I drew a tree.  And our family.  Yeah, that's our family in the bottom right hand corner... with hearts of love.  I know, I know... so artsy.

When the tree was drawn I taped the sign on the outside of our bedroom door (of all places... Weird I know).  But its a central location in the living room and I wanted the kids to see it throughout the day.

Then I took some of my card stock... I have piles upon piles of it.  I don't scrapbook, but I can't pass up a pretty piece of paper.  I decided to use fall colors... maroon, yellows, greens...

I made these presets with the intention of printing them off onto my cardstock....:



Feel free to use!  Just right click, "save picture as" and scale to your liking.  :)


Maeve had other ideas though and wanted soooo, so desperately to cut out her own leaves.  I obliged... giving her a piece of paper, letting her go at it.  My plan is to use her leaves and incorporate some of the pretty leaves in there every few days... ;)

After you have your leaves, sit your kiddos down and ask them this hilarious question:  "What are you thankful for?"

Maeve:  Like we should be nice and have good hearts.  And always say sorry.

Me:  Yeah those are really good things... but do you know what being thankful is?  It means you're really happy you have something.  Can you think of something you're really happy that is in your life?

And if you're like me... my mom brain is going, thinking she's going to say me of course... or dadda maybe, oh wait.. probably nana.  And then she blurted out "TOYS!" 

And well, that's true.  The girl is thankful for her toys. 

She penned "TOYS" on the leaf and taped it on the tree, "like pin the tails on donkeys."

My plan is to fill that tree up... thick with card stock leaves of every shape and color, words printing in my daughters priceless script.  Her little hearts confessions always to be remembered.  :)  It's such a sweet, EASY, simple, cheap project.  I hope you guys get the chance to do it with your families as well :)

And if you do, please share pictures and your kids' thankful stories!



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OH!  And remember that little mermaid tail post?  There's a winner.  :D

Here's how that went down:

My original plan with that was to use the random number generator to pick a winner, but a few entrants accidently left duplicate comments, which was throwing my Halloween sugar buzzed head off this morning. 

So I went the old school route;  I hand wrote each entrant's name on a piece of paper, cut them up into equal sizes, tossed them in a collander (no rhyme or reason for the collander... it was just available ;) and summoned the mermaid Maeve herself to draw a winner. 

Serious business going on in this pink collander.

Big sis got in there and swirled them around and around.....

And then she chose a winner.  I clapped and said "Yay!" 

 

 Maeve said, "What does this mean?"

 

"A lady named Cyndi won a mermaid tail."

 

"Oh.  Is it snack time?"

 

(apologies for Maeve's lack of excitement)

SOOOO... I was excited about the giveaway!  Congrats to Cyndi- can you please email me at ashleymckenney07@gmail.com ?  I'll get you in touch with Kaycee from Applejack Apparel so you can claim your tail! 

And for those who didn't win, please, please consider purchasing a tail from Kaycee over at AA's;  not only would a custom and affordable mermaid tail be the most bomb Christmas gift ever, but again, you're supporting a fellow mama.  And that just makes my heart happy. 

Thank you to all who commented!  This is SO MUCH FUN! :DDDD

PS- I have another etsy vendor on board for another giveaway very soon!  YAYYYYY!!!  Stay tuned :)  Such great goodies being given away just in time for Christmas!