Thankfulness

Last post I realized that I wanted create a spirit of thankfulness in my children. At the mom's group that I am attending we just talked about gratitude being caught not taught. I know that there are days that I can be grumpy or tired, but I know that I can still chose to have a spirit of thankfulness. My mom just finished her last round of chemo in her fight against breast cancer. I am ever amazed at her attitude of thankfulness and joy during this time, it is something she chooses to do. We have had some great conversations about life as times like this tend to produce. She has thought of others during this time and in turn has been blessed by her church and small group family as they have served meals, helped with my brother's wedding reception and cleaning. It is definitely the way God intended relationships to work and it is a blessing to see that in action. I hope that through little things we do as a family we can instill habits that will affect them for the rest of their lives, one of them being thankfulness. My sister-in-law just wrote about gratitude and I thought it was excellent if you want to check it out here. May we all be thankful for the abundance that we have.

This week I have seen this floating around on Pinterest.


from www.honeywerehome.blogspot.com

I wanted to do one for my family so I got the supplies together and had fun. My kiddos loved trying the find the best branches (just so you know their "best" and my "best" are not the same :) and then placing them in the mason jar. I had some orange dahl lentils that I put at the bottom of mine just to give it some strength, but anything could be used (black beans, coffee beans, candy, etc.) I then cut out a bunch of circles with scrap paper and have them ready to go by the tree. I am hoping at dinner time we can come up with something new each day to write to put on our thankful tree and on Thanksgiving read them all as a reminder of how blessed we are!

Here is a picture of where I put it. I hung the circles with some strips of fabric. So far some of the things they have been thankful for are toys, food, babies and pacifiers. We will see what the future brings in their thankful little hearts.

 I also created a printable that you can download as a PDF file.

I Am Thankful

I put my printable in a frame and am hoping that we can change what we are thankful for everyday. All you need to write is a dry erase marker.

Many thanks and hope you have a great week!