I had seen lots of cute tree ideas on Pinterest, but because I wasn't sure how successful this would be, I wasn't going to spend a lot of time making something. So I went the good ol (and free) nature route. The week before November started we would go for walks and look for sticks and acorns. Because there were several acorn trees in our neighborhood, I told Emma we could only get the acorns with the tops still on them. We just bundled the sticks together and used a big vase to pour the acorns into to help hold the sticks. I was pretty happy how it turned out and loved the price. :-) next we just punched out a bunch of circles and tied yarn on them to act as our leaves. I did about 40 thinking that should get us through the month... Wrong!
Every night at dinner we would discuss things we were thankful for and write it on our 'leaves'. The girls did great! Yes, even Maggie participated too! Some nights Emma would just look around the room for things she was thankful for but other nights she really thought about it and gave some great answers. By the end of the month, we had 53 leaves hanging from our tree. Everything was mentioned from our church to vegetables. Most times if something was already on a leaf we would come up with something else. But Maggie stole my heart every night when I would ask what we were thankful for and her response was..."Jeeesas!". Yes, sweet girl... We are thankful for Him everyday!
So glad we started this tradition and look forward to it again next year!
