Thanksgiving

For the month of November we really did our best to focus on being grateful. We started a new tradition of crafting a long list of paper--the challenge was to fill the entire paper with things we were grateful for. We did pretty good, but we will have something to beat next year!

We kept our paper all rolled up with a pen handy for whenever anyone wanted to jot anything down. We mostly talked about it and added to it at dinner time, atleast when we remembered--we certainly weren't perfect at it. Lily and Hannah both enjoyed adding their own things. Hannah definitely is grateful for the letter "H!"
The rules were: write small and no repeating. As you can see on the close up...I guess someone didn't notice that food was written already. :) I also loved that when I heard complaining from the older children, I challenged them to come up with a certain amount of things they were grateful for and add them to the list. Gratitude really can change attitudes.
I loved doing this, it really brought the spirit of gratitude daily into our home. I love the creative things they come up with too. :) I hope we will have a whole treasure chest full of these lists from our future years!
On Thanksgiving we had a great day spent with family and very delicious food from the tables of two households. We usually join both families if scheduling permits. Our tummies definitely get full! But we really enjoy it.
My sister Pam and her family were able to stay with us for a couple nights, and it was nice to talk and enjoy each others company. We took them to the musical lightshow from our old neighborhood, the temple visitors center, and to Reed's Dairy. It was great!