We’re doing something new during November. I’m calling it “the thankful project.”

My inspiration came from this post by Emily Rose. I don’t know how I came across it, but it’s been stuck in my head for the past couple of years. I was originally going to use a tree like Emily, but after this fiasco, I decided to alter my plans.

I found this leaf in Ruby Tuesday’s parking lot. I have  a bajillion leaves in my yard, but I just grabbed this one because it spoke to me. {or maybe that was my stomach?}

Then I grabbed several colors of construction paper – yellow, orange, & red – made a stack, and traced the shape of the leaf on the top paper.

I was able to get 7 leaf shapes on 1 piece of paper and I cut them all out at the same time. Yea for sharp scissors!

Here’s my final stack of leaves. Such a pretty shape, right? That’s what you get from God’s beautiful nature!

You may notice Anna Grace behind this stack of leaves. Remember the pic I shared on facebook of her working on her leaf paper? This is what I was doing during her crafty time. I know – she’s a cutie.

Every day, we each take a leaf and write the date & 1 thing we’re thankful for. But it has to be day-specific. So, for example, on Nate’s birthday, I might have said something about being thankful for my little 1 year old. But we aren’t allowed to read each other’s leaves until Thanksgiving. Because that would be cheating. Of course.

This is our first official Thanksgiving tradition. I’m pretty sure this will be something we do every year. I’m planning to save all the leaves, and since we write the date on them, when we look back on the leaves in, say, 5 years, they will be like a little snapshot into what we did every day in November of 2012.

A definite plus: doing this has been a great way to encourage thankfulness in Anna Grace. Oh yeah – and it’s working pretty well for her parents too!

How about you? How do you encourage thankfulness in your home? Do you have any Thanksgiving traditions?

 

 

 

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