Our Thankful Tree

Last year we hung a turkey in our kitchen and filled him with feathers of thanks throughout the month of November. We had such a great time counting our blessings with that turkey last year and he ended up looking pretty darn cool.

We wanted to do something different this year so I asked Sweet P what she wanted to put up instead of a turkey.

Sweet P: "A cat."
Me: "Umm."
(pause)
Me: "How about a tree?"
Sweet P: "Yeah! A tree!"
Me: "We can do thankful leaves! And you can color them!" (because I could not think of anything we could add to a cat!)
Sweet P (upon hearing the words "you can color them"): "OK!"

I suppose we could have done whiskers or something, but I totally wasn't expecting cat. I wasn't expecting tree either, but hey. So our Thankful Tree came about. I found a leaf template online, arranged it in Word and printed it out. She colored 2 sheets and used water colors on the others (those are my favs!). I cut out the branches and she helped me assemble it with a glue stick.

Each day (at breakfast, lunch OR dinner), we each say something for which we are thankful (and sometimes we answer for Sprout).

Beary gets mentioned pretty much every day and each day I remind her that Beary's name is already on the tree, and she picks something/someone else.

My favorite moment from the tree was one morning when I asked what she was thankful for and she said, "Mama!" I told her I was thankful for her too, and then she added, "And Sprout!" I know I should have just written both on a leaf and been done with it, but I said, "Do you want to pick one for today and we can do the other tomorrow? Do you want to do mommy or Sprout today?" And much to my surprise and delight, she didn't pick me. She picked her brother.

Do you have a thankful tree, turkey or other blessing counter?