the thankful garland: a kid craft

During Thanksgiving time for the past two years I have made a thankful tree with James.  This year it was so fun to have Eleanor participate also...

They painted brown paper bags with fall colors to make the "leaves".

While they were painting, I left the room to change Judah. When I came back out to the table, they both proudly held up their arms, covered to the elbows in orange, purple, red, and brown paint. So, that was the end of the painting (and the beginning of bath time), but there was enough paper painted to cut out the leaves.

I never got around to writing what we were thankful for at home, so we wrote on the back of the leaves once we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Corvallis.

We sat around the fire eating popcorn and drinking apple cider and talking about what we are thankful for. As a result, many of the items written on the back of the leaves are things like "popcorn" and "fire in the fireplace".

Then Grandma Shirley strung a twine across the fireplace and we clothes-pinned them up. I think it turned out pretty cute.