Our Book of Thanks

One of my very favorite holiday traditions is our Thankful Jar. I love seeing those colorful papers add up in the jar throughout the month. Every year, after Thanksgiving is over and I am switching all of the decorations from Turkeys and pumpkins over to Christmas trees and stockings, I am kind of sad to throw away our collection of papers inside the jar.

A few years back, I read this post on eighteen25 about a book they keep every year. While their tradition only takes place on Thanksgiving day, and incorporates all of the guests they have over for dinner, I was inspired to create a book just for our family. Luckily, I had saved our papers for a couple of years! 

Here is our Book of Thanks...

I just designed the outer cover, and printed the inside blank.

Each year gets 2 pages. I usually snap a picture of all of us on the couch right before we leave for dinner somewhere, and then I hand copy all of the things we wrote and added to our Thankful Jar on the opposite side. Even then, there are always a couple of papers I can't part with that the kids drew on or make me smile. So I just glue them on. 

I love looking at it as I bring it out every year. Not only to read through things we are thankful for, but to see where our family was at that moment. Or to remember the time I burned my forearm pulling the rolls out of the oven right before we took this photo...

Or to remember the little turkey onesie I made for Max this year (and that in the chaos of getting everything ready to go I forgot to take our annual photo on our couch)...

That was also the year that every single one of Avery's papers looked like this.. 

And the year Harvey went from drawing pictures to writing words...

Time flies. And it feels good to slow down a little and appreciate all of the little things we have and do together. It fills my heart. :)

Valentine's Day

It has been a while since I took pictures of my kids with my L-O-V-E letters, and since I didn't have any with Max, I thought I would snap a few. I probably should have done singles like I did before because these kids were acting so silly. This was the best one of the bunch. I really need to get an 8x10 printed and add it into my Valentine decor.

For breakfast, we had pink heart pancakes with sprinkles, heart bacon, and apple juice in "fancy glasses."

I've never let the kids use these glasses before, so it was pretty exciting...

During the younger kids' naptime I took a shower, and while I was up there, Justin snuck in and brought flowers into the house. I was so surprised when I came downstairs and saw these beauties. And he knows me well... I love Gerber daisies.

I thought about giving the kids their gift from me (and Justin) during breakfast, but I knew they would want to eat them right away, so I waited until after lunch. They were thrilled! Harvey knew right what they were, but Avery took her time admiring the picture on the front before she opened them up to discover - she wasn't sure at first - chocolates. But now she keeps requesting more!

After Justin came home from work, we took a quick family photo and headed off to our traditional Valentine dinner date at PF Changs. 

DIY Window Clings

I am a sucker for window clings.

It all stems back to when I was a child. We had these Easter clings made out of reusable vinyl and I loved putting them on our sliding glass door. It was very detailed; I could design the eggs with different colored stripes, and put the facial features on the Easter Bunny. I really need to ask my mom what happened to them.

The only problem, is the window clings in stores now are made from some sort of weird gel. They are cute and transparent, but really don't hold up well after a year in storage. Or through a 5 year old trying to pry them out of their package. Or a 2 year old trying to pry them off the window and re-position them. They stretch and tear.

I absolutely loved the window clings I found at Target a couple of years ago. But when I pulled out my Valentine decor, we had already tossed half of them. This year I was very careful when putting them up, but the gel got weaker each year and a few more of them tore. Then I found all of them in bits on the floor after Avery had tried to play with them. It is embarrassing to admit, but I was sad!

Then, later that night when I was watching the kids stick their foam letters to the wall in the bathtub, I got an idea. I could recreate my same window clings out of craft foam and once they were wet, they would stick to the window. I tested it out with a random foam snowman we had, and he stayed on the window for a whole week so I decided it would really work.

Using our old window clings as a guide, I lightly drew the shape I wanted to cut with a pencil onto the foam sheet. The foam was super easy to cut, and by using my precision scrapbooking scissors I was able to use even the pieces I had cut out from the center (the little heart wings of the birds, and the heart spikes on the dinosaur). I love how they turned out! And the best part, is that my little Avery can play with them to her heart's content, and they are durable enough to last. 

I have to say though, after a week, there are some pieces that don't want to stay on the window more than a day or so. They are always the same pieces, so I am not sure if it is that particular foam piece or how I cut it. But Avery likes to play with them nearly every day, so it's not really a problem. :) I just give her a little cup of water and she dips the pieces in, and sticks them to the window.

I'm excited to make more for different holidays!

Dino Valentines

When I realized that Harvey would have a Valentine party at his preschool this year, I got really excited. (Hey, it's a first for both of us!) He helped me look on Pinterest for ideas, and he really wanted to give away cars on a Valentine that said, "I wheelie like you." So we went to the dollar store to check out their selection... but when we got there, the cars looked really cheap and we found these dinosaurs instead. He was excited that they glow in the dark and if you put them in water they expand. 

I got to work coming up with cute and funny phrases to go with them.. and my Laffy Taffy joke-loving side really started to show. Even though he only has eight kids in his class, I couldn't stop, so I made twelve. 

These four are my favorite:

Here's a printable PDF if you want to make some, although I removed the part about the dinos glowing in the dark so you could attach any dinosaur. To save, click the little arrow in the top right corner of the box below.



Here is an alternate link to download the file: Dino Valentines

I knew his teacher probably wouldn't really care for an expanding rubbery dinosaur, so we got her soap instead. I downloaded the tag from My Own Road and I think it turned out so cute, I just might do that every year!

When Harvey got home from school, he was so excited to show me his little decorated bag and all his Valentines. His favorite? A heart shaped noise maker. (Oh joy.)

Thanksgiving Fun...

I have always felt that I needed more Thanksgiving decor, but I wasn't sure what I wanted exactly. This year.. I finally had a vision.

I found a simple metallic turkey that I loved at Home Goods, and I used some of the fabrics from Avery's monthly pictures to make a "Be Thankful" banner. I absolutely love how it turned out. Not only the colors make me happy, but the fact that each pendant is a little pouch for an advent calendar!

I feel like the Christmas season is always so full: full of fun activities, full of places to go and people to visit, full of to-dos, and I also like to focus on Christ with my Christmas devotionals. I always have good intentions on doing a service advent in December, but it is just another thing on the list. And it often gets left undone. So, what better time to have a little activity each day reminding us of something we are grateful for, and a prompt to do some act of service to show that gratitude in November?

I wrote each prompt on a colored cardstock leaf, and after we completed the activity, we hung it on the tree. It was fun to see the tree get full of color from all of the different things we are blessed with. It was seriously awesome to see my children respond to the fun activities. Plus, it gave us a thankful spirit just in time for the Christmas season.

We did things like:

- I'm grateful for my sister! Do an act of service for her.
- We are grateful for treats! Make a treat and share them with a friend.
- We are grateful for toys! Sort through your toys and pick a few to give away.

- We are thankful for turkeys - make one! I hung them in the kitchen:

And I also took some pictures of the kids playing in the leaves as well... (we are thankful for nature)

The kids were cracking me up, as they kept trying to cover ME in leaves!

It was fun to see how full of wonder Max was with the leaves. He studied them so intently...

We were also grateful for our neighbors.. so we helped them out by sweeping and cleaning off their sidewalk. The kids enlisted their friends to help out.

On Thanksgiving Day, we headed over to Justin's parents' house for dinner. I lent my camera to Heather when we went down to visit her and baby Maya in the hospital (hers died or broke or something), so we didn't take our usual family photo before we left. I just had Monique snap one with her camera for our Book of Gratitude this year. It's far from perfect, but it will do.

I made this little outfit for Max (I found the idea on pinterest)... and I really love how it turned out! I was going to match it with pants, but then I found these little baby legs from when Harvey was a baby, and I thought they were perfect!

I am so blessed! I have an amazing, hardworking husband who loves me, and three beautiful, healthy children. Our families are both loving and supportive, and we live in such an amazing ward/neighborhood. Most of all, we have the knowledge of our loving Savior and His Atonement so we can continually become better and more like Him. 

Halloween Fun

For fun we did a few Halloween-y activities. We made spinning spirits for Family Home Evening after talking about the Holy Ghost. I think I'll make that a tradition!

Then for lunch we made jack-o-lantern quesadillas. Harvey wanted an angry face.. Easy and fun.

And then after the kids found some glow sticks they wanted to take them in the bathtub and turn the lights off. I remembered the waterproof lights I bought for the glow-in-the-dark egg hunt around Easter, and I thought it would be fun to take a "spooky bath" with them since they were brighter. It was so fun! The kids put them in a bunch of different toys and had a blast.

And, the kids had fun trying on the old costumes from years past...

I headed to Saver's to see if I could find a good fur coat for my Cruella costume, and Harvey came with me. He fell in love with this pirate hat, and I couldn't complain about paying $2.99, so we brought it home!

Pumpkin Picking

We headed to my favorite pumpkin patch again this year. You can't beat that it has so many fun things to do... for free!

I thought Avery's first pumpkin choice was hilarious. I mean, where did she even find that thing? In a field of plump, beautiful, orange pumpkins, she picks the moldy one.

Amid their search, I had the kids pose together on a hay bale. Love how this one turned out, I think I'll blow it up and frame it as a fall decoration. :)

All smiles..

The cutest pumpkin in the patch... It got kind of crazy trying to carry Max's car seat after he fell asleep, along with wheeling the pumpkins all over while I followed the kids from tractor to tractor. I finally got wise and put the baby in the wheelbarrow and made less work for myself. Those pumpkins nestled his car seat right in and it was actually really secure. One lady walked by and asked me where she could find "one of those cute pumpkins." It was cute. 

After we got the pumpkins home, we got to work carving them. Daddy and Harvey worked on one pumpkin...

And Mommy and Avery worked on the other. Avery wasn't too sure about getting the guts out.

I messed with my camera settings on a tripod for this shot and I love how it turned out!! Although it was a little tricky with wiggly kids. :)