Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving day. I know we did. The thankful jar was a success, it was so great to hear the things we had written down that we were grateful for on that day. We definitely felt the spirit in our home. As for the "Thanksgiving meal" it was great, we are still eating left overs. We loved it and it was such a fun day. Here are the things that we wrote down:
Cameron:
- A clean house. Studying to get a good job for Millie, Alexis, and Charlotte. Living in Provo. Charlotte, Millie, and Alexis. Prophets. Mormon messages. Life. Bright future. Living in the mountains

Me: 
- For Service and the opportunity to serve. Beauty of the Earth. My body and its strength. Family. Lord's guidance. For freedom. Internet. Mountains. For my kids. Snow. Grateful that Kena is ok, and that her surgery was a success (my neighbor's daughter)

Alexis:
- My feet. Daddy. Food. Hot chocolate. Puiqui (his penguin). Cookies and cars.

Charlotte:
- Cookies. Water. Feet. Belly. Eyes. Elbows. Pizza. Poto (butt). my hair.

Ham, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, gravy, green bean casserole, brownie, pumpkin pie, cheesecake, and stuffing.

This Fall..

I am planning our first Thanksgiving dinner by ourselves this year! I am really excited because I feel that I have learned so many new things like: cooking, sewing by hand, and crafts. I am making the decorations and planning the menu already!. I really enjoy cooking and making my home look beautiful. It is hard sometimes to find time to do some things with the kids around. As mentioned in my profile, I am homeschooling and even though my kids are 3 and 19 months we still have a routine that we love to follow. When they go to bed at night, it's my time to read, learn, do crafts and rest which works out perfectly. So... this year I decided to make a "Grateful Jar" which  I am decorating it (pics will follow once I am done) and as soon as I am done making it we are going to put paper and pen right next to it on a table and write things that we are grateful for until Thanksgiving day. On Thanksgiving, we are going to read them out loud before we eat!
 I thought this was the perfect solution to the repetitive "I am thankful for my family", which it's true but it seems sort of meaningless when you don't know what else to say when it's your turn to say what  you are grateful for this year.  I am sure some days we feel really grateful about some things but we don't write them down and either we forget, or it loses its meaning b/c we don't quite remember how it happened... am I right? So writing them down as they happen will have more meaning and it will be a great tradition to start. Also, we can learn from each other and we'll be strengthen as a family when listening to moments of great joy and happiness. I think next year we are going to start since November 1st though, to give more time for us to appreciate things better and find more reasons to be grateful about our life that the Lord has given us.

I painted the vase with homemade materials