Give Thanks (Crafts, Juice Box Wings, and Garth)

It has been neat to begin new traditions as a family. One thing I started doing a few years ago was having a special Thanksgiving tablecloth. Each year, we (and whoever is celebrating with us) add something(s) on there that we are thankful for. I bought a simple white tablecloth that has some leaves cut out around the border or something, and then I bought a few fabric paint pens. My children have not been old enough to write yet, but we asked them what they were thankful for and wrote for them. I think it will be so neat to look at it throughout the years and see what has been added each year.

Something fun that we're doing this year... well, I guess it's not really a tradition but really just a craft. (But I guess it could become a tradition if we do new letters every year as my children get better and better at writing them.) Anyway... I'm not even sure how I receive Parents magazine, but I do. Has anyone else had this happen? I never received magazines before, but then I got pregnant and WHAM! They just started coming. How do they know?? Who gave them my information? And why are they still coming (five years later)? I've never been asked to subscribe. I've never changed my address, but they've followed me for at least three moves now. Very interesting (and I've never really thought that through until just now)... Back to topic, I was flipping through one of those magazines recently and saw a cute craft idea.

So I decided this would be something fun for the kids to help create. Plus, we have a giant island that just needs something long and fall-ish. So we've been collecting acorns. (We're using those instead of the lentils or split peas.) Aidan (4) is really just starting to write a few letters (I know your child is probably more advanced and can already write the entire alphabet. Pat yourself on the back, okay. :) ), so he was excited to help with this project. A few of the letters were tough for him, so I had to make dots for him to follow around and form the letter. I noticed one of his teachers did that, and I thought it was brilliant. Sometimes it's amazing how simple something can be, but I may have never thought of it on my own. Like juice boxes. If you lift up those little tabs on the side (we call them wings), then you tell the mildly aggressive and somewhat clumsy children to hold the wings instead of the actual box. This prevents those accidental squeezes from becoming spills! Amazing! But I digress. (But someone please tell me you've never heard or thought of doing that before so I know I wasn't the only one out there!) I actually didn't read the Parents Magazine directions until just now, so I didn't really do anything the same. But it still turned out cute! I may paint the sticks later, because I do think that looks really cute in their picture. I just haven't had time to get the paint out and let the kids make a crazy mess with that. They've been making enough messes with all the mud in the yard, but that's another story. I did use different colored paper instead of brown paper bags, so maybe the colored paper mixed would be too much with painted sticks. I'll let you know if I get crazy and try it! But I got to thinking.... this could be really cute to change out for different holidays. I was thinking for our Christmas greeting, we could put the letters on long candy canes (if they make them long enough). And then the glasses could be filled with small ornaments or peppermints (if you weren't using the candy canes, because the two together might be a bit much) or Hershey's Kisses in the Christmas-colored wrappers. And then you could use candy hearts at Valentine's (I know I'm getting carried away here.), but they would probably slowly disappear, because my dear husband loves those things. Anyway... the possibilities are endless! And I think this could be really cute whether you have kids or not. I would have done something like this pre-children. And bonus - the letters would probably be much easier to read! Anyway, here are a few pictures of our craft. Keep in mind, I made up my own instructions! (And I did mention in my initial post that I like parenthesis, right?!)

Counting acorns was also a good part of the project. And this is Aidan's latest look. Cowboy hat and old earphones turned into a headset. Looks like a little Garth. :)