Thankfulness Tree

Today was such a gorgeous day, so after relaxing a little while, after church, we went on a "hike".  We took the hike on our neighborhood trail.  Tyson was being argumentative before leaving, so we left him home to clean his hamster cage. LOL! On our hike, we searched for skinny sticks and beautiful leaves, so that we could make our thankfulness tree.  I have been excited to make this.

On a hunt for sticks....

"I said sticks, not branches Jax." :)

Collecting leaves...

We came home and placed our branches in a vase.

There our branches sit... empty and thankless.

Liley was proud of her vase filled with branches that she collected.

These are the colorful leaves that we collected while on our walk.

As a family, we took turns choosing a leaf and sharing what we are thankful for.  

It was Tyson's idea to do it from youngest to oldest order.

Jax, Lilah, Tyson, Daddy, and ME!

Rather than having to make this tree "perfectly" designed, I wanted the kids to be as involved as possible, so I asked Tyson to be responsible for writing what everyone said on their chosen leaves.

I think giving him that responsibility made him feel important.

Who are we thankful TO for all of our blessings?  GOD!

It's not just by chance that we have these blessings.

Our blessings: God, shoes, church, toilet paper, salvation, vacation, Jesus, family, husband, music, wife, children, holidays, jewelry (Lilah:), bible, friends, that God takes care of us, doctors, bed, hot showers, food and water, clothing, toys, pets, and outside.

Then we hot glued the leaves back to our branches.

It's very fall-like. Colorful and specially prepared by all 5 of us.

Now our tree is FULL of blessings.

It's sits on our kitchen table so we can be reminded daily of how blessed we truly our.

Our entire family really enjoyed doing this together. I love that I am able to let go a little and delegate some of the crafting responsibilities to each family member. When we were out of leaves, the kids were still naming MORE blessings that they are thankful for.