"I'm Thankful" Tree

I'm interrupting the 12 Days of Gift Tutorials to share something we're doing at our house to get ready for Thanksgiving. I love using the entire month of November (even though I'm starting a wee bit late) to get in the mind-set of thankfulness. It's so easy for me to get caught up in what I don't have and lose sight of how extreeeeeemely blessed I really am.  A daily reminder of what we are thankful for is good medicine in a "want more" society. And, I desperately want my girls to have attitudes of gratitude. Below is how I put together our "I'm thankful" tree. 

1. I started with this Acorn clipart. I dumped it into a program, sized it and fit nine to a page for easy printing. If you'd like me to send you that .pdf, I'm happy to, just leave a comment with your email address.

2. I let my girls color all the acorns (I did some too) and then my oldest and I cut them all out. Here is what we ended up with.

2. Next I punched holes in the top of the acorns and make twine loops, so I can hang them on our "tree."

3. Then I found a dead tree in our alley and broke off several branches. 

 4. I stuck them in my container, using a styrofoam ball to hold them in place.

5. Once I had all my twigs in place, I filled my container with old book pages (I didn't have many options laying around, but the pages worked just fine). 

                                      

6. Then I stuffed all the acorns around the base. I think they look cute and I needed a place to store them. 

7. Now our "I'm thankful" tree sits on our kitchen island. Each night at dinner I bring an acorn to the table and write on it one thing we are each thankful for. From there I hang the acorn on our tree. By Thanksgiving, we'll have a tree full of reminders of the many things God has blessed us with. 

Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.                            1 Chronicles 29:13