Our Thanksgiving Tree

I really wanted to find something that I could do with Brayden this Thanksgiving season to focus on all of the things that we are thankful for. We truly have been SO blessed in our life and I feel like its easy to take it all for granted. I found this great idea online that I thought was perfect. A Thanksgiving tree! We started out by going on a nature walk to find a good "tree" (branch). It took us some time because Brayden was always drawn to the huge ones lying around and was set on bringing home the biggest one ever! But I finally convinced him that this was a good size! We cut out leaves in all different colors and hung them on our tree with little clothes pins. Every day until Thanksgiving we are going to talk about what we are thankful for and write it on a leaf. I love hearing the sweet things that Brayden is thankful for so far. I think we need more leaves for November so he can fit all his ideas! :) On the other side of the leaf we are writing something that we have done for others. It's been fun to not only recognize the blessings we've been given, but to also focus on what we can do to help others. Brayden is such a huge helper so he's enjoyed looking for things to do to help mommy and daddy!
It'll be fun on Thanksgiving to read all of our leaves before dinner (maybe we'll bring them to Arkansas where we'll be for the big feast this year!) I'm hoping that we can make this "thanks" and "giving" tree a tradition with our kids each year to help focus more on the season. We had a lot of fun making it together as a family and that's something I'm thankful for! :)