Thankful Wall.

Last year, we had the Thankful Tree. This year, I wanted to do something like that again, but different. And what better place to do it than surrounding the new french doors we installed this summer?

Nevermind this totally highlights the fact we need to finish the interior door frames. I am loving having fall all over that wall.

Also, while you're excusing my door frames, pleae also ignore the mess. I DO live with 2 little kids and a husband.

The process is simple. I free-form cut leaves out of red, orange, yellow, and brown construction paper and try to get at least one member of the household to tell me what they are thankful for each day. It gets written down, attributed, dated, and taped to the wall. Some of my favorites include Luca's proclamation that she is thankful for her 'buttocks' and 'Santa' and Rohan's proclamation of thanks for 'pretty awesome'. I can only assume he's being thankful for his own astounding level of awesome with that one. It's sometimes a challenge to get a 'thankful' from the kids each day. Luca sort of gets it, partly because she remembers doing this last year and partly because they do 'thankful' activities all of November in preschool. Mo, on the other hand, stares at you like you just spouted a second nose if you ask him to tell you what he is thankful for. Instead, I ask him what makes him happy or what/who he loves.

But my favorite leaf, hands-down? This little red guy who lost his stem and won Luca's favor. I asked what she was thankful for, and she grabbed the leaf and said she'd write it herself thankyouverymuch. She even added her name (though I cheated and did the date for her, since dates are still a very abstract concept for her):

And just because I am in love with how this looks, another angle on the whole wall of thanks: