"We Love You" Jar

This Fall-themed "We Love You" Jar fits right in with the autumn season, but it could of course be altered slightly to work for any time of the year. 

A few years ago when our friend Charity had a birthday during October, we left her a little surprise on her doorstep. We gave her some Pumpkin Spice candies and wanted to do something a little more personal than just candies, so we came up with this personalized "We Love You" Jar:

If you'd like to recreate it, or make your own version, here's what we did:

How to Make a Pumpkin Roll Video

It's Fall and it's time for my How to Make a Pumpkin Roll Video!  I recently had a friend ask for this recipe, and I thought it was about time I shared this recipe on the blog again.  With Canadian Thanksgiving just a few days away, it's a great time for Pumpkin Roll!
Years ago, I posted at HowDoesShe about the Pumpkin Roll recipe that I use that seems to be a hit everywhere I've taken it.

Since then I've had several people say that even with all of the photos in the tutorial, they're hesitant to try it. A friend of mine mentioned that a video tutorial might be helpful, so I had Ken video tape the process for me and I squished it into a 5 minute video.

Decorative Thanksgiving Blocks (Craft With Your Kids!)

For Thanksgiving several years ago, my kids & I made these easy decorative "Give Thanks" Thanksgiving Blocks together. It was a gem of a project & I still use the blocks every year! We originally did this for a sponsored post with products we found at Michaels Arts and Crafts Stores.



It was such a fun project to do together and I wanted to share it again this year so you could give it a try if you'd like. It was from way back in 2013, so re-posting seemed in order! :)

The Ultimate List of Free Thanksgiving Printables!

I spent some time this week looking for some of the best free Thanksgiving printables around, and I thought I'd share a bunch of my favourites with you today since Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner! I hope this will be a good resource for you. Go ahead and pin it for reference later, too!

My First Try at a Pie Crust!

I determined that I was going to make a pie this Fall. I have made a pie before, but I have NEVER made my own pie CRUST! So, in the back of my mind, I knew that I needed to find a recipe.



My solution came when I received Ann Romney's new cookbook, The Romney Family Table, in the mail.
Look what I found inside! :)

How to Make a Thanksgiving Thankful Tree!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday!
I hope all of my fellow Canadians had a lovely long weekend- there is so much to be grateful for!

I wanted to spend some time with my children, helping them to focus on what they are grateful for,
so we made a Thankful Tree!




Supplies Needed:

-Large Vase
-Branches
-Coloured Paper
-Some way to cut out leaves (scissors or Leaf Shaped paper punch or Cricut or Silhouette Machine)
-String/Yarn
-Something to fill your vase with so the branches don't move around (we used some pieces of felt we had around)
-Small Hole Punch (or regular sized if you don't have a small one)
-Craft Needle

What We Did:

After cutting the leaves out with my Cricut, I punched holes in them and threaded a needle with some string. Then I cut & tied the string so that the leaves were ready for hanging.

I gathered some branches from my in-laws' backyard (they had recently trimmed a tree) and put them in a large vase with some pieces of felt to keep them still.

All that was left to do was to hand out a few leaves to each member of the family at a couple of dinner times leading up to Thanksgiving, and before long our tree was full of Fall Leaves representing things that each of us are thankful for!



If you're looking for Thanksgiving craft ideas, you might like our Decorative "Give Thanks" Blocks.



If you're preparing for Thanksgiving baking, you'll love the pumpkin roll recipe I shared with a picture & video tutorial!



If you're looking for ways to teach your children about showing gratitude, check out this "Thank Attack" idea!



If you're looking for kids' crafts for Thanksgiving, check out these easy name cards, or this handprint turkey!

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Giving Thanks

It has been difficult to blog lately.
I'll be back soon I think.
In the meantime, what a coincidence, and how appropriate for American Thanksgiving.
Yesterday I began reading a book called one thousand gifts by Ann Voskamp.
(the video I shared in my last post is from her)



And today I found a post about the very idea and the book over at Chocolate on my Cranium.

Since I don't have much to say today, I thought I'd point you in her direction :)

The Mom Connection- On Being Thankful

I am teaming up this week with  Two in Diapers and Naptime Review for The Mom Connection!

Check out this week's fabulous panel of moms!

We are always wondering how other moms handle certain issues or dilemmas,

so each week we are going to tackle the questions of motherhood.

December 1st we will discuss:

How do you prepare for the holiday season with your children?

If you have some thoughts or advice on next week's topic please email

Cassie at twoindiapers@gmail.com

We would love for you to be part of The Mom Connection!





Now on to this week's topic!

How do you teach your children to be thankful?

Here is what a few of us had to say:

Welcome! I'm Julie over at Naptime Review. I am a mom of 2 wild, crazy and beautiful girls. My oldest is almost 4 and my baby is 1. This is how teach my children to be thankful:



This is something I try to model and show my girls daily. I think it is very important to be thankful to other's and especially God.  I model this through prayer, thank you notes, phone calls and other acts of kindness.



This Thanksgiving, I created a "Thankful Cornucopia."  We all sat around the table and wrote things we were thankful for and stuffed them into the centerpiece. It was a simple family activity that modeled thankfulness. Click here if you'd like to see our beautiful centerpiece.



Hopefully by modeling thankfulness and constantly thanking God for all the blessings he has given us, they too will be thankful. The baby already says, "thank you," and it warms my heart.

Hi! I'm Cassie from Two In Diapers, and I'm a mommy to three sweet babies, ages 4, 3, and 18 months. This is how I teach my children to be thankful:

 

Thankfulness is so very important to me! I feel that it's necessary to teach right from the very beginning of life! Starting in my littles' babyhood, whenever anyone gives them something or compliments them, we tell them, "say thank-you" in a sing-song voice, even knowing that they are far too young to actually say those words. Before we know it, however, they are mimicking that exact same sing-song voice, "tee-koo" in just the right situations, which lets me know that they understand. While thanksgiving in life is so much larger than just the proper manners, I think it's important to  teach from the start that they have been blessed by someone else in some form and should be thankful for it.



Now that my babes are getting older, teaching them to be thankful has become a priority of mine. As with many things in parenting, I try to teach through modeling. Little Bentley {age 3} has been asking me constantly lately why I said
"thank-you" to someone. I've been taking that opportunity to explain to
him that it's because that person bagged up my groceries, opened the
door for us or dropped off our mail, and for that I'm thankful. I'm constantly saying little things like, "I think your friends were so nice to share all their toys with us today" after a playdate, and even, "I'm so thankful that the man came over to fix the... today?". I don't say these things to go overboard, but instead to try to show my littles that we should all be genuinely thankful for people. I feel that the more they hear it from me, the more aware they will be of others and the gifts they are given daily.



In the same way, I also try to remind my kids to be thankful to God for all that he's given us.

My name is Courtney from The Chirping Moms. I am a mom of two little girls: Maggie (2) & Alexandra (1). This is how I teach my children to be thankful: Through giving. 



 It's not easy to teach kids to be thankful when they
are very little. I started really trying to teach Maggie the past week, using
Hurricane Sandy. It was a very scary storm for us. She's old enough to get that
the storm knocked a lot of trees down in our neighborhood, our park is closed
& we had no power for a while. I explained to her that we have to be
"thankful" that we were not hurt & our house & all of our
special things are still ok. I explained a lot of kids lost all of their toys
& books & that we should send some of ours. I had Maggie sort through
her books & pick out some that we could send in our package to a family we
are helping to "adopt".

 

My name is Heather Lynne from Raising Memories. I am a mom of 2 children,
aged 3 and 6 and my blog is all about sharing fun things parents can do with
and for their kids, while making memories of this great time we have to raise
our children! Here are 2 ways I teach my children to be thankful:

Being thankful is something my husband and I teach more than just at
thanksgiving- we work on this every day! We say family prayers, blessings on
the food at mealtimes, and our kids say personal prayers. We do all of these
every day, and the pattern of prayer that we teach always begins by thanking God
for our blessings, and we try to have our girls think of a few specific things
from their day or life that they’re grateful for. Another way we try to get
them thinking about being thankful is that every day at the dinner table, we ask
each person what their “high” was for the day. (This is the high point, or
their favorite thing that happened that day) We also allow them to share their
“low” which is a good opportunity for us to find out what’s on their minds, what
might be bothering them, or what difficult things they may be facing while
they’re away from us at school- or even when they’re at home with us- it might
help us know how we can do better! 

My name is Jenni from The Good Long Road. I am a mom of 2 boys nicknamed Wild Thing (3 yo) and Caterpillar (15 months) on the blog because of their favorite books. This month we are focusing on gratitude. This is how: In November, inspired by the 21 Days of Gratitude Family Challenge (started by Inspired by Family Magazine), I decided to concentrate on a daily gratitude practice for Wild Thing. We do this by making Thank You Post Cards each day for one person.  Sometimes, he will mention a toy he is thankful for instead, so then we connect that toy to the person who gave him the toy and make the post card for them. He loves decorating the blank post cards (that are pre-stamped, which we got from the Post Office). He learns gratitude and some early reading/literacy skills as well. Win. Win. As a family, we also started focusing more this month on Family Dinners - completely unplugged. These meals offer opportunities for gratitude for the goodness we have in our lives and remind us to be thankful for one another. Finally, modeling for our children might be the most effective way to teach them to be thankful. I try to take note of my own behavior. Am I thankful/appreciative toward others on a daily basis? Do I thank my husband for all that he does for our family? Do I thank the boys when they listen, clean up, help out? Teaching thankfulness begins with being thankful. Your Turn: How do YOU teach your children to be thankful? Do you have any tips or advice? Leave us a comment. Love to hear from you!

Thank Attack!

Today I'm over at HowDoesShe and I'm talking about Thank Attacks!
[Come, Visit! :]

Napkin Folding for Napkin Rings

On Sunday we had my parents & Grandma over for dinner and Ken decided to make a turkey dinner. We got out the Christmas dishes and fancy napkins & I finally had a reason to use my christmas napkin rings.

I wanted to make the napkins look nice, so I found this little video tutorial about folding napkins all fancy-like. There are so many other options, of course, but this is what I went with. She has a ton of video tutorials for table setting and other etiquette- check her out for fun ideas as you're preparing for Christmas dinner! :)

Name Cards

Talia & I made name cards for our family & extended family's Thanksgiving Dinner this year. It was a great opportunity for her to practise printing. She mostly helped with the name writing, but when that was finished, she was ready for a change, so she glued the name parts onto the background. It was fun to see the table all set with her cute printing at each place :)

Blessings Doorknob Hanger

In the January 2010 issue of The Friend, there was a page with a cut out for a door hanger that your child could write what Heavenly Father has blessed them with on it. I asked her what Heavenly Father has blessed her with, and drew Talia's family for her & then she wanted to draw her Grandma & Grandpa. You can find the printable page online, here.

Handprint Turkey

We have our Canadian Thanksgiving coming up this weekend, so today we talked about turkeys, sang a turkey song, and made a handprint turkey.

Talia LOVED making the turkey (she loves working with paint & getting messy, so she was practically bouncing at the idea of paint :)

She chose the paint colours she wanted to use, I smeared the paint onto her hand generously, with a paper towel. She stamped a couple of turkeys, and then did a freestyle painting while we waited for the turkeys to dry a bit.

After washing her hands, I showed her where the turkey needed legs, eyes, etc. and she added them on. She loved the googly eyes, and added some large ones onto the paper insects that she had made so far throughout the week.

Note: Please excuse my photos if they are dark or weird- my laptop is in the shop, so I don't have my regular photo imaging software. I look forward to its return!