Thankful Tree

This is year two for a November Thankful Tree in our house.  Last year we put paper leaves on a stick tree.  This year we just made a tree out of paper on our window and added paper leaves throughout the month.  Here is the finished product:

It was fun to notice Aria's growth from last year in her thankful statements.  They were a lot less random and a lot more thoughtful.  Usually she was thankful for something we did that particular day.  My favorite was when she was thankful for reading the Bible.  It was also fun that she wanted to write on the leaves herself.  Sometimes she wrote one word.  Sometimes it was just scribbles, but it is fun to see her excited about writing on her own.

I have to admit it wasn't always easy to come up with something I was thankful for.  There were days I didn't feel well or days I was stressed out, but writing a thankful leaf every day was a good reminder that I have plenty to be thankful for even if I am not in a thankful mood.  It is good to be thankful for things like a warm house and a pantry full of food.  There are people in this world who don't have those things. 

Finding something to be thankful for on my down days also helped pull me out of the low point.  Instead of focusing on what was wrong, when I turned my attention to things God has blessed me with, it made the day not seem so bad after all. 

We took our thankful tree down today and put up our Advent calendar and Jesus craft chart.  But even though the reminder is gone, I hope we continue to praise God for the blessings in our life.  We truly have so much to be thankful for!

Here are some leaf close ups

Operation Christmas Child

If you haven't heard of Operation Christmas Child, you need to click on this link and read about it and pray about it and then hurry up and pack a shoebox.  We found out about this awesome opportunity through our church and had a wonderful time packing our boxes together as a family last weekend. 

Let me back up and say that we did a shoe box with Aria last year where she got to pick out things for the box, but I'm not sure how much she understood as a two-year-old.  It was a good experience and Aria claimed she remembered doing it last year, but I'm not so sure.

This year was a whole different story.  We started our Saturday morning at Perkins as a celebration for Aria's completion of our church's obedience challenge. (I should write about that, too.)  With full tummies we headed to the dollar store to pick out our supplies.  This year we decided to each fill a box.  Aria and I chose the 2-4 year old girl category and Justin chose a 2-4 year old boy. 

Before we started our shopping, we talked to Aria about a couple of things.  First we told her we were only shopping for our shoe boxes that day, not for ourselves.  Next, we told her we needed to pick things that would fit inside the box.  We also talked about choosing more than toys and selecting things like toothbrushes, washcloths, and socks.  We encouraged Aria to choose things that she likes because the present would be going to a little girl her age who doesn't get any presents. 

I could tell she really felt compassion for the kids we were building shoe boxes for and she did a fabulous job picking things out.  She chose a baby doll, a package of pretend jewelry, markers, crayons, a book about baby Jesus, fingernail polish, stickers, bubbles, a ball, Hello Kitty toothpaste, and a few more things.  All of those things are very much her favorites.  She also wanted to help us pick things for our box.  She really got into it.  She didn't like it when the person checking us out mixed up the items that were supposed to go in each box.  So, when we got home we had to immediately sort and pack our boxes with the correct items.  She didn't even want to play with the things once we brought them home and never once asked for anything for herself.

The last piece of our boxes were handwritten notes to the kids.  I wrote the note for Aria, but she told me what she wanted to say.  She talked about things she likes and told the girl that Jesus loves her.  It was a very sweet letter.  We also included a picture of Aria and a map that shows where we live. 

On our church's monthly family night we brought our boxes to turn in.  She carried her own box in and added it to the pile.  I love Aria's heart because she asked if we could deliver the box to the girl ourselves.  I explained that we would drop them off at church and they would have them delivered for us because they are going far away.  We filled out the form online to track our boxes and I am excited to find out where they went and learn a little more about that country.  Hopefully that will help Aria remember the experience even more.

I hope this can just be a start to helping Aria and Justin and I to care for people all over the world and love them like Jesus does.

Pegump Pumpkins Year 4

Every October of Aria's life we've had a great time decorating pumpkins.  This year was a first in that Aria designed and helped carved her pumpkin herself.  She was super excited about it and poked plenty of holes in her pumpkin with the little carving tools.  This was also the first time she touched the guts of the pumpkin and enjoyed it. 

Aria wanted to make a face in hers.  Justin and I tried out free handing our own designs.  You can definitely tell his is a G for Green Bay.  The St. Louis was challenging and I cut out a chunk I didn't mean to, but we weren't going for perfection.  Most of all we had a blast and spent time together as a family!