Gratitude Tree

Thanksgiving has never been one of my favorite holidays if I'm being totally honest. I mean, I love the food but there just isn't a lot else to it. This year I really wanted to go deeper and connect with the true meaning of the holiday, this year I wanted to focus on gratitude.

 To that end I am keeping a gratitude journal for the month of November but I also wanted to get my family involved so I decided to try a gratitude tree this year. A gratitude tree is just a vase full of sticks and some paper leaves, very simple to make but lovely! Whenever the mood strikes us throughout the month we take a paper leaf, write down something we are grateful for and tie it on the tree. Above you can see one of my leafs on the left and one Clover wrote herself on the right! (she tells me that it says "my toys")

The gratitude tree has been an instant hit from the moment I put it up on November 1st. My kids absolutely love it and I love hearing the things they are grateful for which include family, pets and treasured toys to name a few. It gives me the warm fuzzies to hear that Eric is grateful for my cooking or that Echo is grateful for mommy so it is really contributing to our happiness as a family to reflect on what we are grateful for and hear what others appreciate about us as well. I can see that this is a new Thanksgiving tradition that is sure to last.

October Photos

October is such a beautiful and fun filled month in Georgia. We had lots of fun adventures in the beautiful Fall weather starting with our favorite festival, Sunday in the Park at Oakland Cemetery.

We took a lovely family trip to the beach and met up with Logan's friend Alison there.

Renting a house with a pool was a huge hit!

 
we visited the fountain of youth.

The weekend after the beach we headed to the mountains for a camping trip with Eric's parents. It was a lovely campground and the weather was perfect!

We visited the Botanical Gardens

A very chilly visit to the corn maze

Finally there was Halloween! Such fun this year!

Echo's Underwater Tea Party

For Echo's Birthday this year she requested a mermaid themed tea party. It was fun to have a chance to get creative with a smaller party at home. Here's how it all came together.

We made homemade decorations mostly out of Echo's mermaid craft book. The girls helped me to make mermaid banners and mermaid crowns for each of the party guests. I decorated the table with fish nets from the craft store, sea shells and lace doilies as well as a vintage teapot.

For snacks we served goldfish crackers, fruit kabobs, starfish crackers (Ritz crackers with sliced cheese cut out in the shape of a star with a cookie cutter) and mermaid toast (cinnamon raisin bread toasted with cream cheese on top, the swirled with green and blue food coloring and topped with gold sprinkles), and of course a fabulous mermaid birthday cake! Echo requested a plum cake with mermaid decorations, I don't know where the plum cake idea came from but it turned out pretty well!

For a party favor and activity the guests painted small wooden treasure chests.

Echo got this sweet mermaid tail blanket as one of her presents. Overall it was a lovely party and sweet day with friends!

September Photos

 I am getting farther and farther behind with my monthly picture posts! Life is super busy, especially this time of year, but it's also never been sweeter. With September came cooler weather, hiking apple picking and our favorite parade of the year!

Echo also had a lovely Birthday party but I am doing a separate post about that. I have been busy teaching at NLA and absolutely loving it. I seriously have a great group of kids that I am so lucky to work with.

October is quickly drawing to a close and we have had lots of amazing adventures this month that I will share soon!