Thanks Giving.

Though I'm a little late, I'll still report on my favorite holiday-Thanksgiving. We took the week off of school to just focus on the history of Thanksgiving, making Thanksgiving crafts, baking, and of course, giving thanks.

These pictures are in reverse order, but whatever.

Since we can't see all of our family on Thanksgiving, the kids started by making these cards to send to their grandmas and grandpas they wouldn't see, as well as their cousin. The inside says "count your blessing, name them one by one...Count your many blessings see what the Lord has done. " Ella and Nathan both signed their own names. Ironically since Nathan has to write his name more frequently he has started going by Nate:)

They each made cards with their hand print. Nathan did all of his on his own, including the tracing and cutting. This is the one we had left to keep after the others were sent off. For whatever reason the face is a little Picasso-esque.

Throughout the month of November Nathan and Ella also had Thanks and Giving trees. On the thanks tree they recorded what they were thankful for on different colored leaves. On the giving tree they wrote down ways they had given to others. When this started Nathan said his Giving tree was just going to look like winter, but it was surprising how many different things they could come up with!
Here are some of Nathan's Thanks:
Family, Friends, Awana, Bibles, Ovens, RC car, etc.
Some of Ella's Thanks:
Pumpkins, Grandmas, Babies, Micah's smile, Swimming Pool, Mom & Dad, etc.
Their giving trees were similar, they included:
Helping Micah, giving Birthday gifts, Shoebox, Angel Tree, etc.


On Monday, after reading the history of the first Thanksgiving, we made hand print Mayflowers. Here are Ella and Addie's completed projects. Matt took Nathan's to work.

And of course, my little pilgrims.

Nathan actually took quite an interest in the history and may know more than most 5 year-olds. Well at least he did, I haven't asked him about it lately.

Ella because she's Ella refused to have a black Pilgrim hat, and decided instead that blue would be nicer.

We're working on the glue application process, but they still look good:)

For the actual day, we went to Aunt Amy and Uncle Jeremy's to meet with all the Garners. We had a wonderful feast with family followed by lots of cleaning, and talking around the table while looking at ads and planning our next days shopping trip. I'm happy to report that we did not go out at midnight, but rested up to go at 4 a.m., after the rush had passed, and we still got most of what we wanted.