Art From My Table: More Art

Here is the advent calendar we are doing this year. I've made a list of 24 activities to do for our countdown. This calendar is made out of a mini muffin tin. The days have magnets on the back to hold them into place where our activity awaits.

Our list for this year is as follows:

Put up a nativity set

read a story by the tree with only tree lights on

family photo shoot (taking fun pictures of ourselves)

draw on the windows (with window crayons)

Color a christmas picture

toe puppet show

open a new ornament for the tree

dress up for dinner

dance to christmas music

go sledding with Dad

Obstacle course (combine with acting out the story of our scripture reading)

go ice skating

moonlight walk

drink hot cocoa

make paper snowflakes

have a family slumber party

pajama ride (get your p.j.'s on and drive around and look at christmas lights)

do something kind for someone

indoor picnic

have breakfast for dinner

make a gingerbread house

decorate christmas cookies

have a tea party

choose a special treat to eat

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm stealing todays title from my friend Cindy over at She Sparkles. She has a weekly Thankful Thursdays feature and I always love reading it because reminds me to be thankful for my many blessings.

So, You may be wondering why I haven't posted any Thanksgiving dishes. Well, there's only so much time, and I just didn't have time to cook and blog for this Holiday. I do have it easy, I only have to bring Green Bean Casserole and rolls. I used a "Not your Momma's Green Bean Casserole" recipe from the food network, and so far it's looking great. All fresh and home made, no cream of mushroom soup, the sauce is made with chicken broth and half and half, yum! I prepped it today, and will cook it tomorrow before I head out to my Dad's house, who lives a whole mile away from me. I'm thankful I won't be traveling very far! I'm actually thankful for tons, way too many to list, but I'll put my top 5 at the end of this post. As for the rolls, I found a fabulous recipe on Pinterest that came from How Does She. Those are in the oven right now! They were very easy to make.

I've really been working with my kids about this holiday. Actually with Christmas right around the corner, and Birthdays we just had, they have a serious case of the "gimme's". I know the Gratitude Journals are very popular and such a fabulous idea. I've been talking to my kids about those, and they have been asking me for weeks..."when are we going to get a notebook to write our thankfuls in?" I know, I really should have had this done by now, but life just gets in the way. But, in God's good timing, I got them done this week! And will be presenting them to my children on Thanksgiving! I found these great composition notebooks at target that have the handwriting lines, which is super because my kids are still young and learning to write, plus it has room at the top for them to draw or attach a picture! After my trip to Target, I headed over to the scrapbook store and found some fun paper to really make it special. I also added a pocket inside the cover and put some little things in there for them to make their journal entries fun. Stickers, papers, etc. Here's how they turned out:

Pretty fun huh? I can't wait to give them to my children.

Before I share my top 5 gratitudes, here's another project I've been working on...check out my calendars. Aren't theses so fun? I'll be giving these to a couple family members that I think will enjoy them. I made these on Mixbook. I know there are tons of photo book sources our there and this is one I tried after having a groupon. I loved the idea of a calendar because it's useful, plus you get some great recipe ideas...for the food lovers. :-)