5 Things I'm Thankful For

Leading into the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I would share 5 things I am thankful for right now...

Our warm, cozy home (especially during last night's cold rain!).

My anything but boring job that gets me out of the office and into interesting places.

Weekly lunch dates with Trent.

Dylan's prayers at dinner and bedtime. I tay da Lord to soul my keep. Thank for food. Amen. The same each time and so amazingly sweet.

Quality time with my boys.

What are you thankful for?

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Give Thanks

As usual, I scrap in whatever order I'm inspired which brought me all the way back to Thanksgiving 2010 in the middle of January. Amazing how much my little guy has grown in those 2+ years! Kept this layout simple - one template, one kit, one font and done.

Supplies: 13th Collection templates by Tiffany Tillman; Give Thanks kit by Sara Schmutz; Just the Way You Are font.

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Thankful Turkey

I remembered making version(s?) of toilet tube turkeys as a child and decided to try it with Dylan a couple weeks ago. Rather than just making the turkey, we talked about a few things we were thankful for and incorporated them into the design. A simple way to address this season of Thanksgiving with my 3 year old and remind us daily as we see it on our mantle just how blessed we are.

Supplies

• toilet paper tube
• construction paper
• crayon or pencil or pen
• scissors
• glue (we used a glue stick and glue dots)
• googly eyes (optional)
• feathers (optional - could use instead of paper)
• markers (optional)

To start our project, I drew feather shapes onto 4 pieces of construction paper. We talked about things we were thankful for and I wrote one on each feather. (Note here's where I made a small error - didn't plan ahead enough so two of our thankful things are upside down! Oops! My advice, write some on the far left & some on far right to leave enough space to glue and still see words.)

I held the paper while Dylan practiced his cutting skills with his new scissors - he loves any excuse to use them!

Next he glued each of the feathers to one side of the tube.

I helped him add glue dots to the back of the googly eyes. The dots make it so much easier for him to stick the eyes and they stay in place immediately - no waiting on glue to dry.

Then he glued on the beak and wattle I had cut out for him.

Here's the completed turkey:

And, yes, he thinks the wattle is the mouth. :)

A version of this post originally ran on November 1, 2012 for Arts & Crafts Thursday at Notes from a Mom in Chapel Hill blog here.

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Shoot and Edit: Thanksgiving

We spent our Thanksgiving holiday in Virginia visiting my mother, stepfather and brother. One of Dylan's favorite pastimes was playing with their dog, Tia. The two of them were so funny and completely wore each other out daily. I caught this moment of pause in their outdoor play of chasing and sticks on Saturday morning.

ISO 100, ss 1/400, f5.6

Join in the fun with Jill Samter Photography and Ramblings and Photos:

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Turkeys

I was inspired earlier this week to scrap photos of Dylan and his friend working on their Turkey plaques:

Supplies: Tiffany Tillman's Simple 'n Straight template and papers by Jen Allyson & Karen Funk from Design House Digital Fall Blog Hop kit; labels (recolored) from Michelle Underwood's Bright Smiles kit; fonts.

After the boys had completed their handprint on the plaques, Stacey and I helped them make an extra print on a piece of white cardstock.  We added beaks, wattles and legs to them with markers.  Then scanned the turkeys for Thanksgiving cards: 

On the inside of Dylan's cards, I printed the same poem that's on the back of the plaques (returning to the original wording of "it comes with...").  I helped him write "Love, Dylan" with crayon and then he added his own personal touch, coloring each one:

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Handprint Turkey

Since our ghost footprint plaque was so much fun to make but had to be packed up until next fall, Dylan & I got together with some friends, and pulled out the paints again to make a new plaque to hang in it's place.  Ready to give the house a festive look for Thanksgiving is our Handprint Turkey:

Isn't he adorable? My favorite part is how excited Dylan gets about it.  If you ask him where his turkey handprint is, he'll point directly at it and babble excitedly. Sometimes a few claps are thrown in too.  :)  Adorable.

On the back, is a cute little poem we found on the internet (not exactly sure where credit is due since I found it in multiple searches): 

We altered it slightly (changing "It comes with" to "It's made with"), printed it onto cardstock, handwrote each boy's name, date & age and adhered using mod podge.

Supplies: wooden plaque (6-3/4" diameter); acrylic paints; paint brushes; coordinating ribbon; staple gun; white cardstock; Mod Podge.

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Road Trip

We took Dylan on his first big road trip for Thanksgiving. On Wednesday morning we loaded up the car and drove to Virginia to visit some of my family. He did very well - slept the first half of the ride and rode happily most of the rest.


We went to his Great Papa Smith's house on Thursday where he managed to sleep through Thanksgiving lunch - waking only after most of the family had left.

Wishing his Uncle Christopher a happy birthday:

On Friday, Dylan & I accompanied Grama & Pops to a Christmas tree farm where Pops cut down their tree. The view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from the farm was beautiful. It was a cold day - perfect Christmas weather.

Dylan posing with Grama & Pops before we left on Saturday morning:

On the way home, we stopped for a visit with his Great MawMaw and Great PawPaw (Trent's grandparents). They were more than thrilled with the surprise visit from their only great grandchild.

Sunday the three of us enjoyed a quiet day together including a long walk outdoors (it was 69 and sunny!) and picking out our own Christmas tree.

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Happy...

birthday to my brother, Christopher!


And a happy Thanksgiving to all! :)

Supplies: Bazzill (dark brown) and miscellaneous (gray & light brown) cardstocks; Basic Grey and Chatterbox patterned papers; black stamp ink; Fiskars border punch; Jolee's sticker; adhesive backed foam squares. Inspired by November A Year in Cards class at Two Peas.

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Thanksgiving 2008

Our family photo from Thanksgiving:


Supplies: Autumn Leaves and Wheat Pudding papers from the Plumberry Harvest paper pack at Peppermint Creative; tag & year date stamp from Rhonna Farrer's Celebration kit; Rhonna Farrer's TypeSet alpha; Come Unto Me font. Inspired by Dec 10th of dw2008.

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Thanksgiving 2007

Even after creating a Thanksgiving template earlier this week, I got caught up in the festivities and neglected to take many photos. I decided to back up and use it to scrap photos from last year instead:


Supplies: Butternut Corn and Grape Jelly papers from the Plumberry Harvest paper pack at Peppermint Creative; my Thanksgiving 8.5x11 template; Jenkins v2.0 and Teen fonts.

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Thursday Thirteen #2: Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving! Here are thirteen things I am Thankful for today:


What are you Thankful for?

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

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Changing of Holidays

I had not intended on letting several days go by without blogging. Thursday, of course, was filled with time with family and celebrating. Trent and I started our day at his parents' house for lunch. Later we drove a little further west and visited with my dad's family. Finally returning home after midnight! It was a blessing to see so many of our family members in one day especially those we don't have an opportunity to see quite as often. And we met our new niece for the first time. :)

Yesterday is still a blur due to a migraine so I'm trying to make up for it a bit today. Following the NCSU football game (which I think I'd rather be a blur as well!), we bought our Christmas tree. It's officially standing in its spot in the living room. We'll wait until at least tomorrow before beginning to decorate as the limbs need to drop a bit. But I did switch the wreaths on the front door - placing the fall wreath in storage and hanging the Christmas one. Our home is beginning to look and smell (love that fresh evergreen!) a bit like Christmas.

I couldn't get motivated, however, to do any Christmas scrapbook layouts today. I switched the slide show in the left hand column to feature some Christmas & winter layouts I've done in the past. Maybe they'll inspire me. But I was able to find motivation to complete another Disney layout. Here's my take on the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor:
Supplies: Misc purple cardstock; Uniball signo white pen; Micron black pen; EK Success striped PP and Mike Wazowski sticker; Making Memories brads; stamp ink pad; Times New Roman and Gilligans Island fonts.

2ps Blog Challenge:
What's the latest movie you have seen?

Trent and I watched Transformers last night. He had borrowed the DVD from a co-worker. While I didn't dislike it, in my opinion, it dragged on a bit (seriously could they have spent anymore time having the kid search his room for the glasses???). Parts of it seemed a bit predictable, but the end didn't quite come together as I expected which isn't a bad thing.

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My Thanksgiving Dinner Contribution

Today's 2ps blog challenge:
You have to bring some food to a party. What's it going to be?

The first thing that comes to mind is what I'm taking to Thanksgiving dinner at my Dad's house - green bean casserole. Yum! One of my favorite holiday dishes. :)

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