Thanksgiving 2015

Leading up to Thanksgiving, we spent some time making crafts and treats.

Kate drew this turkey:

I made pumpkin pie scented play dough and helped Kate turn it into a turkey.

Kate helped me test out a turkey dinner craft before we put together fifty craft bags for the children of homeless families to create their own turkey dinners at the Thanksgiving dinner held at North.

 We watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and had a feast.

These pictures were taken on Thanksgiving.  I meant to take more.  It was a nice day.  We are very fond of the games that have been added the last few years.  The turkey gobble & strut and name the turkey are both a blast!  We laugh a lot!

We were all VERY excited to spend time with Karen, Mark & Hannah over the holiday weekend. Hannah is so cute; Kate talks about her often.  I wish they lived closer!

I am very thankful for this crew, love them!

We should have cleaned up a bit for that picture, maybe fixed the girls' hair and had Collin change his shirt!!!

Thanksgiving 2014

On the night before Thanksgiving, Tom, Collin, Tyler, and Alyssa were all at the movies and Kate was sleeping.  Reagan loves opportunities like that to have me to herself and ask me what we can possibly do with the time!!  I have wanted to do this project for years now, so I figured we would give it a try.

 We learned that of the pilgrims who came on the Mayflower, only 22 men, 4 women, 14 teenagers, and 13 children survived the first winter.  I helped Reagan make a visual representation of the survivors.

It was a great project for us, and I think it will stick with us too.

On Thanksgiving morning, Collin, Reagan, and Kate played board games, colored Thanksgiving pictures, ate cinnamon roll turkeys, and watched the parade.

When the parade ended, we went to Grandma's house.

I didn't take many pictures, but Reagan grabbed my camera and took all of these:

The Thanksgiving games were better than ever this year.  We played pin the hat on the turkey (Collin won), best name for the turkey (Reagan won with "Wishbone"), and turkey trot/gobble (Mark won; I'm still laughing at his turkey).  I don't have any pictures, but I do have some video of the turkey trots!

The best part of Thanksgiving, as always, was just being together with family and enjoying the company.

The Mayflower

Kate's Turkeys

Paper plate turkey

T is for turkey

Shape turkey

Handprint sun catcher glittery turkey

 Pumpkin pie play dough turkeys

 Handprint turkeys

Kate helped me make these pretzel rod turkey treats.

Phew!  I think we've made enough turkeys for Thanksgiving already!

Thankful Wind Spinner

I saw an idea for thankful wind spinners mentioned at Little Wonders' Days and followed her link to Make and Takes for directions.  I cut circles out of poster board and then drew the swirls on the circles and left them out for any takers.  Reagan loved the idea and went right to work creating her spinner.

Some of the things she listed are just SO Reagan that they really make me smile, like shoes, stores, makeup, and steak!

She colored the other side and then I cut along the lines.  I love the finished product.

Fine Motor Skills Turkey

 I set out this pumpkin pie scented play dough turkey for Kate while I made her lunch today.  I made it by plopping together two balls of the dough, placing two googly eyes and a bead snood on the head, and sticking four pipe cleaners (cut in half) in the back.  I gave her some foam beads and showed her how to put them on the turkey's feathers (pipe cleaners).  She was absolutely delighted by this, and worked on it the whole time I got her lunch ready.

 Placing beads on pipe cleaners is great fine motor skills practice.  I wasn't sure if she would be able to do it, but she did great.  You can see the concentration on her face.

 She had a lot of fun with this and even added her fish bracelet to the turkey's feathers.