Thankful Tree

This year for our Thankful Tree, I decided to try something different. Since this is only the second year running I figure it's okay to tweak our tradition to figure out what works best for our family. Last year our Tree was made of paper; flat and taped to the wall. This year I wanted to try a 3D Tree. On Saturday we went to 2nd Dam and gathered a bunch of sticks. Then on Sunday we compiled our sticks to make a tree and put them in a pot. We also cut out a bunch of leaves to prepare for the activity.

Last year's tradition was spread out during the whole month of November. Everyday Shasta got to hang a new leaf on her tree. This year I decided to do it all in one day. For Family Night we had a lesson about what it means to be thankful. Then we tried making a list of the things we are thankful for, but Shasta was having a hard time staying focused and Shelby was being a pill. After we had about 10 things written on our list I decided to start writing them on the leaves and gave them to Shasta to hang on the tree. Once she started taping them to the tree she was much more interested in listing things she is thankful for.

I tried to include Shelby in the activity, but I was really nervous about her falling off the table. And I couldn't move the tree to the floor because I needed to be able to write the information on the leaves and didn't want to constantly be battling Shelby over keeping the rocks in the pot. Plus she wasn't quite understanding how to put the tape on the branches so it was just me doing hand over hand with her anyway and she didn't seem very interested in doing that. 

Side note: right now we do family night without Nick because of his work schedule. We talked about doing it on Saturday or Sunday night so he could do it with us, but Saturdays are filled with running errands and doing other important things that it's hard to commit to being home by a certain time in the evening for FHE. Sundays are filled with church, church callings, visiting teachers, home teachers, and the like, plus church is right through nap time so our girls are little she-devils by the time evening rolls around so adding another "church" related thing to the day sounded anything but appealing. Plus all the times we're with family on Saturdays and Sundays meant FHE would constantly be interrupted and it would be hard to be consistent. We even considered doing it earlier in the day during the week, before Nick leaves for work, but between my school schedule and the girls' naps, it was too complicated. So I decided to go ahead and do it Monday nights even though Nick can't do it with us because this way we're making it a habit so that one day when Nick doesn't work swing shift anymore it'll be second nature to already be doing it. So far it's working well for us, but tonight it would have been nice to have a second set of adult hands to help!

Anyway. Shasta understood what we were doing a lot better this year. She was better at coming up with things she's thankful for... or rather, things that make us happy, which is how I approached explaining to her what being thankful meant. But she also kept looking around the room and naming things she saw. I was more picky about writing down every single thing she named this year because I wanted her to really think about what she's thankful for and not just name things around the room. Instead, I helped her come up with some by describing things (ie. a place we go with tons of books to read) to help her come up with other things. But I was pretty pleased with some of the things she came up with all on her own!

Since Shelby doesn't talk, she didn't contribute anything to the tree, so all the leaves were things that Shasta came up with. Next year it will be fun to hear what Shelby has to say too!

The List (in no particular order; I literally took the leaves and typed up the list based on what I pulled from the pile):
Being together forever
Food
Joy school
Lizzy and Robyn (her friends)
Thankful tree
Shasta
Getting married in the temple
Family night
Family
Toys
Mom
Rocks
Camera
Library
Shelby
Branches
Playing with friends
Being with Jesus and Heavenly Father forever
The movie store (Hastings... where Nick likes to take her when he rents movies)
Moon
Sacrament
Reading books
Shelby not to be angry at us
Slippers
Daniel Tiger (the television show)
Water that we drink
Sky
Leaves
Pictures
Phones
Dad
Chloe and Naomi (her friends next door)
Grammy and Papa
Earth
Daisy (her baby doll)
Everything
Blankets
Wedge
Grandma and Grandpa
Giraffes because they don't bite
Church
My Little Pony "the scary one" (Equestria girls-the movie)
Kisses
Painting our toes
Crayons
Bo on the Go (television show)
Milk and Juice