November - A Month of Gratitude

I enjoyed November.  One thing that we did that was fun was our gratitude calendar - a tradition I've been wanting to start for awhile.  Everyday we would say one thing that we were grateful for, write it on the back of the calendar, and stick a leaf on the tree.  (I had to come up with an activity for the Beehives in October - I was the Beehive adviser at the time - and I had seen this on Oopsey Daisy -  and been wanting to do it for awhile.  So it was a good excuse to finally do it!)  I enjoyed doing it so much that I made a magnetic leaf gratitude tree for all of my family members (and for us for future years) for Christmas.

Another fun thing we did was participate in another busy bag swap x2 because I signed up for the toddler and preschool age.  A busy bag swap is where you come up with an activity for your child that fits into a gallon sized storage bag.  You make 20 of them.  Then you get together with 19 other ladies, swap bags, and by the end you have 20 (or in our case 40) activity bags.  We now have three of the blue storage bins (shown below) full of activities.  My kids use them often!  Another thing to be grateful for!

The toddler bag I did is shown below (pipe cleaner toy).  It is perfect for Jonathan's age!  Before I began, I actually found a mini pringle can and did the same thing except using colored straws.  It works a little better than the pipe cleaners.  But the price was right for the big ones (my friend Heather helped me get a great price because she is a coupon queen).  Anyway, that mini one is the best $1.50 I ever spent.  Jonathan plays with it every Sunday.  

The one I made for the preschool swap was a spin and spell using nuts and bolts.  It is pretty cool too, but I don't have a picture of it.  Here is Mary playing with a different busy bag (counting fish - but she decided instead to take them swimming : )

Another thing I was most grateful for in November was that our new furniture started coming in.  When we moved, we decided to get rid of most of our master bedroom furniture - most of it was all old from college.  And in our new house we have a loft that we didn't have before.  So shortly after we moved in, we went to Ethan Allen.  They have design consultants that help you figure out your style, come measure your home, and make suggestions for new furniture.  So we ended up getting a bunch of new furniture for our family room (our old family room stuff went to the loft) and bedroom.  But it took 8-10 weeks to finally come!  It was worth the wait though.  

Prior to the new furniture coming in, it was just kind of frustrating.  I kept wanting to unpack more, but there was just so much and no where to put stuff, no where to sit....  When the furniture started arriving, it really became a turning point for me starting to love our new home.  Here is a picture of the new sectional (without the throw pillows) and rug.  I'm sure it doesn't look that exciting to you here, but you won't believe how it lifted my spirits!  I am hoping to do a post soon about how the house has come together this past year.  Hopefully you can get a better idea of how everything looks then.  But I really love my home now.  

Also of course we celebrated Thanksgiving in November.  Here are some family pics from that day:

Singing around the piano of course...

  Cousins playing....

Hanging out with the family....

Seeing relatives that don't live as close anymore (boo)...

And enjoying these little tots....

 And going to Frozen the next day!  This was Mary's first movie in the movie theater and it did not disappoint.

Mary is using her ice powers here...

We truly have so much to be grateful for!  And here is just one more thing I thought I'd throw in.  I got some professional photos done of Jonathan in September ....
and included Mary in one of them.  For their shot together they wore these fall outfits.  We went grocery shopping afterward.  Just thought you might like seeing the cute autumnal outfits.

Grateful indeed!