Giving Thanks

Since it is Thanksgiving, I thought I would list just a few of the things that I am grateful for.

• my family--my great husband and our little mischeivious boy
• that I have a knowledge of the reality of my Savior and Heavenly Father
• cleaning up after a little boy all the time
• when hard work pays off
• that we survived the blizzard of 2010 (haha)
• cars, electricity--all the things that those poor pioneers lived without--I know I would have never survived a winter without these things
• the wonderful family that grew up in and the wonderful ones that I married into
• Christmas and seeing peoples' faces light up when you give them their gifts
• my talents
• good friends that still hang out even when they have kids and life slows/speeds up a little for them
• black friday deals--mostly I think it is fun to see Gary get so excited about them
• Gary's contagious smile--(his Grandpa Schaugaard has it too!)
• the funny things that Tucker does that Gary and I can't seem to stop talking about
• that when Gary and I are trying to go to sleep at night we think, "Let's go get Tucker up and play with him!" because we just can't get enough of him
• honest people
• uplifting entertainment
• music
• our home
• being a mom and being able to be a stay-at-home one
• summer time--when you don't have to wear 50 layers of clothes to be at a decent temperature
• my new sewing machine
• thoughtful people
• my computer
• my camera
• Paypal
• when Tucker snuggles and lays his head on my shoulder
• moments when you start laughing so hard that your stomach gets a workout
• that I get to watch cable at the gym and that it is literally 2 minutes away from our house
• when you can't think of too many things you want because you are so happy with what you have
• my ancestors and their lives that ultimately affected my own

Oh...I feel so grateful and I couldn't possibly list everything. I hope to remember to be grateful everyday!

Doodlepaws Extraordinaire!

Tucker (Doodlepaws Extraordinaire) has been such a good boy today. So much in fact that I thought that it was worthy of a blog post. 

I have been babysitting a little boy that is 9 months old on Mondays. At first Tucker was a little jealous because Owen likes to be held a lot. Today, he ran and got Owen's bottle when Owen was crying. He shared his toys with Owen and even tried to feed Owen some licorice. He helped me when my hands were full, by throwing stuff in the garbage for me. He wiped up his milk that he spilled on the floor. He was even helping me put the laundry in the laundry basket.

Then, as if he hadn't shined enough to earn a gold star already, tonight he did something that we didn't expect, HE ATE HIS DINNER! We had Fettucini Alfredo with chicken and broccoli. I don't know what it was. We try to feed him what we eat for dinner every night! I was very pleased with him today!

Thankful Wall

I just wanted to post about our Thankful Wall. 

I did a post about it on the This & That Creative Blog found HERE, but thought it would be fun to post on our family blog as well. I am actually super surprised that it has gotten so much attention in the crafting blogosphere!  A special thanks to:

• Dot To Dot This, who featured it on their blog HERE. 
• Tip Junkie, who featured it as a Thanksgiving project HERE. There are tons of other great ideas on her post, so check it out! 
• U-create, who posted about it HERE.
• Tatertots and Jello, who wrote about it on their facebook page HERE. 
• Pirates-n-Princesses, who posted about it on their facebook page HERE.
• And my awesome cousins, the Brockbanks. I think they are the actual ones that got this Thankful Wall started years and years ago and spread the tradition to my family!!!

Here's the post:

Since I was a little girl, we have had a tradition in my family to have a "Thankful Wall" during Thanksgiving. This is this year's version that I created!

Usually the Thankful Wall consists of a large sheet from a big roll of poster paper stapled to the wall.

We leave it up from the beginning of November throughout the Thanksgiving holiday and we all get to write down the things that we can think of that we are thankful for. It has been such a fun tradition, and I look forward to the Thankful Wall every year. I even had one with my roommates when I was single and in college. It's especially fun to have if you are the one hosting Thanksgiving Dinner so that all the guests can write down what they are thankful for. It definitely helps keep the meaning of Thanksgiving on your mind.

This year, I had decided to put a little more into our Thankful Wall. I have had this huge frame that I got at a thrift store for like $2 that has been hanging around my house.

It's an odd size, so I haven't been able to find any canvases to paint or prints to put in it. So I decided to do the DIY chalkboard from our earlier post by Kristin, found HERE, and make a Thankful Wall that we can use year after year.

I spray painted the frame white, used some chalkboard paint on a masonite board we cut for the inside (and by saying "we" I mean my amazing husband), and I cut out some white vinyl on my cricut for the "I am thankful for" part. I found some perfect little cornucopia shaped baskets that I added some ribbons to and nailed them to the frame to use to hold the chalk too!

I let my little boy write what he was thankful for on there too, because he was just begging to use the chalk on the chalkboard when I put it up. I think I see a tree in there somewhere...it's fun to interpret.

Some of you may notice the "bloating" listed as what someone was thankful for in the last picture. I had originally wrote boating, but my husband came home and asked me why I wrote bloating down on the Thankful Wall. Obviously he just didn't see it right, but after noticing that, he decided to put an "l" in there anyway, and I just left it there. It seems like every year there is a little joke with the Thankful Wall. It's part of the fun!

Some great ideas for variations that viewers have given me are:

• use a framed dry-erase board
• if you have the glass for your frame, you can leave it in there and use dry-erase markers, and even do a cute background behind your glass
• leave the board up all year long, with or without the vinyl

So now you know how to start your own Thankful Wall, if you haven't already! It will be a tradition you look forward to every year that helps keep the meaning of Thanksgiving alive.

***Since I posted this, my husband has added "Power Tools" to the Thankful Wall. I just had to write next to it, "...and that I benefit from the power tools too!" because he is always busy helping me with some new crafty project that requires power tools. So I've also added, "my husband" to the wall. I couldn't have asked for a better one! Oh the list keeps getting bigger and bigger. There are just so many things to be thankful for!

What are you thankful for?

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