Countdown to Thanksgiving

I love crafts. Always have. When I pictured myself as a mom I pictured lots of hands on crafts with my kids. So when my oldest boys were big enough to sit at the table I started planning all of these fun projects to do. I quickly realized just how hard it is to complete a project with two toddlers! Needless to say, it started to be fewer and further between that I let my boys in on my crafts because it just felt more like work then fun. But now that they are 4 and 5 I really want to make more of an effort to get hands on with them. And thanks to Pinterest, I have a LOT of ideas to choose from!

The holiday season is a great time for crafts. There is so much inspiration to draw from. We decided to start with a Countdown To Thanksgiving craft (thanks to Make and Takes for the inspiration) that will help us get excited for the big feast as well as remember what we are thankful for each day. This was a great project to do with my kids because it only involved a handful of supplies and they were able to help with each step.

I started by cutting out the body, the head, the facial features and the strips for the feathers. Jordan got to draw on the eyes and glue on the beak, waddle, and legs.

Nathan got to write Happy Thanksgiving on the body.

They both got to trim the strips of paper into feathers.

 Now I have seen this project where you start with all of the feathers and then take one off for each day as a countdown to Thanksgiving. I liked the idea of adding a feather a day so that you end with a full bird so we are going to do it that way. Each day I am going to ask each of my boys what they are thankful for and write it on the feather before adding it to the body. At the end we will have a nice keepsake to look back on:)

Since we didn't start this until November 5th, we had 5 feathers to catch up on. It was sweet listening to my 4 year old say first that he was thankful that God and Jesus loved him and my 5 year old list his brothers as what he is most thankful for. I look forward to the next 19 days not only because that means Thanksgiving is here and we get to celebrate with loved ones, but also to hear each day what my little guys are thankful for in their life.

Nathan's Dinner Take 2

About a month ago I had Nathan take on dinner with me from planning to shopping to cooking. For those of you who don't remember, catch up here. For those of you who do remember, this time was a much smoother experience! When I asked him what he wanted to make he said, "Spaghetti and Meatballs" and I just shook my head and reminded him of what it takes to make meatballs. Maybe we will try to tackle that another day but I thought we would go for something that might have more successful results this time.

I will have to thank my fellow bloggers for providing the inspiration for tonight's dinner. As I was checking out a new blog Nathan came up behind me to peek over my shoulders. He saw what I was looking at on the screen and exclaimed, "I want THAT for dessert!" So we began this meal planning session with the dessert under our belt. Thank you Make and Takes for the idea!

Not minutes later I was onto another blog looking at these delicious Stuffed Pizza Rolls and I knew they would be a perfect meal for my little pizza lover to attempt. Add in a salad and we had our dinner planned out. Fast forward to meal day and Nathan was hopping up and down when I told him it was his turn to help. He even said, "This time I won't get upset mom." On top of that, as I called him into the kitchen to prepare the dessert in the afternoon, he invited his little brother to come help him. I knew that this was going to be a good day. So the three of us enjoyed some time around the table eating putting M&M's on the crescent rolls and rolling them up. While they were baking we whisked up some frosting out of powdered sugar, milk and vanilla and before we knew it dessert was done. Doesn't it look delicious?

When dinner time approached Nathan was busy coloring some new Toy Story 3 pages he had found but without grumbling put it away to help out. He helped cut the dough, grate the cheese, fill the balls and prepare the salad. We had one, "I don't want to do this any more mom," with a reminder from me that I don't get to stop in the middle of preparing dinner so he has to stay to finish. That was all it took and he finished up. You want to know his favorite part in all of it? Serving everyone! He loves to dish up and take everyone their plates at the table. So funny. Here's how it all went down (don't mind the pjs, littlest brother was sick today so we stayed home from church and the kids got to be in pajamas all day):

Don't those look delicious? They were even better than they look. Nathan got rave reviews and gobbled up 5 of these bad boys himself. I have to say this was the experience I was hoping for last time and am so glad I got. He took some responsibility in helping feed the family and I got some precious one on one time with my favorite biggest brother. Life is good!