Happy Thanksgiving

We had such a lovely Thanksgiving with Maddy and Poppy.  I will be sharing pictures of our Thanksgiving day soon.  After Maddy and Poppy left yesterday morning Grace, Jack and I attended the Maine State Ballet's production of the Nutcracker.  The performance was so beautiful and is was the perfect way to begin the Christmas season.  Today we are also decorating our home and tree for Christmas!  We are also counting down the days to Grace's birthday (December 2) and Jack's birthday (December 15).  Such fun times!

Clementines + Cloves = Fragrant Thanksgiving Pomanders

Grace made clementine pomander balls to give as Thanksgiving gifts for her teachers at school.  The beautiful citrus-spice smell warmed our house as Grace was making them and the pomanders serve as a beautiful decoration on any Thanksgiving table.    

The Story of the First Thanksgiving

Every year we make necklaces using colored beads to tell the story of the very first Thanksgiving.  Each colored bead represents a piece of history leading up to the first Thanksgiving.  Grace made a Thanksgiving story bead necklace for all of her classmates and teachers at school last week and this morning Jack made a necklace for everyone in our family to wear on Thursday.

• 1 tan bead to represent the Pilgrims leaving England
• 1 white bead to represent the sails on the Mayflower
• 3 blue beads to represent the 66 days it took for the Mayflower to cross the Atlantic Ocean
• 1 green bead to represent when Pilgrims spotted land, which they later named Plymouth
• 3 white beads to represent the first cold and long winter that the Pilgrims endured 
• 1 white bead to represent the arrival of spring
• 1 tan bead to represent the Native American named Squanto who greatly helped the Pilgrims
• A red, yellow, orange and tan bead to represent the foods at the first Thanksgiving (cranberries, corn, squash, pumpkins and turkey).  The first Thanksgiving was a great feast, which lasted three days!

 Jack hung the necklaces on the back of our dining room chairs, which we will all be wearing this Thanksgiving!

 

Thanksgiving Books

Eve loves books and she has really been enjoying looking at all of our Thanksgiving books this month.  Eve has also loved learning about the first Thanksgiving.  One of Eve's favorite words now is "Squanto" and she has such fun reenacting the story of the first Thanksgiving with Grace and Jack.

Being Thankful

Every November we create a project where we can show the many, many things that we have to be thankful for in our lives.  This year we gathered small tree branches from outside and arranged them in a vase to resemble a tree.  Each day we write or draw several things that we are thankful for on pieces of paper that resemble autumn leaves and hang them from the branches on our thankful tree.  I will be posting pictures of our thankful tree later this week.

Every day when we pick Grace up for school one of the first things she says is to me is that she can't wait to go home because she has, "so much more to be thankful for."  Once we arrive home Grace heads straight for our art room to write down her thankful thoughts to hang from our tree.  In the picture above Grace is writing how thankful she is for bees because so much of what we eat is pollinated by them!   :)

Handprint Turkeys!

Getting ready for Thanksgiving would not be the same without making our turkey handprint cards.  Jack and Eve had a great time painting their hands this morning!  We will be adding on the finishing touches to our handprints once the paint dries.

Happiness

Here are the three happiest children that I know!  One of the many, many, many things I love so very much about Grace, Jack and Eve is how happy they are with the simplest things in life.  Over the weekend our autumn scavenger hunt led us through the woods and into this wide open field.  Grace, Jack and Eve had the best time playing together here.  They worked together to gather piles of the dried grass to jump in and later pretended to make hay bales.  This type of play could occupy them for hours and hours.  

I know that if my children were given the choice between playing inside with a room full of toys or outside in a wide open field that they would choose to be outside creating their own fun simply by using their imaginations....and this is just one of the many things that I love so, so, so much about them!  

Our Autumn Scavenger Hunt

Over the weekend we went on an autumn scavenger hunt through the woods.  In order to make gathering our materials easier I glued pictures of the items to be found on the outside of an egg carton.  The egg carton served as a container for all of the items that we found on our hike!  Here are a few pictures from our scavenger hunt through the woods...

Our sweet Gracie girl was so sick this past week with a virus that has brought us to her pediatrician twice and left Grace with a fever of almost 103 degrees.  Just today Grace started showing some signs of regaining her strength and also regaining some of her Gracie spirit that we have all sadly missed.  

I hope to start blogging again tomorrow.   We also wish Memere a very, very HAPPY BIRTHDAY tomorrow!

The Portland Symphony Orchestra's Trick-or-Treat Concert

Last Sunday afternoon Grace, Jack and I attended the Portland Symphony Orchestra's Trick-or-Treat Symphony concert.  Prior to the show there were performances by the Portland Ballet Company, games and a hands-on "instrument petting zoo."  The children in the audience were asked to come in costume for this festive concert and Grace & Jack were very excited to wear their wings!

The symphony concert was held during Eve's nap time, however, this special event is held every year so we are excited to have little Evie button join us in costume next Halloween!

Gracie Bird