Thankful Calendar

After yesterday's post about Halloween, I thought I should "get up with the times" and discuss Thanksgiving. What a wonderful time of year, right?

This year, I saw on Pinterest.com a 'Thankful Calendar.' Every day until Thanksgiving, you would write down what you were thankful for and put it on the calendar. It is a countdown I guess. Although we really should be thankful every day, it's hard to stop sometimes and just thank the Lord. We are so incredibly blessed in our lives, or at least I feel like I am. I try very hard not to take it for granted. We all forget sometimes though. I recently saw a pin that said, Only in the U.S. would we spend a day being thankful for what we have, then spend the entire next day trampling over each other for new stuff. True story! But, I still love Black Friday. :)

Anyway, I want to just state right now that I am not crafty. I do not have the patience and I don't have a lot of craft items on hand. For example, I've never owned a bottle of Mod Podge in my life. I just got a glue gun a couple of years ago, from my mom, and I burn myself incessantly!

So, I thought that when Lucy and I made this, we were doing pretty well:

We decided to hang it on the fridge, at least this year. As you will also notice, I created the calendar for up to the 24th, rather than the 22nd that Thanksgiving is on this year. I hope to reuse this calendar in the future and added a couple more days. Each day, we all say what we are thankful for. Since 'family, friends, four-legged family members and friends, food, shelter, faith, and a few others, are already written on our calendar (not in the picture; I added more after I took it), we try to think of other things - small things in life that often go unappreciated.

Heath has been thankful for daycare, technology, football, stuff like that. I've been thankful for cell phones, cars, and baking. We usually explain them a little bit to each other, but just write down a word or two. Lucy's are great! They make me laugh. She always says, "Mommy, Daddy, and baby Olive." It makes my heart melt with love, while wanting to burst with pride! But, she has also said, Aurora (her baby doll), Bonnie (her stuffed horse), her blankey, pumpkins, and really anything in the general direction she is looking. haha.

We have also decided to be thankful in other ways. We have started to say grace before meals. And, we decided to be better church goers. This last weekend, we decided on which one and would like to start going consistently.

It feels great to stop asking for forgiveness, when I take this life for granted. I still complain about stupid, stupid stuff; but, I'm getting better...

Tonight, I think I will put down that I am thankful for...my blog readers. :) Thank you for always supporting me and telling me that I'm not the craziest momma on the block! Have a great hump day!

Bread Painting

Heath has started up graduate classes again. This time it is a 6 week period, with two classes a week.  So, that leaves Lucy and mommy alone two nights a week. I have used this opportunity to try fun, Pinterest projects. :)

First, we got a paint brush. Now, we really needed those little, cheap, water painting brushes, but didn't have one. So, I found a new, foam one and washed it with dial soap. Then, I got Lucy situated and ready to paint.

Then, we got out four bowls and poured a little milk in each one. Then, I asked Lucy what colors she wanted. Of course, she said purple. I had to remember my color mixing, since I only had four colors of food coloring.

She requested: pink, purple, orange, and blue. I could have gone darker; but, I didn't want to waste the food coloring and it worked!

I laid out two pieces of bread and a napkin for Lucy to blot on.


She picked it up pretty well; however, she kept dabbing all of the milk in the middle of the bread. It was getting too soggy. I kept trying to get her to go around the edges...

 I thought that maybe it was the brush - it was picking up too much milk. So, we tried a basting brush...


It worked MUCH better.

Lucy asked me to do some too, which she enjoyed.

We did four pieces, front and back. She especially liked when I tried to paint around her hand.

Then, we threw the bread in the toaster to dry.

I thought about just buttering them, but decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches out of them instead.

 Lucy thought they were pretty fun. We both had a colorful sandwich. Of course, Lucy had the one with an 'L' on it.

It was fun and she made sure to tell Daddy all about it the next morning. I am sure we will do it again sometime. :)

Learning Colors

The other night Heath had to do homework; so, it was up to me to keep Lucy busy and non-interrupting. :)


I decided to put some of my pinspiration to work (inspiration from pinterest.com). Here was my inspiration:

I thought we would have fun finding small toys or objects, that were Lucy-non-eating-friendly. Then, we could work on her color association and say the color aloud.

But, let's be honest; who has a random, sectioned box just lying around the house? Not us. So, I improvised. I thought that Lucy's stacking cups would be perfect!

I wondered about the teal blue and the pale blue; but, Lucy did amazing with them! :) We just called them both "blue."

We then gathered small toys from around the house, a lot of which ended up being plastic, play food.

One item at a time, I would hand it to Lucy and tell her the color. Then, she would put it in the right cup. It took her a while to realize that we were sorting them by color. Once she caught on though, she was on a roll! :)

Here, she is putting in the purple rabbit. Sorry about the blurry picture; she moved too fast!

And, now, she is dancing and cheering. I was cheering her on with every correct placement. She would give me high fives. :)

We did this twice, all the way through. She then got a little bored and moved onto other stuff. That was to be expected.

When we were done, she was so proud though!

I highly recommend trying this with your toddler. It was a great learning tool and she really enjoyed it. We will probably play it often now! :)

Happy Fat Tuesday, everyone!