Thankfulness Jar

One of our favorite family traditions is filling up our thankfulness jar in the month of November.  Every night after dinner we would clear the table and then all write something we were thankful for, read it, and then put it in the jar.  

One night after I finished clearing the table I took this picture of my favorite people writing down things they were thankful for.  

Claire is talking a lot these days, but she wasn't quite able to articulate what she was thankful for this year.  But you better believe she had fun writing on her slip of paper each night and putting it in the jar.  If we tried to help her by putting it in the jar for her she'd say "I do it."  

We have about 20 other slips of paper just like these in the picture below and I think they are precious.  Every night after Claire finished "writing" she was always so proud.:)  

Emily was able to write out her own this year, which was fun.  Sometimes she would ask us how to spell certain words and sometimes she would just spell it the way it sounds.  

Hannah usually started out writing her own.  Since H is her favorite letter there would always be several H's mixed in with a few other letters.  Then we would flip it over and write out whatever she told us she was thankful for that day. Most every day she either said "I'm thankful for the new baby" or "I'm thankful for Della."  We had lots of both of these slips of paper.  Della is a friend in her class at school and apparently Hannah is veeeery thankful for her.:)  I think it's so sweet that she's also thankful for her new sister on the way.  We all are!

Here are just a few others from the month that I thought were sweet.  

• "I'm thankful for my friends and my school and my family and my home." -Emily
• "I am thankful for my teachers." -Emily
• "I am thankful that Mommy is going to have a baby Abby!!!!  I love mom." Emily
• "I am thankful for my 100 friends...Bella, Bryce, Cohen, Bella, Ella, Shaelynn, Jacob and Ressie." -Emily
• "That we get to go to Mimi's house a long time ago. A lot." -Hannah
• "I am thankful for Uncle Bud because he is a Veteran." - Emily
• "I am thankful for Bella and all my fiends at God and Jesus."  -Emily

We feel like it's so important to work to cultivate an attitude of thankfulness in our hearts and in theirs.  It really starts with us though.  When Bert and I are thankful for all of God's many blessings and talk to our kids about those things I think having a thankful heart will come more naturally to them.  We trust in God's forgiveness for when we act entitled and that we would be overflowing with thankfulness for His many, many gifts. 

"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever."  Psalm 107:1