I am Thankful for...

I am thankful for blogs!...because they give me great ideas. I loved the post by Amy about having each one of your family members name something they are thankful for each night at dinner.
We started that and the kids can never name just one thing. (I just haven't had the ambition like Amy to write them down and make a chain out of them, maybe next year.) Hudson surprised me by saying really meaningful, deep thought answers, I thought for sure he would start out with sports or games and then work to the more important things after he heard Larry and I say ours. But all of his answers have been about health, family and friends. The first night he said he was thankful he had a mom and dad that cared about him and took care of him. It makes me feel good to know that he realizes we do care and that he appreciates all the things we do for all our children.
Sometimes they take things for granted until they see those less fortunate either on TV or read about them in a book. Then we took the Hyers idea of making Thankful Placemats for family home evening. We eat our dinner on them every night. They might get messy, but they keep us focused on being Thankful while we are filling our bellies with good food.
Larry's Placemat. You can't see it, but the word family is made out of stick figures for each one of us in black pen.
Just a few things I'm thankful for....living in the USA, sunshine, palm trees, holidays, my home, my eyesight, a living prophet, temples, my husband and children, food, music, and a healthy body. (not necessarily in that order)

Tierra's placemat. The boys thought it was funny she only drew food. She is thankful for more than food, but she was literally thinking of a "dinner" placemat and of course she likes drawing. While making these we reflected back to when she was between the age of about 8 and 11 she used to always come home from church and go to her room and work for hours making crafts for her aunts, uncles, grandma, grandpa and cousins to take up to Sunday dinner. She'd pass out bookmarks, or little books, or pictures she'd drawn of them. She spent a lot of time and effort making sure no one was left out. I think her uncle David appreciated them the most.

Hudson is thankful for a healthy body, being smart, school, loving parents, friends cause without them he'd be lonely and sports.

Parks is thankful for his trampoline and that he can jump, his good handwriting, that he can see, and that he can play basketball, for "Halloween and Christmas and stuff like that" and water. (the square things were his attempt at drawing a tramp. so I showed him how and then he drew the black circle with the springs coming out.) And he was so proud that he knew how to spell "See" by himself. It was one of his first words he learned to read I think.

Logan said he was thankful for trampolines and his "writing hands" copying Parks of course. He is also thankful for Dawsons house and Dawson, for footballs, basketballs, baseballs and bats and tigers and "awesome dudes", meaning his action figures and every toy he plays with.

I'm thankful for friends sharing their ideas with me and teaching my kids new and wonderful things.