Everything Thanksgiving

 THANKFUL POSTER:  Every November I hang a poster in our front room and through the month we write things we are thankful for on it.  When people come to our house, they also get to contribute to the poster.  It was especially great when we hosted a family party and now get to have record of what my extended family is grateful for.  I think I'll start typing up the list each year and then we can read our thoughts from years past.

SALT DOUGH TURKEY HANDPRINTS:  My mother-in-law saw the idea for salt dough hand prints on pintrest and did these with the boys.  I was in need of some more Thanksgiving decorations, so I had S & L paint their's like a turkey instead of Christmasey.

 HEADBAND NAPKIN RINGS:  S & L helped me make these cute and easy decorations for our Thanksgiving feast.  We cut a cardboard paper towel tube into rings and decorated them with crayons and some confetti scraps from another project.  The book also suggested gluing a feather to the ring.  Idea came from "Crafts for Thanksgiving" by Kathy Ross. 

MAKING BUTTER:  These are my little helpers who are shaking the butter as we waited for Thanksgiving dinner.  We opened a carton of whipping cream, added some salt and a marble.  Then taped up the carton really well.  Many muscles were used to shake this cream into butter. What we learned was that the cartons still leak, and one marble is not enough.  So next time, thanks to the suggestion of my sister-in-law we will pour the whipping cream into a pint mason jar with 4-5 marbles and shake. 

KIDS TABLE:  This was our first year of having a kids table at Thanksgiving.  From the "Family Fun" magazine, I found the idea to cover the table with paper and let the kids color during the meal.  We did this, turning Christmas wrapping paper backwards and the kids LOVED it!  So simple.