Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

We have been having some Thanksgiving fun the past couple of weeks! I feel like every store has completely skipped over this holiday, and I haven't seen any crafts, decorations, etc. for Thanksgiving; it's Christmas everywhere already. But, I like to make a point of celebrating Thanksgiving before we move on to the Christmas season. Thanksgiving is such a great holiday, not at all about presents or candy, just about being thankful and spending time with family and friends. Earlier in the month, I pulled a branch off of a tree and throughout the past few weeks, we have been adding leaves to our "thankfulness tree". Of course, the girls often name the same things over and over, which is why our tree doesn't have quite as many leaves as it should, but it's a great opportunity to talk to them about being grateful for everything we are blessed to have and to talk about how we can help those who are in need.

Elle in her Thanksgiving shirt, which I thought was perfect for her!

In addition to the "thankfulness tree", Elle and I found some really fun turkey-themed activities online, and we decided to have a couple of her friends over for a playdate. We didn't get to do all the activities we had planned, so I'm sure we will do some more this week, but the girls had a great time, especially since one of the games included a treasure hunt (basically, I took pictures of different things in the house, and they would find the spot in the picture to get their next clue) that ended with a scented chapstick for each girl. I didn't take pictures of everything we did at the playdate and this week, but we did some turkey math activities (inspiration for lots of great turkey activities found here), colored turkey pictures, made apple-turkeys (inspiration found here):

Lauren, holding her baby while making her turkey--this girl LOVES her baby dolls!

Elle told me she was making a porcupine with hers.

And played pin the feather on the turkey (printables for all the signs and this game found here):

And finally, a picture of Elle before Parents' Day Out on Thursday (they had a lunch date with their dads, hence the shirt, even though it's a little small, and she was soo excited. Elle loved having her daddy all to herself at lunch time, and when I asked her what it was like, she simply said "I gave daddy lots of kisses and hugs."):