30 DAYS OF GRATITUDE.... HOPE YOU WILL JOIN ME

Here is my little gratitude idea for our family. We have done this on/off for 5 years now and every year I love it more. Every day there is a little something to be thankful for and just for these 30 days we try to really focus on these. This is my favorite thing to do each year and you know by reading my blog that the little things are what's BIG and makes me HAPPY!! To be honest the kids aren't always thrilled about this and don't like cutting out all the leaves but I'm hoping by keeping this tradition they will appreciate it when they are older and can pass it to their kids.

The way we do this is by cutting out all these leaves that I drew with a stencil and putting them in a jar. Everyday at dinner we think about what we are thankful for and write it down and tape it to the door. If we have more then one we use more leaves then, this is always a good thing. So by the end of the month our door is filled with gratitude and love and special memories. What I will do at the end is put them all in an envelope and include it in my project life album.

For the month of November my photos for Project Life will be of what I'm thankful for that day. This is what I did last year and it was so heartwarming to do this and really made me slow down and look for these moments. Last year I posted pretty daily on these photos, this year I'm not sure yet. If they aren't up daily they will go up weekly.

I have one special friend who also does a 30 days of gratitude and will be jumping in with her to post about this every week. She is encouraging others to do this in any way they want. So many ideas are out there, a journal, photos, digital, turkey's, tree's, anything goes with this project. It will be so exciting to see everyone's ideas and what they find everyday to be thankful for. I have a link to her blog and this special project and will try to have it on the right side tonight or tomorrow. Her blog is inspiring and warm which always feels my heart with joy and a smile to my face.

I do plan on keeping my Project Life thankful photos different from my thankful leaves. I figure the photos are of things I see everyday and the leaves will be the things maybe I can't take pictures of or of things from my past or gestures from my kids or others. Even with all this my creative side is calling out to do a artsy journal too, not sure if I can handle all 3 of these but we will see.

SO HOW ABOUT IT, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN THE FUN??? DO YOU WANT TO SLOW DOWN YOUR DAYS AND LOOK FOR THINGS THAT FILL YOUR HEART WITH JOY AND NOTICE THE THINGS IN YOUR LIFE TO BE THANKFUL FOR AND TO HAVE GRATITUDE FOR ALL THAT WE TAKE FOR GRANTED. YOU CAN DO THIS ANY WAY YOU WANT, MAKE IT BIG OR SIMPLE. I HOPE YOU WILL WANT TO SHARE WITH US. LEAVE ME A COMMENT IF YOU ARE AND EVEN IF YOU AREN'T.

We will start on November 1st and go to the last day. The leaves on the door in my photo are just to give you an idea how it will look, the real ones will be on Tuesday. If you have already done these in the past or something like this please share those ideas too.

My biggest THANK YOU is to all of you for being a friend and even though we have never met you all touch a part of my life and have a part of my heart. All of you are so sweet, positive, supportive, inspiring, fun, sweet, generous AMAZING BLOG FRIENDS A GIRL COULD WISH FOR. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing so much of yourselves with me.

But until then HAVE A HAPPY, FUN, SPOOKY, SAFE HALLOWEEN!!