Happy Thanksgiving!!

I know I've been terrible at posting lately, but I did want to wish everyone out there a happy Thanksgiving. I know that I personally have much to be thankful for and I have definitely been blessed. In teaching about Thanksgiving with my Kindergarteners last week, I realized that even 5-year-olds can understand thankfulness and truly think about the things they are thankful for. We were making a thinking map about Thanksgiving and writing the things we knew about it. We talked about turkey - and how everyone (usually) eats it at their big meal, a feast - they know it is when lots of people come together and eats lots of food, Pilgrims and Indians/Native Americans and how they had the first Thanksgiving, how it is a time to get together with family and friends, all the food that is typical at a Thanksgiving meal, and much more. But then, one of my students asked if we could make a thinking map about the things we are thankful for - yes, I was shocked - not only because I was already planning on doing that, but because that meant they were thinking about thankfulness and what it means! It was awesome. Here are some things they said:
-family, specifically Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, (and my favorite, babies)
-dogs and cats
-turkeys (HAHA)
-friends
-school and our teachers, learning
-toys, games
-playground/park
-God
-clothes, shoes
-bed
-house
-love
I was impressed, and even more grateful that I felt like they had actually listened to me when I had previously talked about thankfulness. What a blessing those kids are to me! Some are a struggle, and there are some days that I just don't want to go to work, but I really do love them - they mean so much to me.

In other news, I am a homeowner! I closed on my house on Monday. I started cleaning and taping on Wednesday to prepare for my wonderful girlfriends that are (hopefully) coming to help me paint on Friday. I've got the paint for my bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, den, and laundry room, as well as white for some closets that need a new coat of paint, so there is LOTS of painting to do. I also have colors picked out for the rest of the house, but decided that I didn't want to be overwhelmed with too many paint cans. In working on various things throughout the house, I have decided to purchase a new fridge which means pulling out some cabinets and moving them, so that will be a setback to painting the kitchen, but oh well... life will go on. It feels like everything is coming together, and hopefully, I won't lose too many weekends in December and I'll be able to move in shortly after Christmas. We shall see! No worries, I took pictures before I did anything, so I'll be posting before and after pictures after it is all said and done.

I sincerely hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving - eat lots and remember to tell the people you love that you are thankful they are a part of your life. I pray that God will bless you and your family on this wonderful day.