Oh her site,  Grandma Lizzie shared the idea of a gratitude table runner. She gets a long piece of butcher paper.  Then, family members make a turkey by tracing around their hand.  In each finger, they write what they were thankful for. This is used as a table decoration.  (You know, if you don’t visit Grandma Lizzie’s website, you are missing out on some fabulous ideas!!!  She is one creative Grandma!)

I loved the idea and thought I would give it a whirl.  Since our children will be visiting their in-laws this Thanksgiving, we had a Thanksgiving meal with them on Saturday.  Yummy, yummy food!

Afterward, we did a modified gratitude table runner.  It was a . . . a . . . a . . .  square piece of paper!

Natalie loved taking all of the colored pencils out of the box.  She even colored a bit.  Simon loved picking up the pencils, looking at them, dropping them, picking them up, looking at them, dropping them — rinse and repeat.  Spencer was great at tracing his hand and coloring.  Kaylissa was great at being a darling little girl!

I wanted to have a picture of the finished product.  As you can see by looking at this picture, Spencer and Natalie were patient with the picture taking process.  Kaylissa was enthralled with her toes.  And Simon, well, Simon needed a nap. Bless his little heart.

Now For Big Things Coming!

 
I will be having a couple of giveaways during the next two weeks.  You might want to check back often to see what they are.  You could win something cool that you could give to a grandchild for Christmas!  If you are interested in the giveaway, be sure to leave a comment on that posting!

Before I share the idea that I got from Grandma Mary, I need to give you some background information.  Many, many years ago, Mary (before she was a grandmother) asked me to be the back up piano player and the synthesizer player and the player of elegant rhythm instruments (i.e. cloppers) for her singing group.  She had faith in me.  Highly misplaced, but faith nevertheless.  I managed to squeak by without embarrassing the group too much by my brilliant musical inability.

I left the group after being with them for about five years.  Time marched on.  I developed wrinkles, flabby arms, gray hair, Alzheimer’s, tinnitus, and a propensity to be the same miserable musician that I was in days of yore.

Recently, Mary called.  Will you join the group for one last Christmas season?

She  must have Alzheimer’s, too, and can’t remember just how bad I played.  Or else she is extremely desperate.  I think it’s a case of both.  I acquiesced.  (For you non-logophiles, that means regardless of all of my failings and lack of musical ability, I said yes.  Seems like I have the inability to say no when I know better . . .)

Come to find out, Mary expects me not only to play the synthesizer and rhythm instruments, but she needs me to sing with them.  Can’t she remember that a chicken with a sore throat sings better than me?  And if singing isn’t bad enough, I have to do dance steps and make elegant motions with my flabby arms.  She doesn’t expect much from this old geezer, now does she?

That brings me to what I wanted to share today.  (If I had an editor, she would have made me delete the 197 words that I just wrote.  I’m rather glad I don’t have an editor.  Rather.)

Mary is a grandmother and has a grundle of grandchildren.  I can’t remember how many she has.  It’s that Alzheimer’s thing, ya know.

Anyway, as the singing group practiced in her family room, I noticed a village of cowboys and Indians off to one side of the room.  It happened to be an activity that she did with her grandchildren at her grandma camp earlier this year.  (Seems like grandmas everywhere are having grandma camp!)  Maybe after the holiday season and after all of the musical performances that we have, I will take time to talk to Grandma Mary to get more of her ideas of what she did at her grandma camp so that I can share them here!

I whipped out my iPhone and took some pictures because I think this would be a fun activity to do with grandchildren for Thanksgiving Day. (I haven’t taken the time to fix them up in Photoshop to make them better.  Oh well.  You still get the idea.)

For the Indian teepees, her grandchildren tied string around the end of three sticks and then hot-glued them to a cardboard base.  They cut half circles out of brown paper grocery bags, glued them over the sticks and then decorated the teepee.

For the covered wagon, the wagon was a milk carton spray painted brown with a white strip of paper glued on as the ‘cover.’  Mary got wooden wheels at the craft store and then cut dowel sticks and jute string for the tongue and yoke of the wagon.

The granddaughters made handkerchief dolls.  The large piece of material was draped over a Styrofoam ball with yarn tied around the neck area.  Yarn was attached for the hair.

Now, I know that this is more of a ‘pioneer’ activity.  But at least you could use the Indian part as a Thanksgiving activity with your grandchildren.

Have any of you created any Indian-and-Pilgrim things like this with your grandchildren?

P.S.  Here is a fun idea for turkey cupcakes.  Cute, cute, cute!  Oh, and a fun table setting for children.  (Maybe I’ll do this for the ‘adult’ table so I won’t have to worry about fine linen table cloths and lovely centerpieces.

After reading the title to this post and, for those of you who know that on a scale of one to ten (with ten being outta this world spectacular) that my crafting ability ranks a minus one hundred, you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking, “Yeah, right!”

But it is true.  These crafts are easy to do.  At least it looks like it to me.   (Haven’t tried them — yet!)

I just discovered a great site that shows how to do Fall Leaf Decor.

Then, there is the Corn Table Crafts. This was my favorite.

They have a very short video that demonstrates these easy crafts AND written directions.  Sweet.

They have ideas for all holidays, for birthday parties, for entertaining, for food, for kids, baby showers, and even an article about how to handle an annoying relative.  (Note to my relatives: please read this article.  Then, you will know how to handle me . . .)

What is this site?

I thought that you’d never ask.  It’s Holidash.  (Isn’t that a clever name?)  When you go there, make sure you have plenty of time to browse.  It could be a time sucker a place to get lots of good ideas.

What are some of the activities you plan on doing with your grandchildren this Thanksgiving?

Saturday, we were up at 3:00 a.m. to get to the Orlando airport for our trip back home.  Somewhere along the way, my brain totally forgot about this give away.  (Could it have been the lack of sleep?  Could it be the Valium induced stupor?  Me thinks it was both . . .)

Anyway . . .

Congratulations go out to Pamela for winning the Carus Publishing give away of one of their discovery or mini packs.  If you will contact me and let me know which packet you would like, I will get that information passed along to the fine folks at Carus Publishing.  (I liked your comment about being thankful for libraries.  I, too, am grateful for them!  It sure is a lot cheaper on the budget to check out books than to buy them!)

(What can I learn from this experience?  Wait until AFTER I come home from traveling to do a give away!!)