Give Thanks. I mean it.

I'm preparing to host Thanksgiving again this year. Of course, everyone's invited.

I love traditions. But what I love more is making them my own.

I had a vision. I wanted to hang a giant banner that read, "Give Thanks" that would be the first thing you saw when you walked into our freakishly small cottage-like home.

I tried to enlist all the kids to help, but Lucy was busy and Jon was going out and wait a second...when did they get to be "that" age? *sigh*

But my daughter, Amy Kikita was available and willing, but she had one small problem.

"I hate banners, Mom."

Me: "Shut up. I know. We're going to paint the letters and it's going to be fantastic." (Of course, what I meant by "we" was "I really want you to do this, because I have a dozen other things to do," but that's not important right now.)

She was totally on board with the whole painting-the-letters thing, which was awesome.

We bought the wooden letters at the local Hobby Lobby. They're about 9 inches tall. We chose a copper metallic paint because that way it would catch the light a little.

It was a cold day, so after we painted each letter, we set them outside to dry.We spent the day painting and chatting and catching up with life and admiring our work.

At one point, she exclaimed, "Mom, you don't have the right letters!"

Wait, what?

Not. Funny.

(Okay, maybe a little bit funny...)

Once the letters were dry, we used our trusty Never-Ending Twine^® and attached the letters with staples on the back. Almost immediately we hit a glitch.

Shut up. It's not as easy as it looks, okay?

The final signage weighs about 4 lbs. and is about 10 feet across. And it looks spectacular.

I love it so much. I may just leave it up for most of the year. Because, I don't know about you, but I need to be reminded that Giving Thanks should really be, not just an every November occurence, but a good habit to practice every single day.

Thanks, Amy. From the bottom of my heart.