Hi there, friends!

Are you so glad to have Fancy Little Things back in your inbox? (or reader…or facebook feed…or, or, or) I know I am! I cannot even begin to tell you how hard the powers that be worked to get us back up and running.  I am so incredibly grateful for their devotion to this little site of ours, and I’m grateful to have the honor of writing here.

Speaking of gratitude…

It’s hard. It doesn’t always come naturally, and sometimes it can be hard to find things to be grateful for. Our daughter is 4, and we’re still doing more prompting than we would like to get those “Thank You”s. I want gratitude to be all over our day. It’s a discipline, and it is a habit worth working on. We’ve started working on it pretty hard at our house, and part of that is our gratitude jar.

What you need:

• glass jar
• glass decorative stones
• a container for the stones, in this case, a paper mache box

I got everything at Hobby Lobby for less than $9. (Use your coupon, people!)

How it works:

Every time someone expresses gratitude, they get to put a stone in the jar. Mama, Daddy, Abbey, anyone! When the jar is full, we get to do something special as a family. For this round Abbey chose a family picnic at the park. I’ve seen plenty of gratitude jars where you write down what you are thankful for, but Abbey’s not quite there with her handwriting, so this works for us. It’s pretty, too, so that’s fun! Since we just started we are kind of going over the top with the gratitude and finding all sorts of silly things to be grateful for, but really…is that a bad thing? I don’t think so.

The rules:

• No proxy stones. Yes, I’m sure Owen is thankful for his sweet potatoes, but until he can say it himself, no stones for him. Yes, I’m sure Noni would be thankful for our yummy dinner, but she’s not here tonight, so no stone for her. (we had a lot of this in the first few days, haha!)
• Gratitude must be shown through words and actions. Saying you are thankful for school, then whining and fussing through the whole morning does not earn you a stone. Stones for activities come at the END of a successful activity.
• Stones cannot be taken away. Poor behavior now does not negate previous gratitude, but it certainly doesn’t get you any closer to the goal.

We’ve been going for about  a week now and we already have 2 full layers of stones in the jar. I’m hoping that by creating a little extra incentive Abbey is being more aware of the things she is thankful for, and becoming more intentional about saying so. To be completely honest, there have been times that we get to the end of the day and realize that no one has added any stones to the jar. Yikes! We’re all practicing! I think a little extra gratitude around here will do as all a world of good!

How do you encourage gratitude in your home?

Be blessed,

Heather

 

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