Disclosure: Some of these links will pay me a small percentage of any purchase made when clicking them at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting Crafty Moms Share! Can you believe it is already Black Friday? Do you know why today is called Black Friday? Traditionally this is the day stores would finally show a profit for the year or they would be in the black instead of the red (loss). Can you imaging running a store for almost the entire year in a loss? In honor of Black Friday I thought I would give you some suggestions as places to shop or at least some of our favorite places to shop. A few of these are affiliate links and will provide me with a small payment if you shop there, but most are just places I find amazing and want to let you know about them. Next week I will do a post on our favorite things from our reviews this year with gift suggestions for people of all ages!!
This year for Thanksgiving I thought I would share what I am truly thankful for this year. It has been quite a year with many changes in my life as well as my family's. In many way this post is my own reflection or journal entry, but there are many things that I have been thinking about sharing here, so it is the perfect time to do it. The first thing I am thankful for this year is my family. We have had a tough year with the choice to pull Hazel from her school in April and homeschool her for the rest of the school year. Then finding a new school for this year. Can I just tell you what a difference finding the right school makes? She wants to go to school now. It is not a fight every morning to get her moving and to school. In fact she gets upset if we are running late. Within this great choice also came new friends for Hazel. This has been huge for her. Her classmates are supportive and caring. They are not competing and putting her down like her previous ones. The entire school is full of people who are more down to earth and caring. The environment is homier. It is a wonderful place for her and I love visiting the school and helping out there. The next thing I am thankful for is my family and how we made the choice for me to quit my job at Paper Source. I loved my job there. It was truly my happy place, however due to a staff shortage my hours increased to a level I could not keep up with my family responsibilities. I have worked almost every weekend since June and I just couldn't continue that and be the mother and wife I want to be. I am thankful that I can stay at home and be the mother and wife I want to be without really worrying about finances. Let's face it everyone tends to have some struggle, but I know we will be fine without me working. I feel so blessed because of knowing that. I am also thankful for my sisters, parents and mother-in-law. I love how close they are with Hazel. Hazel's favorite thing is to be with family. She truly loves them all and wishes she could see them more. I love how excited she gets to see each of them. I am also thankful for you, my readers. I love having this place to share our activities, favorite books and products and ideas. I hope you enjoy them as well. And for now I wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving!!
I hope you are enjoying our Fun Facts Series and especially our special part of Who Was at the "First" Thanksgiving. Today we are looking at Captain Myles Standish. See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Have you been following our Fun Facts series? We started last week looking at a special spin off of "Who was at the first Thanksgiving?" Be sure to check out our Fun Facts about William Bradford, Edward Winslow, Massasoit, and Squanto. Today I thought I would share about one of the "Strangers" as the "Saints" referred to them. But this Stranger family had quite the reputation in Plymouth. I am going to share about John Billington and his family. Eleanor Billington was one of the five married women who were alive for the first Thanksgiving.
Disclosure: I was sent these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. With Thanksgiving this week, I feel like autumn is slowly slipping away. It is funny since I feel like it just began due to the warm weather we had for much of it. Of course it feels a bit like we went from summer to winter and skipped it all together. Plus the trees did not like the weather and never really turned as beautiful as they usually do. Today I am sharing three picture books with you. The first one is not actually an autumn book but with the shorter days I always think about lanterns and lights during this time of year. It is I Have a Little Lantern by Gan Dayong.
