Gratitude

I've always struggled with teaching Dash to be grateful for his many gifts. It may, ahem, have a wee bit to do with all the coddling and spoiling and bending to his every whim. But, hell, they're all entitled little turds at this age, aren't they? No? Just mine. Well fine.

Anyway, during this season when gratitude is at the top of everyone's' mind, we decided to do a little something to show those who sacrifice so much for us just how grateful we are.

We live in a severely fire-prone area, and our firefighters work incredibly hard all year long to keep our community safe. So the Dash & the Verlaque kids decided to make them some cupcakes as a way of saying "thanks for not letting us burn alive in our homes!"

We started out with a plan. We had fire hoses made of red licorice ropes and water made from blue sprinkles. We even  had Red Hot candies to serve as the fires (get it? Hot? Like fires? We are hilarious).Well. Things escalated rather quickly. 

Samantha made an American flag as imagined by Lisa Frank.

Lucy was pretty serious about her creations.

Here's the card they made to go with the sugar bombs. Samantha drew that firefighter in his helmet on the front. That's a campfire in the top right corner.

And Lucy did the calligraphy on the inside.

Here it is on display at the station!

And because firefighters are some of the greatest of all the humans, they graciously accepted our terrifying cupcakes and took the kids on a tour.

Look how giddy Josh was!

They even let all the kids try on the suits.

It was such a great day, and such a meaningful way to talk to the kids about thankfulness and giving back. I think we should make it a tradition (maybe with cookies next time, though).