Ready, Set, It’s Thanksgiving | Easy Ways to Give Thanks

This post is sponsored by BabbleBoxx.com.

In school children are making thankful trees and singing songs about appreciation. They are wearing their handmade turkey headbands home and many are sharing what they’ve learned about the pilgrims. But with the business of the season in full swing, it’s easy for the adults to get lost in  grocery shopping, cooking , cleaning for guests and so much more without taking the time to really stop and appreciate all the same magic we remember from our childhoods. Ready, set, it’s Thanksgiving…and I’m making an effort to stop and show appreciation with easy ways to give thanks this week. We have beautiful hosting ideas from Edible Arrangements and Sipp Sparkling, gifts for your favorite cocktail enthusiast friends from Clean Cocktails, and even something special for your favorite pets from Solid Gold Pet and a donation to local animal shelters with Petlanthropy.

This year has been eventful for us. Our eight year old daughter is thriving as the SeaWorld kid blogger and a competitive rock climber. Her two year old sister is the funniest toddler I’ve ever observed in public and loves an audience making me feel like the luckiest mom in the middle of a daily sitcom. We moved into a new home and while it might sound funny, didn’t have any ER visits this entire year – quite an accomplishment from a family with two very busy and active children. 

family photo by Madyson Floyd 2017 | Instagram: @from_a_moms_perspective

Our family and health isn’t all we have to be thankful for this year. Thanksgiving is always a great time to reflect on all the wonderful relationships the year has brought. Because we just moved into a new home we have an entire new neighborhood to be grateful for. This brought us so much to appreciate – a different space, new parks, a community center, a beautiful Arizona mountain view, and the best neighbors I could have ever imagined. I wake up everyday feeling so thankful for the decision we made to sell our home and how it all fell together and placed us where we are today.

And with every year, we’re feeling extra thankful for our pets too. Our animal loving daughters always seem to add one or two and this year we gained a leopard tortoise. Our dog, two cats and hedgehog make up a great crew of pets that give us plenty of reasons to feel grateful this holiday season. 

Feeling all those warm and fuzzies is nice but I’m teaching my daughters the importance of making sure we make others feel good too. It might be as simple as a handwritten card, framed photo or baked goods – this week I found easy ways to give thanks.

Easy Ways to Give Thanks

for the host + friends

We’re big fans of Edible Arrangements having both received and gifted their beautiful fruit arrangements previously. The edible gifts are full of artistic and yummy creations that are stunning centerpieces for the holidays. We received a Salted Caramel Harvest Bouquet™ with Orange Swizzle Berries® just in time for a busy week and shared the fruit with friends when we were invited to a dinner. The large bouquet was filled with Salted caramel apple wedges, chocolate dipped strawberries with festive orange Swizzle®, playful pineapple leaves, a chocolate covered pineapple “apple” and an assortment of grapes, strawberries and cantaloupe. The keepsake pumpkin container can be used again making it a perfect gift for a hosting friend or investment for yourself. 

Edible Arrangements can be ordered through 11/22 for Thanksgiving week delivery and make an excellent alternative to Thanksgiving desserts if you find yourself in a time crunch and can’t bake all the pies you had originally planned.

The salted caramel apple wedges were a guest favorite but I was happy to see all the children eating the grapes, strawberries and cantaloupe at the neighborhood dinner where we shared the arrangement.

Use these codes now through 11/22 for discounts on your Edible Arrangements Thanksgiving orders:

• THANK17 for $10 OFF $39+ ($49 for CA)
• FEAST for $20 OFF $99+

Edible Arrangements on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter 

If you’re having guests over this week or might have an unexpected visitor, keep your home well stocked with nice drink options like Sipp Sparkling Mojo Berry, the non alcoholic sparkling organic drink and cocktails from the Clean Cocktails for the Modern Mixologist recipe book. Both also make great gifts for friends because Sipp is an excellent mixer for cocktails too.

Clean Cocktails for the Modern Mixologist recipe book by Beth Ritter Nydick and Tara Roscioli brings a clean-living mindset to craft mixology. Our new neighborhood has an excellent balance of friends that appreciate healthy living and excellent clean cocktails so I already have a few friends in mind to gift this beautiful book. The recipes use low calorie spirits and even include recipes for natural syrups.

There’s a long list of tasty cocktails from the book for a Thanksgiving meal but I’m pretty sure the Pie Shooter will bring you back to my house for more than just the pumpkin pie this week.

Clean Cocktails recipe book on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Twitter 

A good non alcoholic sparkling organic drink is always nice to have on hand. Especially if that drink doubles up as the perfect mixer for cocktails for friends that want to mix a great cocktail. Sipp Sparkling Organic Drink is available in six different flavors and tastes great chilled served with your Thanksgiving meal or mixed with a favorite cocktail. We really enjoyed the Mojo Berry variety with just the right amount of sweetness from blackberry, mint & lime flavor.

Sipp Sparkling Organic Drink on Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

for pets

Our pets bring so much joy to our family. We give them extra love and show appreciation everyday but it’s nice to be able to give them Thanksgiving themed treats this week too from Solid Gold Pet. Because we are big supporters of giving back to local animal shelters, this week is a great time to do something nice for those less fortunate pets that haven’t found their forever families quite yet. With Petlanthropy, you can gift a donation card so an animal lover you know can give a donation to their favorite animal shelter or you can easily go online yourself to make a donation on behalf of your own family.

We adopted our cat Toby four years ago and he is the sweetest and biggest cuddly cat in our house. Our other cat, Delilah, is not very friendly so Toby gets plenty of attention from our daughters. Food is his love language and he is a big fan of Solid Gold Tropical Blendz™ Pate with Coconut Oil. The grain and gluten free wet cat food with turkey is the perfect Thanksgiving meal for Toby this week!

Our Siberian Husky is loving her new Solid Gold Superfoods Chewy Dog Treats with Turkey. The grain free dog treats are natural and combine turkey, sweet potatoes and cinnamon to deliver a texture, aroma and taste that are a nutrient-dense reward for dogs of all sizes.

Save on your next purchase with discounts at Solid Gold Pet.

Solid Gold Pet on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Adopting from local animal shelters is an initiative we support and it’s heartbreaking to know how many pets never get to find their forever homes. Petlanthropy donation gift cards bring needed care,
lifesaving and smiles to beautiful local homeless cats, kittens, puppies and dogs in need. My eight year old daughter is the SeaWorld kid blogger and cares very much about animals. This year when Hurricane Harvey devastated the Texas area, team members from SeaWorld San Diego helped facilitate transferring animals in need of a home from Texas to the Helen Woodward Animal Center in San Diego. Because of our involvement with SeaWorld and the incredible efforts they make to help animals everyday, we are using our Petlanthropy donation gift card to donate to the Helen Woodward Animal Center.

Toby appreciates the donation very much and has decided he needs to sleep with the donation card!

Petlanthropy on Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

What are you grateful for this year and how do you plan to easily give thanks this week?