Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We had a lovely day with a traditional dinner over at Grandma Liisa's house. The girls especially had a great time - they played and played and played.

This post is about what we did earlier in the day, though!

A few years back, I was trying to tell Maisie about Thanksgiving and the idea of thankfulness. Turns out it's kind of abstract, and was a little difficult for her to grasp. So I stole an idea from some friends - to make the idea of 'thankfulness' more tangible for her, we'd do something to demonstrate it. We made cookies for the firefighters at the station nearest our house!

So now, every year on Thanksgiving morning, that's what we do - make cookies and then bring them to the firefighters at the station house nearest us, to say "thank you for helping to keep us safe." We've had mixed results with this project. Sometimes Maisie will get shy, and doesn't want to talk to anyone; one year the firefighters were out on a call when we got there. But this year it was a home run.

When we showed up with the cookies (oatmeal-M&M, if you were wondering), the firefighters there (yay!), and Maisie and Ella were both in great moods. So when the firefighter who answered the door asked the girls if they wanted to see the trucks, they said YES!

And THEN! The doors to the two engines were open. And when the girls asked if they could go inside, she said yes!



yeah, that's a sword....

 They climbed in and out and all over, asking lots of great questions. What is this hose for? (sucking up exhaust when we turn the trucks on) What's in there? (our tools - we can cut someone out of anything with these) What do these switches do? (controls the pressure for the hose) The firefighter showing us around was incredibly patient and answered all of the girls' questions.



Listening to explanations of equipment



Looking at how they open the garage doors


The firefighters were super friendly. They really seemed to appreciate the cookies and were so gracious about showing the girls around. They even gave the girls fire safety coloring books when we were leaving! It was so cool. I thought it was neat, too, that the firefighter who answered the door and showed us around was a woman - often we see "firefighter" as synonymous with "fireman" and that isn't the case!

It was so fun that Maisie wants to make them cookies again on Valentine's Day. :)

And because it bears repeating... thank you, Minneapolis Fire Department and fire departments everywhere, for helping keep us safe!