Family theme Night 3- 2016

Back to school dinner #3
The past 2 years we have done a family theme night after the October general conference opposed to a back to school dinner because our kids where only in preschool. With Eli starting Kindergarten this year (sniff sniff *sigh*) we decided to switch to the back to school dinner timeline. I along with so many others got the idea from blogger Stephine Clark Neilson.
The kid got so excited, our family theme dinners are the only times we ever eat in the formal dinning room, which we ordinarily use as a formal living room. haha. I strung pictures from over the years on a wall for us to look back on, the kids went crazy helping with the balloons and gold confetti! The star garlands that I hung throughout the room where from the baby shower my sister did for me in April.

This year our theme was taken from the April general conference talk by Elder Uchdorft our theme is "begin with hope" with so many new things this year it seemed appropriate. Also as I read the book for Mormon in less then 90 day (a ward challenge) I noticed many times the emphasis Mormon , and Moroni put on faith hope and charity.
This years menu was:
Ceaser Salad
Fresh grapes and Pears
Corn
Pan fried sweet potatoes
Yummy Chicken

Chocolate toffee layer cake
(it was delicious, for real)

we had a blast decorating- the kids helped too.
We served the meal in courses and between courses we introduced the family theme and discussed it.
As a special gift for each of the boys we gave them a set of scriptures with a case and our testimony written in the front. We had a few sweet moments with the boys, short ones.


After dinner and dessert we took a few pictures as per tradition.

Family Theme for next 6 months

Remember last year when we started a great new tradition as a family. We started by choosing a family theme from Octobers general conference, we have had it posted in our house and we worked on memorizing it.

For the last six months we focused on that theme.

We celebrated by having a very special family dinner / evening, with games and discussions...

We choose to do a new theme from each conference. This spring has been busier and we took longer to choose or theme but we have chosen it!

We loved many talks but with prayerful consideration for our family and needs right now we have choose a quote from , The Plan of Happiness By President Boyd K. Packer

I love the whole talk. We have listened to it countless times.

The family theme we have chosen:

"The greatest reward we have received in this life, and the life to come, is our 

Children and our grandchildren"

We will have our special dinner this week.

Our family theme night

***As you all know I am using a very old (like 2006) old point and shoot camera so please excuse the horrible picture quality!***

This year in keeping with our big goals we are trying to make a deeper sense of tradition and intentional living.

So we decided that during general conference we would take special note of any talks that we thought would be great overall theme and guidance for our family.

The week after conference Mitchell and I read a few of the talks that had stood out to us together.  Mitchell prayerfully picked the quote and we made a few goals directly from the talk and that will be out family theme (and goals) for the next 6 months until the next general conference when we will do it again.

It was really special to put so much more preparation into general Conference then we had previously done. We fasted and wrote questions and discussed things before conference weekend. We really did have many wonderful answers to questions on different levels: personal, as a couple and as a family. 

I am so grateful for General Conference!

So the FHE 8 days after conference (so the next week basically) we had a VERY special family night planned.

we had a very small decorating budget so I made all of the hurricanes and candle holders with supplies from the dollar tree- an di got the napkins and napkin rings on clearance from Target. The candles are the all natural bees wax candles I made this week! (except the green pillar candle that's from target 2 years ago)

The cute glitter pumpkins are also upgraded dollar tree finds, 1 cheep pumpkin+ Elmer's glue+glitter= 1 really cute not-so-cheep looking pumpkin (and a really big mess in my kitchen)

I borrowed my mom’s folding table and turned the front sitting room into a formal dining room and decorated everything beautifully. I love decorating things beautifully! It’s so my favorite!

The kids helped me we made a leaf garland and made a huge banner with all our hand prints and we even covered pumpkins and clothes pins with glitter! The kids had so much fun just decorating it made the whole day feel like a special holiday!

I printed out a huge poster of the quote we had picked.

We made a very special dinner and I served it in courses, which was fun for me and it’s nice to teach the kids about more formal table manners. (I went through a phase when I was a teenager-and then again a few years ago- when I looked up alto of things to learn more about table manners and serving manners and such). So I served in courses and that we a great with the kids because normally they can only handle being at the table for 10 min total but the way I set it up had everyone eating together since I served only one thing at a time. (Also all the veggies got eaten)

Menu:

Cheese tray with figs and lentil crackers (served on my great grandmothers crystal dishes)

Clove infused pears in cream

Veggies- these ended up being peas and carrots since that what the kids voted for

Chicken Masala with penne

 Dessert- Apple crisp with toasted pecans

After the appetizers and before the main course we (Mitch and I) got up and talked with the kids about the family theme and about our goals, Then all the kids cheered -We are the cheering Hooray!-kind-of-family. 

Dinner went smoothly so nicely that I forgot to take pictures. And then after dinner we headed into the other room for some fun fall themed minuet to win it games.

We tried to stack apple and cups and we created a tower of cups and played a bowling game (the ball was a gold painted Styrofoam pumpkin). And we blew our cups with straws...

Then for a finale Mitchell put on a juggling show with apples and we all tried to juggle as well. So the apples got quite bruised which is why we planned on apple crisp. 

 Around bedtime i realized i had not gotten pictures so we sat down and took some!

 The whole day was just so much fun! we all enjoyed ourselves and felt in the end that we had just had the  first of many hill family holidays!

The design of the theme was just made by me playing on picmonkey!

(PS thank you mom for lending us your folding table-not only was it great for dinner but it was the best hiding spot for hide and go seek which we all played before bed!)