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!)

Its been a while..

SO i am working on a post that covers all the rest of our summer fun and such but it is taking a while to gather pictures from everyone else and all that jazz.
I want to let all you awesome friends/family know that I sell DoTerra essential oils now!. I have used and loved essential oils for years (since age 15). I was not introduced to DoTerra oils until last year but i LOVE them and I have not found their equal in quality. Don't worry I am not going to make our family blog into a DoTerra thing! I put a link to my site for DoTerra in my side bar and just wanted to let everyone know!.
I needed to do something to help me feel like I do something besides dishes and i love DoTerra Oils and thought hey that might be the something i want.
Anyways the real reason for the post is that Eli started preschool!
not gonna lie i got a little emotional about it.
Okay i got alot emotional about it....
I cried alot
for the several days leading up to the first day
and...
he loved it!
I am so glad that we did this for him! He needed it, he is SO social and it is so important to him to play with friends and run around and learn. I just dont have many friends with kids his age close to our home.
I really like the preschool too, it was recommended to me by one of my good friends who has kids just a few years older then Eli she sent all 3 of her kids there for several years each before kindergarten.
Here he is before his

he was a little nervous walking in but he was great once he recognized his teacher!

first day.
So the first day was a big deal and we had a special evening with him a few days before and gave him a blessing etc he was very grown up about the whole thing and i feel like we are leaving babyness a bit more each day. He didn't even start kindergarten so i didn't think i would be emotional but i was informed by a good friend with several kids that this happened s to every mom almost every year so i guess now i am part of the send children off to first days of school or preschool club.
I have SO much more to write but i have been on the computer alot recently (see the explanation below) and i need to go be mommy!
Also Guess what? Yesterday I made my dads honey business a website and Facebook page! Anyone want honey let us know he just extracted a whole bunch!

Summer Break-Friday

yesterday (Friday) Mitchell and i went on a date!
at 8AM my brother J came to babysit and Mitchell and I headed to Hulls Gulch to go on a hike!
we had an awesome time the loop we took was 6.8 miles and we ended up running about 2 of them (trail running is SO FUN!) we had an amazing time just the 2 of us. after our awesome hike/ trail run we waled around downtown Boise until we found some place to eat (Costa vida-we had a coupon for a free meal!).
M man I loved spending time with you, hiking (especially trail running) with you was my favorite.

This is us trying to take a picture on M's phone while facing the sun. did not work out the best. but still worked

here both of us are trying really hard not to squint our eyes while facing the sun....

yes he is that awesome

and see how awesome i can try to be 

another bridge (the hike had 4 or 5 without water running below it. too late in the summer i guess

And yes i carried the day pack 75 % of the way because i am tough like that- and because then i had prime access to the water bottles....
On our hike we talked about our family goals and theme and the future. It was great. I do love that husband of mine!It felt so good to hike together and talk uninterrupted it was two of my most favorite things ever together! *Happiness sigh*
thanks for the great hike hon, lets do it again really soon ( pretty please).

oh and lest you think we left out our children let me assure you that we did make sure that we did some fun things with the kids last night, like going to that park and pulling them in the wagon and having a BBQ (courtesy of M man) the kids always love eating outside :) .

Note to self

http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/2013/08/back-to-school-feast-2013-14.html
This is a link to one of my favorite bloggers ever! She does this amazing back to school celebration every single year-the note to self is that I should do this! In two years when Eli starts school someone call and remind me!!!!

the food we eat

This week i was able to go to a restaurant with my parents (as i mentioned in the post about Monday) and my aunt uncle, their son my grandpa and my other cousin.Whew- that was a list. The place was a Mexican food restaurant and my uncle watched a bit and then observed that he was quite surprised to see my 22 month old and 3 year old eating SO much salsa. They are generous with salsa on each chip. It surprised me that it surprised him and then we talked about other foods, he is one of those people who does not like spicy things (totally fine i am one of those people who don't like sea food (gasp)). I mentioned curry asking  if he liked that -because it is a different kind of spicy, he doesn't like any kind of spicy.
It occurred to me later that it might be a bit unusual for the average american Idaho raised children to eat so many spicy foods. (unless that is their culture-for example a Mexican family would eat those foods) we all have family cultures we create which is so much fun!
Basically My husband has cilacs's disease (i know most all of you know that) and we (and our doctors) are watching Eli, kayden has been GF since he was tiny. Since 1/2 of our house eats Gluten free we all do. (i don't want to have to worry about cross contamination etc especially since Eli shows some symptoms anyways) Many types of cuisine-like ,ti food, Chinese food and Mexican (not Texan) food are pretty much GF if you make them from scratch. That is because those foods (not always the american way) use things like corn tortillas,and  rice noodles instead of wheat. So my kids probably don't think of curry and salsa as unusually spicy since they have those things all the time.
It was fun to think about and i thought i would put it here, so if any of you see us at a some kind of gathering with food and wonder why we don't try more things that's why.
Pssst- if anyone wants gluten free recipes or something i have some good ones!

Also i did a first yesterday! I helped my mom can apricot jam.
2 years a go i canned cherry pie filling all by myself and last year i helped with tomatoes, freezer jam and fruit mix but i have not yet helped with jam (not in my adult years). It is so pretty!!!

I just think that is SO pretty!

My handsome Eli Boy!!!

This weekend we have a special little occasion planned-its a secret! I am so excited! We have a first coming up too-and you know how much i like firsts!
Also i made a somewhat minuscule but biggish decision a few weeks a go to live more intentionally. It involves so many little decisions about small day to day things, but one of them was a silly thing, along with cleaning out all my closets and getting rid of so many things in my house that i don't use,  or use but don't  like, i got rid of TONS of kids clothes that i just really don't love the style of and last weekend i spent some money (not too much but some) getting each of my kids some new clothes we all like. It was a silly thing but i am so excited! Also we only buy them clothes like once a year when they outgrow EVERYTHING they own (because we don't have much spending money) so it was time anyways.
PS-You guys have got to try this- slice a yellow summer squash longways thinly use it in sandwiches, i made grilled cheese the other day and put the squash right next to the cheese and everyone in my family loved it-the kids didn't even notice-i used Colby jack cheese but i don't think it would matter what kind! Its was so fun to know i got my kids to eat their veggies without them noticing i felt very stealthy!