Last weekend we held our annual
Coombs Family Back to School Dinner.
Each year at this dinner – we present a NEW Family Motto to our children. Our Family Motto gives us something to FOCUS on throughout the year. It’s also usually something that can be memorized and repeated as needed
{i.e. as encouragement or motivation}.
Our Family Motto is also really good at helping us remember what’s MOST important in life.
The theme we chose for our 2017-18 school year is:
A quote from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf:
{From THIS General Conference talk}
Our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we RISE UP, dust ourselves off and move forward.
We chose to focus this year on the RISE UP part.
We had a RISE & SHINE menu aka breakfast for dinner and the kids LOVED it!
We dined on egg casserole, cinnamon roll casserole, hashbrowns, fruit and lemonade.
At the beginning of our dinner I asked my kids to write down their thoughts on what it means to RISE UP.
We then went around the table and shared our thoughts.
I showed THIS short clip and then Joe and I talked to the kids about how things aren’t always going to go our way {unfortunatley!} and how we have to always RISE UP from disappointment and distraction in life.
Sometimes {ok most of the time} it’s not easy – – but RISING UP makes us stronger. I shared a couple of personal experiences that related to this very topic.
Place settings were super easy and the lemons with everyones names on them served as an object lesson.
I told each of the kids to pick up their lemon and lick it.
Their faces cringed as they did this and I told them that sometimes……life is gonna be sour – just like the lemon.
But…..you know the saying….when life gives you lemons…you make lemonade AND MAKE THE BEST OF IT!
We also talked about the sunrise.
No matter how bad our days and nights may sometime seem….the sun will ALWAYS rise the next day. And that should bring us HOPE!
Just like the sun RISES UP – – so should we!
Great blessings come from RISING UP and doing our best!
At each place setting I had a brown paper polka dot bag and inside of each bag was a set of vinyl for my kids.
The sun = RISE
The arrow = UP
I had the kids each pick a folder or notebook from their school supply stash to put our motto onto.
This way….they’ll have a small reminder each day of what our family motto is for the year.
I also made 2 {slightly} larger sizes for our home…
One for their bathroom mirror to see every morning and night and one for our refrigerator door.
It was such a great evening.
My kids truly look forward to these dinners. They always have fun guessing what our new theme will be each year.
I feel so blessed to be able to teach these sweet children of mine alongside of my husband. I know that things won’t always go their way and sometimes…they might not make the choices in life that I want them to. I do however, pray with all my heart that they’ll always remember these basic principles that we teach them in our home – – and I hope that that will carry them thru life.
Afterall:
“The way we talk to our children, becomes their inner voice.”
-Peggy O’Mara
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DETAILS:
You can purchase my RISE UP banner in my Etsy shop HERE.
You can purchase my RISE UP SUN + ARROW decals in my Etsy shop HERE.
You can download a FREE printable of our RISE UP quote HERE.
Thank you very much for such great ideas… I can't wait to use it for my very first back to school dinner with my husband and children and hope to make this a tradition… Love it so much.
I look for this every year. Thank you so much for sharing your amazing ideas!
Oh this is beautiful and such a wonderful reminder. I absolutely love it x