Our Annual Back to School Dinner: You Are the Hero to Your Own Story

On Sunday we held our annual Back to School Dinner and according to my kids – – this was their FAVORITE one yet!  That made my momma heart so happy.  I really wasn’t sure how London was going to like it, since it wasn’t girly, not even a bit.  But she LOVED it. So much effort goes into making these dinners memorable each and every year…but it really is worth it.  The kids really do seem to love it.

Our theme this year was taken from a recent talk that Elder Uchtdorf gave to the BYU Pathways students.  As soon as I read about it…I just KNEW it was to be our family motto for the year.

You can find the full messsage HERE. I printed out a copy for each family member {it’s only 2 pages} and before our dinner began, we each went into a separate room with a highlighter and read the message alone and highlighted the parts that stood out to us.  Having older kids, makes this part really easy.  It got me thinking about how our Back to School dinners have evolved over the years.  We started doing these when the kids were super little and our message had to be short and sweet.  But now…they’re old enough to dive into the message and really get something out of it.  Makes my heart want to burst a little thinking of how quickly they are growing up!

At each place setting I had an individual carton of POP-corn, an individual frame for their nightstand and then each child got a little gift having to do with the theme.  {More on that at the end of the post}.

With their individual frames…I had each kid take out the paper from the frame, write one of their favorite parts of the message onto it and then put it back into their frame so that they could set it somewhere in their bedroom to remind them of our motto.

I aboslutely LOVED seeing what each child pulled from that talk.  Each one was different.

Oh…and just to make London’s a slight bit ‘girly’….I made her individual printable…with pink and purple letters 😉

The kids LOVED the food.  We had…

True story…as I was preparing for this, I had to ask my husband who the heck ‘Poison Ivy’ was.  I am NOT a big superhero person so this was all sorta new to me, haha!

I made the superhero ‘buildings’ out of boxes wrapped in wrapping paper.  The word art {like, BOOM and ZLING} I found at Hobby Lobby in their party section.  They have a GREAT selection of superhero party stuff.

Each year, we like to give the kids a little present to help them remember our theme with.  The older my kids get, the harder this part gets.  Lucky for me, I found superhero pajama joggers at Walmart for the boys and they actually REALLY liked them!  I had THE hardest time finding London superhero pajamas to match theirs and so I ended up getting her an Anne of Green Gables book to read this year.  I know, Anne is not tehinically considered a superhero BUT….Elder Uchtdorf does talk about her in his message and so I figured it was fair game 😉 Plus…she just finished watching Anne with an E on Netflix {which she ADORED!} and so it was the perfect fit.

I’m offering all of my printables from this dinner for FREE.  Please be sure to tag me on social media if you use them – – I always LOVE seeing what my readers do with them.  And if you do choose this theme….HAVE FUN WITH IT!  It’s such a great motto.  Your kids will love it, I promise!

8×10 Family Motto

5×7 Individual Motto – Pink

5×7 Individual Motto – Blue

Food Labels