A Royal Feast

This year we had our first annual back to school feast (idea courtesy of nieniedialogues.com).  I chose the theme "Remember Who You Are," and we talked about Abraham 3:22-26 (from The Pearl of Great Price).  I also quoted Elder Eyring from a devotional given when I was a freshman at BYU, "Remember Who God is and What is means to be His child."  We talked about the importance of our divine attributes and how knowing where we came from and who we really are can give us courage and strength as we face hard things during the school year.  We also talked about how knowing of a loving Heavenly Father brings us comfort and can help us to reach out to other people too.

For dinner we had cornish game hens, scalloped potatoes, and steamed broccoli.  The kids love it when I get rotisserie chicken from Costco, so I thought it would be fun (and make it more special) if they each had their own little chicken.  They thought it was great and AJ raved about how good it was.  Nobody could finish their whole chicken (everyone ate the legs and thighs but there was a lot of breast meat leftover that I was able to use for enchiladas later in the week).

AP kept covering his face when I tried to take a picture of him.  He did not want me to catch him smiling!

Following Nie's lead I made them each a crown.  D helped me and kept  talking about Medieval Times saying things like, "I can't wait to do Medieval Times again Mommy.  It's going to be fun to do Medieval Times at our house."  D found some animal phrase stickers in my stash and insisted on sticking them all over his crown.

I liked the idea and added some inspirational quotes to AP's crown.  

Then I liked it so much I decided to do the same for AJ's.  Her crown was already done though so I just put the quotes on the side.

After dinner I gave each of the kids a paper with their name on it and asked them to write down 2-3 good things about themselves.  Then we passed our papers and everyone took a turn writing something nice, or that they appreciated on each other's papers.  I'm going to frame them and hang them in each of their rooms. We finished off our feast with back to school blessings and then headed over to the Elementary for Back to School Night.

I loved preparing for this, and we had a lot of fun!  It was a great way to start off a new school year.  I also want to add that I finished reading Stephanie Nielson's book, Heaven is Here and it was so uplifting and inspirational (I laughed out loud, shed many tears, and felt so motivated to be a better wife, mom, and person).  She is an amazing woman and I highly recommend her book and her blog.  Check it out! nieniedialogues.com