School Year's Eve Family Party

Happy School Year's Eve! (yesterday!) and ~

Happy New School Year today!

It wasn't school year's eve for all our children, but it was the new school year's eve for our family, so that meant that even the Kindergartner and Junior High crowd that starts next Monday were invited to come. First, we had a feast of ham and cheeses sandwiches, with custom ordered turkey bacon avocado sandwiches for those with refined tastes (Corey).

Also on the menu were cheese puffs, Lay's chips, mango slices, and pickles.

Part of the decorations were our educational place mats. Sophia knows her letters!

After everyone ate their sandwich, they were free to have a cupcake.

We made three tiers, the lower tier for Elementary school (cupcakes said their grades, "granite" and such) middle tier was Albion for Hyrum. And the top tier was Churchill, with the greatest achievement of Jr. High schooler's world (around here atleast) being properly represented with the high and noble "SBO" cupcake. (cue holy music)

Abi's holy grail was the lollipops. She's always wanted a flat lollipop, so this was her lucky day.

Joseph being weird with his lollipop, kinda making a muppet face.

After dinner, we had some "back to school" activities at different "Centers" - (just like in elementary school!) First "center" was our lesson. Our theme for the school year is "Of Things That Matter Most" from this talk by President Uchtdorf. We watched this video.
We talked about what matters most. Being honest when you didn't finish your homework and might get a bad score, or copying from a friend and getting a good grade? Some hypothetical situations like that. Then was our questionnaire center.

This was our questionnaire. (I'll make the questionnaire cuter next year). This part was to capture a little personal history for their scrapbooks and is also going to help me (in my quest to be organized) to have everyone's heights and weight ready for when they go rent skis this year. Corey usually catches me off guard and I have to scramble, not this year! Go me! Then we did  a quick "Routine" Center...

And then it was really getting late (cause this is a school night), but I said we could start the "Visualization Board" center.  

Once the kids got going with this one it was hard to pull them away. Hard to pull myself away too.

Abi did a good job on her board. :)

Melodie and Ethan are working on their more this morning, they want to take time to get it just right.

Ethan is being serious about it, but he is also a big goofball, he was cracking me up.

Do you like his little mouse "Steve" who is at the top left of his "W"? Nice headphones, "Steve".

And some guy "Photobombing" Harry Potter in the middle of his W. Ethan, you're funny.

Ethan is going to Brazil with Corey on Saturday, so the quote under neath Steve was appropriate "It's a big world out there, Someone's got to see it" Yes, very appropriate for you, Ethan.

We didn't get to the Father's blessing center or the school supplies center, going to do the blessings sometime before Corey leaves for Brazil on Saturday afternoon.

And I'll have to catch them each individually about our family school supply center. The kids did think it was pretty fun, Wesley said "It's like our home is like school!" Well, I do want to be planned and prepared for school like school teachers are, so I'll keep trying to give the kids that impression. 

Overall it was a great success and I think will be a tradition we will keep for each upcoming school year. 

The little girls that will be my companions this upcoming school year were happy to play with balloons the whole time. I'm grateful to have them with me to constantly remind me of the moments and things matters most. Small and simple things ~ that's going on my visualization board. 

It's going to be a good school year!