Valentine's Day Family Feast

Today we had our annual Family Anniversary dinner. This year I put the kids at the far side of the table. Here are all the kids minus Bella, she was taking care of Alvie. 

I meant to take another photo after she got back but didn't, though I did get her and Alive in this short video. I also forgot to take a pic of generations 2&1 at the table (Corey and I and our parents). I had them in the original video, but it was like 70 seconds long, and if it's over 60 seconds youtube won't let me add music, and I wanted the music, so I had to trim it down to under 60 seconds. Hence, just the kids. But Corey and I and Wayne, Kim and Linda were all here today enjoying a meal together.

So this morning we got up early to get started. Table and chairs were already set up from yesterday. Today we started making mashed potatoes and sourdough while we set up the tablecloth, setting out the china, figuring out what we wanted to do for the centerpieces. Girls worked hard, then took a break.

Sophi was working on a Valentine activity where we each got to write out things we love about each person. We cooked the salmon around 12:30, then prepped the salad and shrimp. We were ready at 2. My parents came around 1:45 with strawberries and blueberries. Corey left early with the kids to go climbing, and then they went to Wayne's house until feast time. My dad taking a photo of our banquet table.

Food all set out as guest start to arrive. Ethan! Don't eat yet!

Kids finding their seats.

Mel and Christian, Ethan and Bella & Alvie, and Hyrum & Wes and all the kids.

Wes and Hyrum went to Wayne's first where Corey and ODPK were hanging out. They went climbing this morning with Zeb and then went to Savers and turned in Corey's Where's Waldo rainbow shirt for some other sweet outfits for ODPK. After Wes arrived, people started asking about his new girlfriend, who is his girl as of last night. Wooo!

Sitting to eat. 

Nice fire on the tv.

One thing Corey worked on today was putting some of our old mission cassettes that we made for each other into digital format, so we played a few clips of those while people ate (like my mission homecoming talk at church). We both sounded so young! The kids didn't think we sounded old enough to get married. We also watched our wedding video while we ate and a Cupid cover video that Hyrum and Wes made and released today, it was really fun! 

We enjoyed watching that and played it a few times. Me and my pretty little princess Katharine!

We took a few selfies. She's cute.

After eating the main meal, we opened up the dessert table, which was brownies that Bella made, some strawberry covered pretzels, and passion fruit cake that Mel made. Hyrum and Wes were supposed to bring a dessert but they failed, boo. It's ok, but note to self for next year - don't outsource all the desserts. I was probably missing some of the magic cause I didn't have an abundance of desserts. After dinner everyone was invited (though most didn't hear? Or I wasn't clear) to come to the table to write down some love notes to each member of the family. 

We wrote notes to Joseph Eliza and Mary too that I'm going to mail to them. They had their own Valentine feast in Ohio and sent us a photo. Yay! We're miles apart but together in this tradition.

Or they were just doing a valentine's day thing, but I'll say they were having an anniversary feast. We didn't dance after or anything, cause people cleaned up and my mom hinted that they had to get back to get work done. We also didn't do a dance, cause Lily Sophi and Natalie all had "Galentine" dinners planned for tonight, booo. I didn't love that they had places to go. Next year I'll try harder to make this tradition happen on a day where I can keep everyone captive. Wes and Hyrum both disappeared to take naps cause they had stayed up late working on their video. We had a fun time visiting with M&C and E&B for a bit. After the girls left, Wes and Hyrum came up from their naps and then Wesley took ODPK to the mall to the Lego store, cause he promised them he'd do that before his mission. They came back and built their legos sets.

It was nice of Mel and Christian and Ethan and Bella to hang out.

Ethan and Bella are sleeping over, cause they are coming to our ward tomorrow to hear Wesley speak for his mission homecoming. Mel and Christian are coming back up for that too, but they are sleeping at home in Lehi. They just moved into their new apartment yesterday. We have been visiting more with Ethan and Bella in our room. It was a nice day. Didn't totally hit the spot for what I was going for, I think mostly because people had other places to go, which might be cause we had it on actual Valentine's day instead of our own day. So notes I made for myself for next year: 

• have a dance party
• send out itinerary so people know what to expect
• Plan a family history moment (find parts of mission tapes, journal entries from around our engagement or wedding, or something about us that the kids don't know about us)
• More desserts - me be in charge more? This year the kids did all the desserts, need it to be more wow
• Do it in the evening so there can be more ambiance with candles or string lights.
• Don't have it on a Saturday when people have other things going on
• Don't have it on Valentine's day (unless Valentine's day is on Sunday)
• Make a photo booth? That could be fun