I'm Lovin' Back to School

Today was the first day of school for my kids.

Emma- 5h grade



Josh- sophomore


Chelsea- senior


Last year together in high school


I love and hate back to school time. I choose to focus on the love part though. But really, the "hate" part is based on love... I love having my kids at home with me during the summer. And so I hate to send them back to where influences aren't always for the best. But I love to have peace during the day and get house, church, and volunteer work done in quiet. But sometimes there's too much quiet. I love to take my kids shopping for school supplies and clothes. I hate that the prices keep going up for supplies and registration/sport fees. Love/hate.

Yesterday was a good day. I shopped for groceries and did laundry all day. Does that sound like a good day? Well, it was. In between loads, I planned our back to school dinner and family home evening.

Dinner was simple. Nothing fancy by any means. Earlier in the day, Chelsea said that she didn't want a special (meaning "don't make a big deal of it, Mom) back to school dinner cause it would make her nervous. So I decided to grill hot dogs and serve mini tater tots and tuscan cantaloup. We also had a rare treat of bottled orange creme sodas. I have been wanting to make The Pioneer Woman's Chocolate and Peanut Butter Pie so I decided this was a good occasion to do so. I added Reese's PB cups to the top of it. Mmmm. Way too rich but way yummy.




I added a few things to the table to add a little back to school touch... like giant Smarties, desk name plates, old fashioned (from the 70s) multiplication flashcards, our old homeschool educational place mats, and a tin school bus that I have had forever.



I have to give a shout-out to my friend Elena Daniels for this idea I got from her blog a week or two ago. She had done an FHE lesson on attitude. I thought that would be a great topic for our lesson last night. She mentioned an Old Testament scripture story that went along with attitude. I wasn't familiar with the story of Caleb and Joshua, so I looked it up on lds.org and read a talk that Pres. Hinckley gave in which he mentioned this story. I loved that I learned a new scripture story and that I could teach it to my kids. After that, I used her other idea of splitting into teams and doing a "Mad Lib" to illustrate how our choices can influence our outcomes. Fun. We were going to watch the cute short film "Boundin" to further the topic of choosing to have a good attitude, but we needed to get to the most important tradition we have at back to school time. Fathers blessings.

We have had this chair for a LONG time. In 1999, when Chelsea began kindergarten, the kids started to sit in it for their father's blessings. We have been keeping track of the dates of the kids' blessings on the bottom of the chair. We have since given away the table that this chair went with, but we kept the very important chair. Now it sits in the corner of our garage waiting for this special time of year. We call it "the blessing chair" and the kids love it.



I'm so thankful for Matt and that he is willing and worthy to give our children (and me) priesthood blessings on a regular basis. It is comforting to me to know that Heavenly Father is mindful of each of us and cares about what we are doing in life. He wants to bless us and to help us through our "amazing race" on earth.

I'm having a positive attitude about this whole "back to school" thing. I'm glad that the good can outweigh the bad. It's gonna be a great year!