Back to School celebrations!

I strongly believe in celebrating special occasions. And going back to school is a big occasion! We celebrate in a special way each year. Some years we go out for ice cream at our favorite ice cream shop. Or order pizza and eat on the patio ~ finishing off the evening by roasting marshmallows and making smores on the fire pit. Some years we go out to a fancy restaurant and toast (complete with glass clinking). AND some years we just plan a special menu at home.

This year we chose the latter.

For the menu we had:

grilled NY strips
roasted carrots
herb rubbed baby red potatoes
garden salad

german chocolate cake for dessert

We ate in the dining room and decorated the table. Some of the decorations included: a globe, old texts books, student dictionary, pencils, pewter trophy, vintage sheet music, alphabet flashcards, ruler, whistle and an apple. Pretty much just anything I had laying around that lent to the theme of 'School'. You will be surprised how much you have when you start looking around! We have quite the spread in ages (ranging from 2-16) so I tried to make the decor applicable to everyone. The possibilities for grade school aged children is limitless! Dr. Suess Books, flash cards, markers, crayons, desk name tags as place cards, brown bag or lunch box themed dinner served IN the brown bag/lunch box. SOOOO many fun ideas!

For our dinner, I also printed off 'First Day of School' photos from past years. I matted them on scrap book paper (made them double sided) and hung them from the lighting fixture over the table. It was fun to reminisce about the past first days and the girls shared memories. My favorites were of their kindergarten first days...so sweet!

It doesn't take a lot of work to make a meal special and memorable. I'm sure my kids won't remember the table scape or decorations, but they'll remember how proud their mama was of them and their adventure into another new and exciting school year. :)