There’s an opportunity for you to learn all about a great giveaway from Libby’s at the end of this post!
When I was growing up, I clearly remember sitting around the dinner table eating dinner as a family pretty much every night. We ate family style, passing around the dishes of delicious food my mom had made for the meal and being there was not an option. I remember falling over in peals of laughter at things my sister would say. Or fighting fiercely with my sister over things she would say. Either way, our table was never a quiet place. It was a place where we shared delicious food and conversation.
I had a very special opportunity to spend an afternoon at the Farmhouse restaurant with a group of Kansas City bloggers and some folks from Libby’s as part of Libby’s campaign to feed the hungry and get families back to the dinner table. When asked to participate in this effort, I was thrilled as making family mealtime a priority has always been a passion of mine. Whether you have pizza from your local shop or you enjoy a home cooked meal, it is so important to connect as a family at the end of the day around the dinner table.
As a part of our afternoon together, the Kansas City bloggers along with author and mom of 7, Hannah Keeley, spent some time putting together “Back to the Table” bags for a local transitional shelter called Hillcrest. Of course, Libby’s provided several cans of their products for the bags, but on top of that, we each got to choose one thing to bring to include in each bag. The ladies of Kansas City were quite creative, and came up with some really neat things to include.
- Tracie from Penny Pinchin’ Mom and Kelly from Kansas City Mamas brought Ziploc Containers
- Candy from Mommypalooza brought measuring cups and spoons
- Jenn from Super Jenn brought a special day “Red Plate” for each bag (Read here to learn about the “Red Plate”)
- Anjanette from Eat From Your Pantry had the great idea to add votive candles and a coupon organizer
- Heather from My Kansas City Mommy brought mixing bowls for each bag
- My contribution was a “Chatter Box”… a Chinese takeout box with 25 conversation starter questions in it
I am so excited for the families at Hillcrest to have the opportunity to get back on their feet and get a boost in the right direction when it comes to family mealtime. Imagine how these simple bags are going to enhance their lives. That makes me smile!
The lovely folks have Libby’s and super funny and talented Hannah Keeley have given me the opportunity to share a prize package of great goodies with you. To enter, all you have to do is share your favorite tip for making family mealtime a priority. The prize package includes:
- A Libby’s reusable shopping tote bag full of Libby’s products, a state-of-the-art can opener and a copy of Hannah Keeley’s book, Total Mom Makeover
Entries will be taken up until Midnight CST on Sunday, October 10th. The person with the best “get back to the table” tip will be announced the winner!
Disclosure: This blog post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Every once in a while we play the ABC game… going through the alphabet around the table and come up w/ things we’re thankful for that begin w/ each letter. I love it because it inevitably sparks conversation about things that we choose to share.
With 2 kids in sports, a husband who is a coach, and me working two jobs, when we have a night where we are all home, we make sure it’s special!
Meal time together with my husband and 2 daughters has always been a part of our routine. It’s a given, no question that will have dinner together as a family. My daughters look forward to it. They help me in the kitchen and set the table. My husband grills when we do grilled food and we all help clean up. It’s truly a family affair but one we enjoy. It’s our time to reconnect from the day, talk about anything (and I mean anything), laugh and tell stories.
We make it a priority by doing most of the prep work – together – the night before. When we get home from work, everyone is hungry and there isn’t much time to do any “together” time prep. We do it the night before, aren’t as stressed, and end up doing the work together and making healthier meals!
Most week nights our family has an informal dinner time that is short and to the point. However, Sunday Dinner (capitalized to show the importance) is a mandatory attendance for our family. It is when we serve “slow foods” cooked with love and feed our bodies and souls. We spend up to two hours laughing and chatting. In fact, Sunday Dinner is what inspired me to blog. Many of my friends and co-workers were astonished and a bit envious of our Sunday dinner spreads.
It is just the two of us, but we both look forward to meal time. We love cooking, dining, and cleaning up together. It makes meal time an event and a time to visit, laugh, share, and enjoy tasty food.
It’s just the two of us as well, but when we can we make mealtime a together time (doesn’t that just sound corny?) We like to read books together, so often my husband will read out loud to me while I cook, then we’ll eat together, and then I’ll read out loud to him as he cleans up. It sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s a fun way to spend time together and enjoy sometimes not so fun tasks.
We always have dinner together. Once we had kids, we decided no more eating in front of the TV. We want it to be family time!
We always make sure we eat dinner together as a family and I try to incorporate ways for my 3 year old to help with dinner – from prep work to setting the table.
Well, while we enjoy dinner together most nights, we are usually “stranded on the island”… Just last week I enforced our “last supper” spent crowded uncomfortably around the island and now have the kitchen table (just steps away mind you) set and ready for family dinners to be enjoyed!
this is fantastic, Kristen! What a mitzvah you are doing! It starts here…and it will grow from here! I am so excited to meet you!
My family and I ate meals together every night growing up and I believe so forcefully that it was the reason why i did so well in school and feel so close to them today. I think the only tip I can give is to start young and not back down when kids get older or it gets harder.
Everyone has to share at least one good thing that happened to them during the day! It’s a great way to recap our day and get everyone involved.
We try to schedule mealtime around the kids’ activities and make quick, easy meals. That way the kids still have the opportunity to do things, but we still stay connected as a family.
Hi Kristen!
Did you take these pics? They’re great!!!
Having a little one, I make sure to plan in advance. That way we can all eat together at a family 🙂
By the way… Happy Birthday!
Eating meals together is mandatory in my family ever since I was a kid back home in India since we talk, share and discuss many issues that happen throughout the day and my husband and I still follow the tradition of eating atleast dinner together everyday here to keep the culture going…..moreover we look forward to spend that quality time daily..thanks for this giveaway…
Well, having a house full of teenagers can be a little difficult to get everyone around the table, and to be honest, it doesn’t happen every night. But to make our time special, we usually cook together also. Having a helping hand in the kitchen is not only helpful, but also fun.
Thanks for the giveaway! Looks like you had a GREAT time!
~Liz
Have the kids learn to cook by trying out at least one new recipe per week and make it a family affair. My family always likes to discuss what made the new dish/recipe really good, what worked, what didn’t and what could be done to enhance it or make it even better. It gets the family to participate together, to learn together and most of all to have fun.
Kristen, this is such a wonderful opportunity you gals had to help others. Daily as moms we not only take care of ourselves, but our children too. It is nice to reach outside of our own families to comfort others too.
We love the dinners when there are no tantrums! Most of our meals are at home and one of the big deals is that mommy tries too cook mostly everything from scratch – with great help from my little recipe testers.
A set time for dinner every night…then everyone knows when dinner will be so schedules can be made around it!
Sometimes we just can’t all get together for dinner, our schedules don’t work out. When that happens, we try to at least all have dessert around the same time, since that’s something that’s a little easier to hold off on!
When my kids were little I would have the kids help make dinner so I knew they were more likely to eat it. Because we did this when they were little my daughter (who lives in KC) is totally a foodie and loves to cook for her friends. She will even call every once and while to get a recipe or to ask how I used to make something.
It’s just the two of us, but we both look forward to dinner together…I like cooking, and hubby loves that I like cooking. 🙂 It’s our chance to unwind from the day and catch up with each other while enjoying our meal together.
Making mealtime a priority is a little hard with a picky toddler, but he loves to help me in the kitchen. So if I want him to sit down and eat with us the meal we are eating at our dining table, we have a better shot if I let him help me prepare dinner. He loves to help his momma cook!
Each family member helps set the table – my daughter places the plates and utensil, son does the cups and pours drinking water. My husband sets out the napkins. And I bring the main course!
I love that you all put something together for the shelter, and what neat ideas you all had! Right now the guys and I are missing our evening meal together due to my new schedule so we are making breakfast our gathering time around the table.
We try to occassionally play “Chopped” like the TV show. I give each child the same 2 or 3 main ingredients and then they make a meal and then my husband and I judge the meals for a winner ! It is amazing the creativity they come up with and what they will eat if THEY make it!!
my hubby and kids know that i have a strong passion for the family dinner, so they expect that we are sitting down and eating together- no option, it’s just the way we roll 🙂
Fun day! Great idea – the chatter box is something we need to do around here too.
To get more families to sit down together the TV should be turned off, have everyone to participate in the meal some way and have happy conversation. Don’t bring up grades or what went wrong during the day. As a teacher I really believe that families that take the time to eat dinner together have children that do better in school.
We try to eat together every night- and try to include my preschooler in everything from picking out the meal, meal prep, and even clean up at the end. It goes much smoother with teamwork! It doesn’t happen every night- but we try.
No one in my family is allowed to have anything scheduled between the hours of 6:00 and 7:00 pm. No sports, no clubs, no extra-curricular activities are as important as getting together as a family and sharing each others’ lives at mealtime. I don’t even care if it is homework. All must be stopped to spend time with the people who love us most. That way when we make our ways in the world, we know we can always count on being in a calm, supported, meaningful hour of bonding and enjoyment later in the day.
Eating together as a family is very important to me. I have great memories growing up with my 5 siblings around the breakfast and dinner table. It brought such a sense of togetherness. I want that for my family. We play the “high/low” game where we all share our highs and lows for the day.
We make it a priority by having a designated menu and making sure we have the ingredients on hand with which to prepare them!
Out priority is to eat together everynight during the week and to talk about our day together with our kids.
We love family mealtime! I like to let the kids choose to eat on the patio or inside. Also we all get involved in the cooking and choosing nights to cook our faves.
I wish I could say that we sit around the dinner table as a family every night, but this isn’t true. However, when we do all sit together, we really all get the opportunity to talk about our day. The best part is, my kids always feel open to talk about their day at school when they’re at the dinner table. Any other time it’s all just yes, no, it was boring, I didn’t learn anything and such. For some reason, when we are all together, they think of the little stuff that happened and are ready to share! 🙂
I think the most important thing to remember is that a family dinner doesn’t have to be an elaborate meal. A frozen pizza works just as well as a homemade one. The point is to spend time as a family. Sometimes for our family it means picking up sandwiches and eating at the soccer field before practice starts, but we are together, the 4 of us talking about our day. It’s all about being together, however you make that happen is up to you.
If you can’t all be there for dinner – do breakfast… does require a little more planning perhaps, but a great way for everyone to start off their day!
Yes, family meal time is essential, but honestly whatever meal time you can have together is better than none! And you know, you are starting the day on the right foot for your family. What great memories!
This is such a lovely post…and your afternoon at Farmhouse such a great idea! A good cause.
Dinners are so often the only time the entire family sits down together. I try to make it special with good food, conversation, sharing of ups and downs and bolstering self confidence!
To get keep the excitement I try to let the family get involved in meal planning. The day that it is their choice, we make them star of the table and each tell something we are proud of that person for or commend them for something that day. Boosts self-esteem and makes meal time a little more exciting.
I had everyone make up 10 question cards (five serious and five funny) and we leave the pile on the table and take turns picking one and everyone has a turn to answer. Dinner time has gone from a dash of who can eat the fastest to some nights almost an hour talking and laughing at the table.
We always sit down at the kitchen table, no phones and no tv. We sit and talk about anything and everything. I have to thank my Mom and Dad because dinner was the most important time of the day for us growing up.
Mine is a family of two, but special dinner time is achieved by one thing: waiting. Our schedules are busy and he gets home from work much earlier than I do – and some nights I go to the gym, and some nights he has band practice, and for a while there I was on a west coast schedule at work so I’d be there late, but if it’s reasonable to do so, the one who is home first quite simply waits for the other. If it’s important to eat together, it’s worth being hungry for a little while until they get home.
The time around the table opens up communication that we otherwise may not have. It is so important to me to find out about my 5 children and my husband’s day. Our family discussions at the table ususlly involve each one of us answering the questions “What was the best thing that happened to you today?” and “What was the worst thing that happened to you today?” I also envolve each one of my children in the kitchen. I talk to them about how to cook, sometimes I relate what I am cooking to information about a relative in my family, but most of all I try hard to pass down the Word of God to each of them. You can get recipes and ideas for cooking with your children at http://www.sweeptheword.com in the Resource section. In Christ, Diane