at the dinner table.

"All great change in America begins at the dinner table."  -Ronald Reagan



i posted the above quote and picture on instagram a few days ago. i had a few people respond, "it's the best quote ever", "i have that quote in my kitchen", "that is an awesome quote".

what do you think? does your family eat around the dining room table. i mean together. do they eat at the dining room table together? all of you?

how often? every night? every thanksgiving and christmas? for sunday brunch?

i didn't grow up eating dinner at the table with my family. it was just my mom and i for a bunch of years. by the time she married my step-dad we were stuck in our ways, if you will, and we still didn't eat at the table. i think we ate together...just in the living room, in front of the tv. it was what worked for our family.

when my husband and i started a family we knew we wanted something different. we wanted to gather around the table and enjoy dinner together.

now that our children are newborn - eleven we value dinner around the table together. all of us.

sure there are LOTS of days that mabry is not there...but she will be. soon it will be all seven of us around our table enjoying each others company.

it gets loud. it gets really loud. there's nights where i have to talk above them all and ask for quiet. or at least a lower volume. but, we're together.

we don't watch tv at dinner. we don't listen to music. we don't look at our iphones {much} {{we shouldn't at all}}. we are present with one another. we ask how each child's day was at school. we ask what they had for lunch. we ask who their best friend is. we ask about them. we want to know what's new with each one of them. it's important.

we don't know the impact this has on our kids just yet. they're still young. but, in twenty years i hope to tell you that they each value the fact that dinner was at the table. together with the ones that love them most.