Conference Weekend=Party Weekend

First, this adorable picture of Henry.  He has decided that since he's the size of a 2-year-old, he gets to act like one.  Over the past few weeks, he has refused to sit in a high chair and has gotten into several fights with Alice, who is also the size of a 2-year-old,  over the booster seat so I finally bought him his own, and he now will only sit in his booster.  So here is he, yesterday morning, eating oatmeal wiht a spoon at the table while sitting in his booster.

Now, onto Conference.  Ever since Elder Hales gave that talk a few years ago about how we should make children watch Conference, I've slowly abandoned my lock-my-kids-outside-during-Conference ways.  I've tried  a few things to help them pay attention--mainly various Conference packets with little success.  The problem with the packets is that I have to read all the directions to the kids and then help them complete the activity so that no one is paying attention and the extra noise with Conference addresses in the background is just annoying and *PUFF* there goes the Spirit.  Then I came across this idea:

 As each speaker stared his or her talk, we put up a picture of that person--the apostles got real pictures because we knew they were going to speak, everyone else got stick figures.  Then during the talk the kids colored ties for boys and crosaages for the girls to put on the picture.  After they were done with their ties/flowers, each person in the family got a Post-It pad and wrote the main topic of each address.  Alice was pink; Rex was green; I was blue; and Greg was yellow.

 This worked quite well.  By the time they had colored the ties and written the main point, the talk was just about over.  The kids would then wonder around or play something quiet for a bit and then come back to the table for the next speaker.  They were listening more than usual and Conference actually seemed to speed by.

When it was over, our wall looked like this:

 

I think I'll leave it up for a few days.  Maybe we'll do a Family Night something or other with it tomorrow.

Oh and in case you were wondering, I liked Elder Foster's talk about intentional parenting and Sister Marriot's about the Sacramant and the Elder Meyers about What Lack I Yet?  Looks like I'll be working on being a better parent and fixing what I lack there and trying to start fresh each week witht the Sacrament.

As part of getting ready for Conference, I also decided to wear the kids out before Conference.  On Saturday we did an early morning donut run, followed by the library because it was raining so the park was out.

He ate 3 donuts.

He also ate 3 donuts--or parts of 3, he and Henry shared.

She ate 1.  That's why Henry is so huge and she is not.

I was going to take the kids to the park between sessions, but then I laid down for just 10 minutes and woke up as the second session was starting.  Oops.  They played computer games with Greg instead.

Sunday morning, we did the traditional Conference breakfast.  French toast with buttermilk syrup.  Libby brought sausage and eggs.

These kids decided to play Play-Doh.  I thought it was adorable.

 Between session on Sunday, I forced the family on a wonderful Sunday stroll.  It finally stopped raining after over a week of it.  It was windy and a little chilly, but still beautiful fall weather.  It was wonderful.  And had the intended effect of wearing the kids out--Alice fell asleep half way through the session.



And then because Conference is actually quite late in the day here, we came home to turkey pumpkin chilli with pumpkin corn bread.  WINNER. It was super good, if I do say so myself.

And that's it.  Conference is over for another 6 months.  It was a fun, insightful, motivating holiday weekend--because Conference is a like a Mormon holiday and I love it.