Conference Weekend

I'm a little behind. (ha ha ha! Go ahead, make your jokes)

Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by your teasing, I haven't been able to blog as much as I'd like, which means I blog even less because I just don't know where to begin. In times like this, I like to take advice from Julie Andrews. I'm just gonna go ahead and start at the very beginning- a very good place to start! (By the way, this isn't exactly the beginning, but these are the pictures I have available to me, so I think Maria would be proud.)

Anyway, I decided that for this session of General Conference, I would be "Miss CreativeSpazz" and plan and prepare in every way I could think of so that the kids would stay happy and occupied while we all listened quietly and that they would learn so much that they could be called as the Gospel Doctrine teachers by the end of the last session on Sunday. Is that too much to ask!?

By the way, I will always think that conference starts at 9:00 a.m. because that's when it starts in CA. On Saturday, I slept in a little bit and was hurrying to get ready and get everybody breakfast and dressed and ready before 9:00, only to realize- again- that I have another hour!!

Here's our tent that we faced toward the t.v.- King Benjamin-style. Ben especially loved this because he very often refers to himself as "King Benjamin." The tent was fantastic- for about 3 1/2 minutes. Pretty soon, much sooner than I ever thought possible, they were fighting over who sits where and on what blanket and so on and so forth, etc, etc, etc. By the end of the second session on Saturday, when they were jumping from one end of the tent to the other and smashing into hard things that were outside the tent they couldn't see and crying, I took down the tent and had to fight the urge to take it outside and burn it.

So, in conclusion, don't do the tent idea unless your kids can handle it. As soon as that first fight over who sits closest to the zipper breaks out, you'll ask yourself, "WHY?!?!?!?! Why do I try!?!?!?!" Yeah, but we'll still probably try it again next time and I promise, the exact thing will happen again. We're silly that way.

I made them each their own Conference Basket. This took me a couple weeks to put together and a couple seconds after the last session to throw what remained of the packets in the trash. It worked for the Saturday morning session, which was nice. It was sweet to hear kids saying, "He said Jesus!" or "He said temple!" or "Those are my stickers!" and "Don't sit in my basket!"
Here's the treat bowl for the Bingo game and other activities. See- I gave them fruit!


We had this poster by the t.v. and marked off when one of these amazing men spoke. This is the last thing that survived the weekend and it is still up. I know, I know, I can hardly believe it myself.

Anyway, Saturday was nuts. I asked myself, "WHY!?!" a lot, but I'm okay now. Sunday was much better- no tent to ruin my life and destroy my peace- I think that was the key. I even took a note or two.

I love General Conference. I really don't mind that the boys argued over the tent and their activity packets got destroyed and Junior Mints got smashed into the couch. I know I did all I could to show them that Conference is important. Whenever the Prophet spoke, everyone sat down and calmed down and listened, and that's all that mattered. If I hadn't done anything else, if all they learned was that when the prophet speaks- you listen, then they learned all I would want them to know. And they do know that, so I'm happy.

(And, people will probably think I'm a crazy-spazz-nut-dork, but I really miss not watching conference at home. My first conference in Utah, I got all dressed up and headed to my nearest Stake Center, on a Saturday, and it was locked! Weird. Weird.)