Last Weekend

 As I mentioned in my earlier post I was excited about our opportunity to hear from our prophet and church leaders at our bi-annual general conference. I really do look forward to this time of year and we have tried to find ways to help our kids enjoy the 8 hours of conference.  Last year we took a family home evening right before conference to talk about what General Conference was. I had some cards of the prophet, the quorum of the twelve and the first presidency.  They had fun facts and information from their lives, and we had each of our little kid pick their apostle they wanted to learn about and pay special attention to at general conference. We had them learn about the apostle and then share something what they had learned with the rest of the family.  We should have done it again this year, but due to recovery it didn't happen. It didn't matter of course because they still remember their apostles to this day, and ask us to reconfirm that when they suddenly see them speaking. "Is this my prophet?" "Is this Mirian's prophet." It's so fun to see them recognize them, know something fun about them, know their names and are more willing to listen to them because they feel like they have a personal connection. (Sorry for my blurry pictures. Not sure what is up.)

The best part is how excited they get to watch it. Beau and I awoke Saturday morning to "Isaac don't do that! You're ruining our desks for general conference."  I hadn't felt well all week to make them conference packets of activities, bingo, and note taking pages.  But that didn't seem to matter to them. They knew it was conference and they were taking matters into their own hands.  They had pulled out the benches and had set up their "own" little cubicles for watching conference. Snack cups, pencil holders, paper, crayons, etc.  They were ready to go.  I am so glad they have a positive feeling and experience with conference. I hope they love to watch it their entire lives, slowly gaining more and more from it as they get older.

My dear friend Amy stopped by right before the first session unexpectedly with a conference basket for the kids full of crayons, activity books, treats, snacks and lunch for us. It was so sweet of her and totally made my kids whole day. 

At the end of the two days I asked my kids to tell me some things that they had learned about conference. It's always amazing that they can each tell me at least two or three concepts or directions from talks, even though they aren't able to hold out for all 8 hours. Mostly 2 hours, and then the prophet's talk. But they were telling me things from talks that I wasn't even sure they were listening to.  I love seeing them even leaving with one thing they remembered from the talks.

Mirian and Savannah did a page about their favorite talk in the morning session. It made me smile which one they picked.

Between sessions Beau and the kids worked more on the yard, by Saturday night they were filthy and the bathwater was basically mud.  We are getting so much closer to getting the yard back to semi-normal.

We were also excited to hear about the change in ages for missionary service.  I was excited, and although it didn't have an immediate impact on me (since Isaac is only 5), I did suddenly think, that it's very likely that my girls will now have the opportunity to serve missions. They could now be serving missions too, which I don't know that I ever really counted on. I'm feeling that if I really teach them right, and help them develop that desire to serve that it's very likely they will go, and that is exciting to me. 

And what better way to end a post than with this cutie.  

My baby, running around and loving her green smoothie popcicle. Seriously. Can you get any cuter than this?  Here's to a great weekend in our home, I hope you were able to enjoy yours as well.