Conference Weekend Fun

This weekend, we spent as much time as possible in front of the television, watching General Conference. What a great weekend! On Saturday morning, we headed downstairs with great hope for a weekend full of faith-building and testimony-strengthening experiences. We were, of course, armed with toys for the newly crawling Anna, as well as Conference booklets the Primary President made for the little children. We turned on the t.v. and got settled. Things started out great...all the way through the opening song. Uh, oh, Anna needs a diaper change. Let me run upstairs. Did you grab a diaper for Jeffrey? Let me run back up. Whoops. I forgot the crayons and pens. Who will go back up for those? I better run into the laundry room and get those white shirts started if Rich, Daniel and Jacob are going to make it to the Priesthood Session tonight. Josh, please stop shouting. Daniel, please stop teasing Adam. Can someone give Anna back her ball? Jeffrey, stop taking her toys! Everyone who is wrestling needs to go in a different room. Will everyone please be quiet long enough for us to listen to this one talk? Please?! At one point, Adam, Beth and Jeffrey were taking turns jumping off and hanging from the wet bar counter! Turn up the volume so I can hear! Rich, maybe we should get up early tomorrow and sneak off to the church for one session just so that we can hear something! I really don't think that, in all that sitting there, we heard one complete talk all the way through without at least one interruption. However, Elder Ballard said (during one of the brief, quiet times that we got to hear him) that happiness in motherhood, and parenthood, comes in moments of joy, and it certainly applies here. Some of our joyful moments from this weekend were:

Jacob, Katie and Daniel chose to be downstairs watching with us almost the whole time.


Katie carefully noted in a Conference booklet who spoke and the topic.

Jacob, Daniel and Beth quietly played Conference topic bingo together for most of one session.

Even Jeffrey got in on the coloring and drew pictures on paper while we all tried to listen.

Josh quietly listened to the talks more than ever before.

Anna worked on perfecting her newly acquired crawling skills. The boys gaming console controlers were fun, new toys for her to discover, until her feet became tangled in all of the cords.

Even if it was very noisy, it was also awfully cute to see Jeffrey, Beth and Adam hanging from the wet bar. In any case, I think it will be one of those memories that we will laugh about over the years.

Dad made omelettes and we ate left-over cinnamon rolls (from after Priesthood session) for breakfast Sunday morning.

We all got to raise our hands in different groups as we sustained President Monson in the Solemn Assembly. Daniel felt pretty disappointed that he didn't belong to the Deacon's Quorum yet.

Daniel chose to attend Priesthood session with Dad and Jacob even though he technically won't be 12 until June 1. He decided sitting for two hours isn't that great, but he did remember lots of stories from all of the talks.

Rich and I got to sit next to one another and hold hands lots of times!

The little children left the room to play somewhere else during the last two talks of the last session, so we really got to listen to Elder Ballard and to President Monson. The Spirit was unusually strong.

We got a good laugh from the fact that we were usually 30 minutes behind on the session from all of the pausing we had to do!