Conference Weekend

Conference Weekend for our church took place the first weekend in April. It is now a month later and I am now just getting around to sharing our Conference Weekend traditions. Hopefully soon Madeline's health will calm down and some what of a normal life will resume and I will be able to get caught up on the mounds of work around the house.

When Conference Weekend rolls around it is a cause of celebration around our house. Our weekend is full of traditions and activities all to help us listen to our prophet and other leaders. In years past I have done Conference Baskets ( similar to Easter Baskets) filled with activities and treats to help the kids get through four sessions of Conference. This year I decided to do things different and have Conference binders. Each child had their own binder which had the Conference packets, games, coloring pages, and a pencil pouches with their crayons pencils and other supplies. I used tab dividers to divide up the different activities to make it easier for the kids to find what they needed/wanted to do. I then had a bucket with other games that I made revolving around conference for the kids to do. For me this simplified things during Conference as well as leading up to Conference. I think we will stick to Conference binders instead of Conference Baskets. Another one of our traditions is to get out our 72 hour kits change out the food and clothes and update any medicines and other supplies that need to be updated. We take the food from our 72 hour kits and snack on those throughout Conference Weekend. The kids love it and I love not having to worry about meal preparations.

On Saturday I took advantage of the time I would have and ironed. I was hoping to only ironed to during the morning session, but my wonderful skill at procrastination caught up to me and I ended up ironing during the morning session and little in between and during the afternoon session. I was glad to see that ironing pile gone.

After the Saturday sessions were completed we all gathered in the kitchen to make pizzas. We normally have Daddy go out and buy the 5 dollar pizzas but since Madeline cannot have dairy we opted to keep our tradition and instead make our own pizzas. Madeline was able to use her cheese made from almond milk as well as toppings that suited to her taste and health needs. The kids enjoyed rolling out their pizza dough and creating their own creation of toppings. After pizza Daddy was off to Priesthood session and we continued our tradition of fun. The kids gathered for a movie while I prepared a special treat which was homemade strawberry short cake. I decided to make chocolate angel food cake instead of the usual white. Our yummy treat finished just as Daddy came home and we were able to gather around the table to enjoy our treat and to listen to Daddy as he told us what he learned.

Sunday morning we woke up to another tradition of having cereal from our mini cereal boxes out of 72 hour kits. After breakfast we all made home made play dough which nicely entertained the kids during the morning session of Conference. With the ironing behind me, I spent the Sunday sessions tying a quilt I made for the boys' room. I much prefer tying a quilt then ironing. In between sessions we all went out and enjoyed the nice weather at the park.

Our Conference Weekend was filled with family traditions as well as being spiritually fed by our prophet and leaders. It was nice to put all worldly distractions aside and listen to our prophet and spend the weekend as family doing activities that not only create memories but hopefully build family unity. I know our kids get excited when Conference rolls around and I hope their excitement never dies but continues to grow.