General Conference

For the first time ever we were able to watch General Conference at home, on our TV. Surprising right? But while we lived in DC and had cable, only those in Virginia got conference on TV (there weren't enough DC signers of the petition) and then once we got to Utah, we skipped cable for the first 2 1/2 years we were here so we ended up just watching over the internet again. It works, but not as comfortable to watch on a small screen in an office chair. This year it was fabulous with a couch and a big screen.

And since my boys are getting older, I put in more of an effort to make it meaningful (and make them actually want to listen) for them. I found all my ideas at sugardoodle.com if you'd like your own for October. That's my favorite sight for all things primary related.

We missed Saturday morning session with soccer games but were around for the rest. Here all 3 boys are playing bingo with jelly beans. Next time I'll use some kind of markers instead of candy since Miles couldn't resist eating them all and then had nothing to play with. Also Ethan couldn't stop holding them in his hands which made them sticky, and him sticky, and then my new carpet sticky. Lovely!

I printed off topics charts and taped them up on our only "wall" in the room with space.
Here's the close-up. Basically we listened to a talk and then halfway or all the way through we'd decide what the main topic for the talk was and then we'd get to eat the corresponding candy. This worked mostly well except next year I'll make my own papers with topics I think are more likely to be covered and that the kids will recognize.
After we decided on the topic (and ate the candy) then we'd tape up the picture of the apostle who had talked about it. The good side effect of this that I hadn't thought of was that it gave my kids a natural break during conference. It's a LOT to ask a 4 and 6 year old to sit for 2 hours straight and just listen. And then to ask them to do it 3 times over 2 days is just TOO MUCH. So since I only had pictures printed out of the apostles, I decided they only had to listen when an apostle was speaking. Any other general authority they got to ignore (ie play quietly on the floor with some toys, since this is the toy room). Someday I'll ask them to listen to all of it but for now, small bits of listening mixed in with small breaks to play was about perfect.
The other activity I had was to tape up pictures of the apostles when they spoke. In primary they've been learning the names and faces of the apostles so this was another small activity for them to see if they could match the face on the TV screen with the face on my print out.
I learned from this experience that it is easier to send my kids downstairs to play so I can listen and enjoy conference myself. That's what we've done in the past and I definitely get more out of it personally. But then they don't get much of anything out of it so I guess it's about time for me to be a little more self-less and help them learn to listen. So we'll try this again in the fall with a few small modifications.
And in the end everyone was happy and full of sugar and we'd had some good family time.