New General Conference Traditions

Thanks to the article in the Ensign about making General Conference more meaningful to children, and a mini-enrichment lesson on Friday, we decided to start some new traditions in our family around General Conference. We wanted to have our children associate Conference with fun family memories so they would be more likely to watch it as they grow up, and to get to know these wonderful men that lead the Church. I'm becoming aware that I am best with food traditions, and have to put more effort into thinking of non-food-related traditions. Hopefully, we struck a balance with both. We started out with a special breakfast on Saturday morning: Conference Cinnamon rolls (aka Dang Good Cinnamon Rolls. Thank you Melanie Shockley! They are the BEST cinnamon rolls this bread-incompetent mother has ever made), omelets, and fresh fruit. The girls always play Conference Bingo during at least one talk, but they played during all four sessions of conference. We gave them a packet of questions, games, and coloring pages as well, and promised them ice cream for completing it, at least to the best of their ability. During the lunch period between the two Saturday sessions, we built a tent in our family room, which we left up until Sunday night. In Primary, they told the children about King Benjamin and how the people sat in their tents to listen to him, and challenged the kids to make tents in their homes to listen to conference. The girls loved that, and furnished it with their sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows. Even Brighton made us find him a sleeping bag. (It was an old pink one of Savannah's.)

On Sunday we had another special breakfast: Egg and Sausage casserole and orange julius. Yummy! By this session the girls, mainly Irelynd, were getting bored with conference, so I pulled out the box of hair stuff and they gave me a hairdo. Wow! That was some awesom hairdo girls! I lost a chunk of hair or two in the dis-barretting afterwards, but it kept them entertained and mostly quiet for a good 45 minutes. Even Brighton got in on the action. During the last session we played Conference candy key words. I filled a bowl with random treats--mini marshmallows, craisins, chocolate chips, popcorn, and cheerioes--and they got a treat every time the speaker said the corresponding key word for that treat. They loved the talks on temples, as the chocolate chips were assigned to that key word. "Say temple 5 times..."

Ooh la la! We are taking appointments now...

I also had everybody write down 3-5 questions about conference which we will compile into a quiz game to be played at our next FHE. I was amazed at how much they picked up, and seemed to absorb from listening so intently, even just for the sake of calling out Bingo! Irelynd, who is our lost-in-a-perpetual-daydream kind of kid was putting down markers on words Savannah didn't pick up. Hopefully, they learned something, and hopefully we made some good memories this weekend, and the girls will look forward to next Conference, even for just the great cinnamon rolls!