General Conference

We watched general conference on TV this past weekend. Dallin and Connor are still pretty young, but getting old enough to understand some things and they're picking up on gospel principles. So we came up with some activities they could do to keep themselves semi-engaged during the 8 total hours.

As each speaker came up, we had the boys find the matching picture for that person on the general authority page (found in every conference issue of the Ensign magazine).

Then they got to put a sticker on the person's face. They needed a little help sometimes with matching the faces (gray hair and glasses aren't much of a clue among this group of speakers), but they did surprisingly well at identifying each speaker. Found on a different page in the Ensign are the women and other presidency members who are potential speakers. We stickered them too.

 Then we told the boys to listen for specific words that we would hear in the talks. We chose our words based on what our boys have been learning about and what we had a picture for.

Our words to listen for were prayer, Joseph Smith, Jesus, baptism/baptized, sacrament, temple, and scriptures (or related words like Bible, Book of Mormon). When they heard one of our words from a speaker, they got to put a sticker on the corresponding picture.

I was amazed at how well Dallin and Connor listened for the words. They certainly did their fair share of coloring and playing with playdoh and toys during the two days of conference, but they really listened and were so excited every time they heard one of the words. At one point, Dallin heard the words and exclaimed, "Brass plates! He said brass plates", and then he went to put a sticker on the "scriptures" picture. He's learning a lot.

Not surprisingly, "Jesus Christ" was the picture with the most stickers. Every talk had his name at least once at the end.

On Sunday morning, I decided to switch things up and make waffles instead of  my weekly pancakes. Dallin seemed a little disappointed when I told the boys of the breakfast plan early that morning, but Connor lifted his sleepy head and with a huge smile, said, "I LIKE waffles!"

The waffles won Dallin over. He ate a good amount. But the best part was the next morning, when I went to get Dallin's usual frozen pancake out to cook, and he asked for a waffle instead.  ....GASP... He proceeded to eat one and a half plate-size waffles! I don't think he plans to stop eating pancakes, but it's nice to have an alternative breakfast food that he'll eat.