Conference Weekend

We attempted to play Settlers of Catan with the girls for the first time over Conference Weekend. It went so-so. Rose started to get the concept of buying roads and buildings fairly easy. Ginger did too after a little bit. But, it took F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Every turn was so long because they couldn't grasp why people weren't just giving them everything they asked for. It will probably be another 6 months before we attempt this again. We are looking forward to when the girls can start playing some of our favorite games though!
After the craziness of last conference weekend we made a decision as a family that we would not let anything get in the way of watching conference. We weren't going to record it and squeeze it in-between soccer games anymore. We really felt like we needed to make this special time a priority, even if it meant missing out on a game. It helped quite a bit that Nathan was the only one to play soccer this season, and that I am the team manager who scheduled all of his team's games. I had to schedule that game three times but all three times would not interfere with soccer. All I have to say is that Nathan is one lucky boy! So after a morning soccer game we came home and jumped right into physically feasting while we were spiritually feasting!

Here is the spread from Saturday morning. General Conference doesn't start until 11 am in our time zone so we had mini croissants with all the toppings and a bunch of yummy snacks. Ginger was quite proud of our refreshment table!
I don't think our kids know that they can watch conference in regular clothes. We were totally dressed for the day but they came home and put on pajamas.
Darin and Ken went to the Priesthood session in the evening. This was Darin's 2nd time going. Our funny boy ended up not wanting to go out to dinner with friends and their Dad's out to eat. He didn't want to miss out on what we were doing at home. Which I guess I should be happy that he wanted to be with me and the other kids at home. But I also worry about him making friends with other boys in his Deacon's Quorum
Wow, I'm realizing I was pretty awful at taking pictures. This is from Sunday afternoon.
This conference weekend Rose was really into coloring and drawing pictures. She was really serious. Here is Ken and the kids.
We had my friend Mary Ann over for bothe Sunday sessions. Another firend Dustin came too because his family was out of town.
Darin and Ginger did alot of snoozing and cuddling. Darin is on a mission to become Ginger's best friend. There is just a big enough space between then that he will be 16 when she is 8 years old. He is already making plans to baptize her, but hasn't quite won Ginger over to that idea (or Ken for that matter:-) I keep encouraging him though and he has been a much better big brother because of it.

Funny picture of all of our blankets and what our TV looks like. I wonder if in 20 year our kids will think it looks so weird compared to future TV's.
Lola and Papa hung out with us all conference weekend. It was nice to be so low-key and not have a million things comflicitng with such a great weekend.
Nathan cuddled in his 20 blankets and pillows!
And one last shot of those two cuties!

I love the special Spirit that conference weekend brought into our home. We were all alot happier, less stressed, and the kids were even sweeter then normal. They really spent the whole weekend just hanging out together doing the same things and everyone was so happy. It's moments like this where I can really feel and see the blessing of making the gospel a priotity in our lives.