Playing catch up - we'll see how far I get. :-)
We had a great General Conference weekend. I like the idea of creating some extra things for my kids (and the adults in our house...) to look forward to General Conference weekend, so I've started doing special cooking, mostly in the mornings, since it doesn't start for us until noon. So Saturday morning, we had crepes with Nutella. Jack really liked the "chock-et!" It's great to be able to share life's finer things with my children.
Then I got the kids out the house for a little while so Ben could get some things done. We met up with some friends at Coastfest, an educational event sponsored by the Dept. of Natural Resources, which teaches kids about the wildlife, ecosystems, topography, etc. of our coastline. We only stayed for about an hour, but the kids had a great time getting up close and personal with the animals that were all caught locally. They saw/touched/held: a snake, a baby alligator, sharks, shrimp, horseshoe crabs, sting rays, turtles, and others I can't remember right now. It was cool! Thanks for talking me into going, Allyson and Amber. :-)
Then we got home, ate some lunch, and watched conference. The kids did great! We set up a bunch of pictures from the Gospel Art Picture Kit on the wall, and let Cat cut out small pictures of the apostles and tape them onto the pictures (in page protectors.) Cat also helped with the taping of the pictures onto the wall. This was a good, simple activity to help her pay attention intermittently and recognize the apostles, but she wasn't as into it as I hoped she would be. We also tried to make a tent under the table (when the laptop was somewhere else) and tell the kids that it was the quiet tent for listening to our leaders (like King Benjamin's people listening to his sermon from their tents) but they were only excited about that for a short time.
In the end, this is what helped Cat stay quiet and even pay attention a little more than anything else we did. I got her her own notepad, and she sat down and copied, word for word, what Ben was taking notes on. On this page, she has written "find out what the Lord wants you to do then do it dear to the shepheurd."
She did some drawing, too. I found this page a few days after conference and it took me a few minutes to decipher it. Can you guess?
She wrote "the 1 prestitse" and drew a picture of 3 men. It's the First Presidency. Love it. And I bet Pres. Monson and Pres. Eyring appreciate all of the hair.
Sunday morning we made our own donuts and had some fun with it. Since we'd just gotten out all of the Halloween stuff, and I don't own a donut cutter, Cat suggested that we use the Halloween cookie cutters to cut out the donuts. It's hard to tell, but we ended up with bats, ghosts, moons, and of course pumpkins for donuts. We also made our glaze orange. Cat loved it and I think we might have a continuing conference tradition now.... We'll see if she remembers next year. :-)
Since the first session of General Conference is during J's and E's nap time, we decided to take the kids to the Church for the second session on Sunday. This ended up being a very bad idea. It was the session they did the worst in. They were rowdy and difficult in the chapel, and then they saw that someone was in the nursery playing with toys, so they just begged and begged to go to the nursery to play also. We finally relented, partly for our sanity, and partly for the relief of the other people struggling to pay attention to the speakers. So they spent the last 30 minutes (or more?) in the nursery playing while Ben and I sat in the foyer and listened. E crawled around happily.
All in all, it was a really good conference experience. I admit that I didn't get as much out of it as I would have liked to, but that is mostly because I was focused on the kids and helping them to stay reverent, learn, and listen. I think that's the way to go for this season of my life.
This is what you get when you leave an open box of baby cereal unattended and Jack is anywhere in the house.
This is what you get when you leave an open (almost new) box of Cheerios unattended and Jack is anywhere in the house. You'd think I would have learned after the baby cereal.
When Cat sets the table, "everything's a surprise!"
Can you guess who hung up the sweaters?
Corn! Delicious as a side dish, or a snack.
It's all fun and games...
until...
someone gets hurt.
But, wait a minute. This is Cat and Jack we're talking about.
He's used to it.
Jack's current favorite dress-up item. He puts it on the hoop skirt and calls himself a "Batrina." (From watching Angelina Ballerina, I think he's a little confused about the name.) He doesn't really dance in it, though. Sad.
This is mostly for my future reference. I took this picture from inside my kitchen because I was so excited that I was able to do dishes or something while watching C & J happily play with sand. (The sand was in the wheel barrow and I gave them the "task" of transferring it into the plastic container so that I could put a lid on it and keep critters out when they weren't playing with it.) I patted myself on the back for keeping them so happy while I was able to supervise and be productive at the same time. Five minutes later, the fun was over because they continued to throw the sand all over the place, including at each other. No more sand boxes in our family. Ever.
What can I say? The boy loves his cowboy boots.
I bought Eliza a couple of soft-tipped sippy cups a few months ago. So, naturally, C & J continuously begged to use them. I figured it wasn't a big deal, so I let them use the cups. This particular lunch time cracked me up. A week or so after I took this picture, Cat was biting on one of the soft tips of one of these and completely broke the top. No more sippy cups for Cat. Period.
He takes "tatoes" (tomatoes) from the fruit bowl at will.
He also helps himself to "bannas."
No. I will NOT drive you any further until you tell me why you refuse to ride in the cab.
I took this picture of Ben and his Dad the day his Dad ordained him to be a high priest.
Who turned out the lights?
Jack LOVED wearing his "babing" suit and going to the pool or beach all summer.
Sometimes it's hard being Jack.
Jack's favorite medium. This time, on himself.
Monkey see, monkey do.
She did some drawing, too. I found this page a few days after conference and it took me a few minutes to decipher it. Can you guess?
