Conference weekend!

We love General Conference weekend around here!  We love it mostly for the wonderful talks and music.  We love that 8 hours of our weekend (10 if you include the Priesthood session) is dedicated to Gospel learning.  But we also love it for two other reasons. First, Casey has NO Sunday meetings..which never happens.  He is home all day...which also rarely happens.  Second,  I have no organ duties!  Woohoo!  As much as I enjoy playing the organ in sacrament meeting, it is stressful when almost every song is new to me and the possibility of errors is high.  I thoroughly enjoyed being able to watch the professionals play the big organ at the conference center while I sat on my couch in my pjs.  

But, before I get into conference, I wanted to share what my girls are doing in their "teenager" room.  They repainted the walls (which were pink and green) and changed them to beige.  Charlotte wanted a shelf that would display her Disney stuff..she is really into Classic Disney collectibles right now...Steamboat Willie and Oswald.  Here is her shelf.

The last few times we have been to a Disney park, the girls have traded pins with the employees there.  As a result, they have handfuls of these pins that get lost or sucked up in the vacuum cleaner.  I decided to figure out a way that we could display them.  I bought an oil painting stretched canvas from the art store and spray painted it black.  This way, the kids can attach their trading pins to it and we can hang it on the wall.  It made a nice addition to their evolving bedroom.

Okay, now back to Conference.  Every year we do what we call "Candy conference."  Jars are filled with candy and each jar has a key word on it.  When the girls hear that word, they get a piece of candy.  We also have an uncle Niel jar.  (He is a member of the Tabernacle Choir).  When they see a shot of their uncle, they get a piece of candy.

Lydia was all ready to go on Sunday morning.

Casey decided we should watch Conference not on our television but on our wall.  He brought his video projector home and we turned our family room around so that we could watch a giant projection of Conference.  Later in the evening, we invited the Boorens over for a movie night.  (We watched Jumanji)

Now that the kids are older, we ask them to take detailed notes of the Sunday sessions of conference.  Casey and Charlotte even took notes on Saturday too.  We do this for two reasons.  First, it helps us remember and learn.  Second, we have our semi-annual conference competition with the Walkers the next day.  We divide into teams and quiz each other about the talks, the stories told, the color of the ties, flowers...whatever.  It is a blast and the kids take better notes because they want to win the competition.

 Charlotte and Marissa are great pals.  They were on opposing teams...Charlotte's team (which I happened to be a member of) won.  Afterwards, we had GIANT...and I mean fully loaded ice ream sundaes.   It was so much fun!

Well, that's about it for now.  This weekend we have a big Youth Conference to get through and Casey has a bridal show.  It is crazy busy...but by next week, things slow down again.  Phew!

Here is week 40

and week 41 (which is mainly a recap of what I just wrote about)