General Conference Tradition

I have been trying to come up with traditions that will help my kiddos remember important moments. LDS General Conference is this weekend and it is definitely important to us. Read more about it here. I have this tendency to want to go all out. However, I have found that the stress is just not worth it anymore. I think after the first several late nights of last minute super ideas I came to the realization that simple is best.

Last conference Little Miss Sunshine (S) was 2 and my Twinkly-eyed boy (E) was 6 months. I chose two activities:

1. General Conference Wall (Idea from here). I taped pictures of common gospel topics. Every time the topic was mentioned we got to look inside the sheet protector for a surprise i.e. a page of stickers from the $1 bin at Target. 
2. General Conference Easter eggs (Idea from here). I taped a picture of each of the prophets and apostles faces on a plastic Easter egg and filled each of them with goldfish, pretzels or a few chocolate chips. You could use non-food items too like stickers. Each time one of the prophets spoke we would open their egg.

The best part about both of these was that they took a total of 10 minutes to prepare. My kind of tradition! Kids of all ages love Easter eggs too. Saturday I think we will go for a drive in the Canyon while listening. I'm sure there will be some kind of sweet treat involved on Sunday morning too while we watch Music and the Spoken Word (Watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Live). It starts at 9:30 MDT every Sunday. You don't want to miss it.

I plan to do the same thing this year and possibly have a few coloring pages out for S. S loved the eggs and I was shocked at how well she could dig in the bucket and pick out the right egg. Children are amazing! My kiddos really love and look forward to the music too. I have found that the fewer items to play with the better they are able to focus on each and they actually pay attention to conference too. Crazy, right?  Just remember-Simple Is Best! Tried and tested but I'll save that for a future post.

Lastly, I wanted to share something new I started this year leading up to conference. Several weeks ago I went to the Media Library on lds.org, downloaded all the prophets pictures and printed them at Target. I simply taped them to our kitchen window-I love, love, love that window-and wrote their names above their pictures in window crayons. Every meal time for the past two weeks we have practiced their names. S turns three this Summer. Repetition really works even at two. It's a good way for her to learn their names and learn the organizational structure of the Church. I ask her who is that and she tells me their name or I'll ask her to point to President or Elder so and so. After each one speaks we will write the topic of their talk under their picture. We may just keep it up for another couple months. She knows the First Presidency, President Packer, and Elder Perry. Hey, I'll take it! If she can recognize them in just 2 weeks she'll definitely have them all down by the time she is 18, right? 

Just today I set E up on the window seat and he pointed at a picture, looked at me and then grunted and moved to the next. Hmmm....wonder where he learned that? Children love to learn and it is quite thrilling to see them learn such important things at such a young age. They need all the tools they can get and as early as possible nowadays.

If you are looking for some ideas for General Conference check out my pinterest board here. There are tons of ideas which can be overwhelming. Just pick a few and call it good. Enjoy!