General Conference Crafts (and Food)

...Because it's me and that means there is always food.

The day before General Conference I realized what was about to happen. 8 hours of listening and nothing for all those little hands to do to keep them quiet and encourage those 8 hours of listening. So we quickly went to work to remedy that problem. The first thing I did was revamp their conference books. These books have coloring pages (all downloaded of LDS.org the German version of the website) and some photocopies of the primary songs we have been working on. They recognize the illustrations on the pages with the music so although they can't read (music or words) they know what song they are looking at and can sing it when they see the sheet music. The books also have the 1st Presidency and Twelve Apostle cards in them (see later photo) so that when there is a speaker speaking from those groups, they can find the card and then see the face that matches the voice. (We don't get TV - on purpose - and therefore for at least one of the conference days we listen on the radio.)

I chose three themes this conference that I was sure would be addressed. It's really not that hard to do. I picked "Temples," "Family," and "Jesus Christ."  Next April I've decided to do "The Book of Mormon," "Missionary Work," and "Love."

For the first session, in which two new temples were actually announced, we built temples out of sugar cubes. Here are the photos to prove it.

Supplies

Lukas got the hang of it right away

Some "temples" looked more templely than others

So sometimes Papa has to step in and help a bit. This is Abigail's (with Papa's help) about 10 seconds before the steeple fell over.

Joshua's church

Joshua's temple - facing the entrance with a wall all around it.

My temple

building

looking better

All our final masterpieces

This worked extremely well. Lukas was the only one to try and eat the sugar cubes. Although Derek helped Abigail a little, this was an engaging activity they could do ALL ON THEIR OWN.  When we had used all the sugar cubes, they worked in their conference books.

President Uchtdorf's Talk

For the second session we focused on families and we made some families out of the clothespin doll things. They really enjoyed this activity too, but because it requires hot glue, I had to do most of the work. Joshua was old enough to kind of design his own, but Abigail and Lukas mostly just picked out colors and I had to do the rest. This was not my favorite activity since I had to do so much and didn't get to listen as closely to conference as I would have liked, but it was still successful in my mind.

And not to forget, that morning for breakfast we had mini pancakes as a special treat. We actually eat pancakes at least once a month - but they requested pancakes so that's what we made.

I know it doesn't look very "mini" but I promise they were much smaller than normal

Alright, for the Sunday sessions we went up to Midway to watch on the big TV (my in-laws).  For the first session I had the kids just play with Grammy's toys because that is new and special enough anyway. I saved our last craft for that afternoon when I knew a couple cousins would be there to craft with us.  We made frames for pictures of Jesus that the kids had picked out a few days before. I had bought a few new fun crafty things at the dollar store (and JoAnns - love hate relationship - love the products, hate the prices) and the kids worked so hard on their frames for so long. We were downstairs crafting and being quiet and listening while the adults were upstairs watching conference. The big winner was the glitter glue - 10 tubes for 1 dollars. AWESOME!!

Our artists in action

pulling the paper back off a foam sticker

Glitter glue was definitely the artists medium of choice here

with all those sequins swimming up there, I would have to say NORMAL glue was a definite favorite here

Finished products with the pictures they had picked out a few days earlier. Looking good.

And of course, I made muffins as our special treat. These are orange cranberry muffins. I use a basic blueberry muffin recipe, omit the blueberries, add a liquified orange (rind and all) plus some citrus blend essential oil and a handful of craisins. I always end up making mini muffins because I only have one regular sized muffin tin and I get impatient waiting to bake, cool, empty the tin, and then fill it up again to bake again, so I alternate between the two size muffins tins. The result is I EAT ALL THE MINI MUFFINS! You know, they're so small. One (or 5) wont really make a difference, right?

Happy Kiddie Conference. (And yes, I did have a spiritual time and learn some wonderful things and felt completely uplifted and inspired and can't wait for the conference Ensign edition to come out.)