Easter & Conference

Easter was pretty low-key this year. The weather was yucky and since the city egg-hunt was the same time as conference we opted out of it. Instead, on Saturday we just stayed inside listening to conference and decorating eggs. Then when J went to the priesthood session I took the kids to the park and then to McD's for dinner. When we were leaving we decided to check Redbox and got The Princess and the Frog. Loved it! Even D sat for the whole thing and kept cracking up saying, "Frog, funny!" Here are a few pictures from our weekend:

Grandma helped AJ come up with a bunny costume so she could be the Easter bunny for D. What a cute bunny!

We took the eggs we decorated over to the park so they could throw, I mean roll them down the hill. D thought it was great.

The Easter bunny brought them each a new webkinz along with their candy.

Examining their loot. . .

With each egg he opened, D kept saying, "oh! candies. yum."

And now the epic conference tale: I did not plan very well this year. . . I've tried the conference packets in the past without a whole lot of success so I didn't even bother with them this year. I had gotten each of the older kids a journal (they were only $1 at Michaels) and gathered up my colored pens, stickers, and rub-ons for them to decorate their books while we watched. Well if there is anything that brings out AP's "aspergerness" it is stickers; he despises their stickiness and it's so bad that the site of them sends him to gagging fits. It's one of his sensory issues that really is beyond my comprehension and makes me crazy. However, I hoped that he would give rub-ons a try or in the very least just draw or write with the pens (he loves to draw comics). I asked him if he'd like to use the rub-ons, got a definite NO and told him to just take a pen with his book onto the bed (we were watching in mine and J's room). However, he didn't want any part of the book, and as it turned out AJ wasn't that interested either. Well it didn't take long before disruption ensued, with yelling and tears and AP ended up in his room. It was bad enough that I just wanted to turn the TV off and forget conference; I was definitely not feeling very spiritual. Well J gave AP his book and a pencil and told him he had to fill 11 pages before he could do anything fun that day. After some weeping and wailing he finally calmed down and got to work. In the meantime I got AJ to join me in making our books. A little later AP rejoined us and wrote quietly in his book while we finished watching conference mostly in peace. Here are our books:

That night they wanted to read them as their bedtime stories and AJ said to me, "Mom, let's keep working on our books so we can finish them by the end of the year." I was happy the books turned out successful after all and we decided we will spend a little time each Sunday working on them.

As far as conference being a success, I guess that is yet to be seen. J and I felt pretty deflated that our efforts to make it a good experience were once again thwarted and it certainly wasn't the spiritual feast we were hoping for. We just hope our persistence will pay off in the end and the kids will learn that listening to our leaders is important. . . because while we did "watch," in truth I can't tell you much about what was said. . . can't wait for that conference edition Ensign!