conference and the not so perfect family

I wish I could say conference weekend was nice and relaxing and that everyone sat through it quietly and happily, but if that were the case we wouldn't be talking about my family! I really wanted this to be a good experience for everyone so I decided I was not going to be uptight about making everyone sit and listen. I did make sure that conference was the only thing on throughout the house and tried to make the living room the center of events so that everyone would all want to be together. Before conference started we talked about the story of King Benjamin and how the people had to listen to conference from their tents. Then the kids built a tent out of the dining chairs and blankets while I made cinnamon rolls (AP and Avee helped me with the cinnamon sugar). Then when conference started I gave them each a cinnamon roll with apples and caramel dip. They were pretty content to eat their food and play in the tent during the first hour of conference and I breathed a sigh of relief as we were off to a great start. Then D decided he wanted to climb on the tent and that caused an uproar.


So we moved on to sugar cube temples. That started out great. Until AJ got frustrated with hers and ran off crying (anybody have suggestions on how to deal with an overly emotional 10-year-old?). Of course AP had to jump in and tell her not to be such a crybaby which only made it worse. So I sent him up to apologize. A fight ensued (why does it seem we work backwards?), so I had to go and help them work things out. I discovered that in AP's attempt to get into AJ's room to tell her he was sorry (she was really mad at him and trying very hard to keep him out) a hole ended up in her door. This all happened right before President Monson's talk (which I had intended to have them sit with me and listen to and had all kinds of sweet visions of us snuggled up together watching), but instead we all missed it. Sigh.



Well we eventually worked things out and had a nice little break after lunch. So for the second session I pulled out the candy and told them for each page of their conference packet they completed (or picture they made) they could choose a treat. That worked pretty well and we got through that session without any serious disruption. Whew. So once again, not the model family, but we keep on trying and hopefully at some point we'll get it right. And at least I have some cute pictures to look at to remind me that it wasn't all bad and we had a fair amount of fun together. Thank goodness for the camera!