April General Conference Tree

A couple days before Conference I prepped the wall beside the TV with a large poster with tree silhouette. In my General Conference packet searching I saw something about trees and immediately thought putting leaves up would be fun and different.  Then I brought up a small table from downstairs and filled it with Conference packets for each kid, a basket of green paper leaves, pictures of all the First Presidency and 12 apostles, pens and tape.  The kids were excited when they got home from school and wanted to know all the details.  I love getting prepared early so the kids have some time to get excited.  Our leaf-less tree and the bags of candy that were ‘for Conference only’ were enough to get everyone excited.

We are used to our ‘Germany Conference Schedule’ now.  Our Saturday was filled with playing, cleaning and Ballroom Performances.   At 6:00 pm we got ready in the living room for the ‘Saturday morning’ session.  We ate pizza for dinner and Yorks for our conference treat.  After each speaker we took a paper leaf and wrote the speaker’s name and discussed what to write down for each speaker’s topic.  Then we took turns putting it up on the tree.  Then, if the speaker was one of the First Presidency or the 12 we added his picture along the bottom – in speaking order.

The kids were attentive… especially with York Peppermint Pattie treats for listening.  Poor Megan got so frustrated that she couldn’t write fast enough to take ‘notes’.  “HE’S TALKING TOO FAST!!!”  She ended up sitting by me and did a lot of ‘what did he say?’ so I could help her finish her point.    I just love her notes though.  The minute Conference started Megan sat down with her Conference packet and wrote “Prophets are AMAZING” on the title page.  I love that.

 

Sunday morning Bishop Tillett picked up Ryan and took him to the church for Priesthood Session at 11:00am with a big breakfast before. Chris was on his way back from Utah to Frankfurt but didn’t make it in time for Priesthood Session. While Ryan was gone we had a big breakfast of our own. Chris got home early afternoon and after a few minutes of welcome hugs and chatting he went straight to bed exhausted because of no sleep on his flight.

When Ryan got home at 2:00ish (Sunday) we watched the Saturday afternoon Session. This time Conference treats were Reese Peanut Butter cups.

 

This one cracks me up with Luke holding Megan’s face…

Then from 6:00pm to 8:00pm we watched the Sunday MORNING Session… Dad included.  The boys laid all over him – so excited he was home.  Love that picture of Matthew watching conference.

Sunday afternoon session is always the hardest to get in.  Live, it’s from 10:00pm to midnight, so we try to fit in in the coming week.  The week after conference was crazy busy so we ended up waiting until AFTER our Spring Break trip to Spain and finished it on Sunday afternoon (the 15th), after church.  Excellent session.  

Our full Conference tree…

 

Emily had a packet like Megan but kind of wished she had a full page for each speaker like  Katie and Ryan did.  That girl is growing up.