The Rooster, The Bean and A Gunman: LDS General Conference Sunday at our house

For those of you that may not be Latter Day Saints, or understand much about our religion- General Conference happens every 6 months in our church. The Church is very organized and very reliable which is one of my favorite attributes about it, because I am usually neither of those things! I'm not perfect, but attempting to get a little better at the game of life. But basically the leaders of our church: which is the Prophet Thomas S. Monson, his 12 Apostles and other quorums of leaders called Seventies give the members of the LDS Church guidance. They teach and help remind us about the different things we should be focusing on as families. This conference there was a lot said about the function of the family and really everything in life comes back to this main structure of organization. I like it, it makes sense. I enjoyed the simplicity of a lot of the talks today, those are my favorite kind. I like when I can listen to the message and understand it without getting lost in other trains of thought. A great thing about Conference is it's televised and you can watch it live on TV, the Internet or read it online or in a printed magazine about a month later. So if you miss one of the 5 sessions, then you can go back and read it at a later time. They do 3 sessions on Saturday and 2 sessions on Sunday. The great benefit and probably the favorite thing for LDS families is we don't have to get gussied up and go to Church that Sunday, because we can watch it in our own living rooms. It's great. The kids think it's a national holiday pretty much.

Oh let me just tell you now- we are not like "those families" you hear about on LDS General Conference Sunday.... We are about as far from perfect as you can get. We do not get showered, we do not put our Sunday clothes on, we do not have some cute fun brunch before the first session, or a nice lunch afterwards or even much of a nice dinner. We haven't really started any tradition on Conference Sunday in our family in the 11 and 3/4 years that Kes and I have been married. But hey, we do what we can and we are always attempting at getting better. I'll be honest, I record Conference on Saturday but usually delete it from my DVR 6-12 months later and feel guilty as heck every time I see it in my "unviewed" que. I'm not as bad at going back and reading it, but let's just say again, I'm not perfect but attempting at being better each year.

I was happy to say that we at least watched the Sunday sessions but pretty much missed all the Saturday sessions. Kes usually always goes to the Priesthood session, which is the 3rd session on Saturday, but he was working yesterday and didn't get home in time. I know he felt bad, because the Priesthood session is usually one of the best. They give special council and direction to the men 12 years and up. Again this is why the Church is so neat and organized. They understand that men may need some help and teaching in addition to having their wives "school" them each day :) Heck, I don't think Kes really likes me telling him what to do, so maybe he will listen to someone more important telling him what's up!

These are just a few pictures from the activity that my family engaged in today. The first two pictures were taken early this morning. It looks like the Gunman had a couple of good take downs there.

After we had a little WWF action, the boys decided to build forts out of all my good pillows. Aren't I a cool mom? They wipe their little noses all over them and jump on them until I can see the dust billowing up in the morning light. It's hard to sit there and not keep yelling at them, but they had fun so I let them.

Rooster.... ever the ham.

Our good friends the Silva family brought over this cute Conference activity book for the boys. When they finished the activities after the last session of Conference, we could bring the boys to their house for a treat. What a great idea! I love organized and cute families, because again, I'm not organized :) The boys did a good job with all the different little activities and had a great time coloring the ties to match what the Prophet and Apostles were wearing. I love being a member of the Church, there's so many cute little quirks that it has. It makes me smile. You will notice the superior graphite shading is not the Rooster, but Kes' steady hand. He's actually a pretty good artist but he doesn't do it very often.

This was one of my "we aren't those kind of family" moments today. I made the boys Sams Club noodles which are the Gunman's favorite. This is daddy feeding them to him and Hailey the Schnauzer helping him get the ones off the carpet. Quite unorthodox not putting your 18 month old in the high chair to eat, but it looks like the Gunman and Hailey enjoyed their lunch.

You will notice below, these pictures were taken after the lunch noodle incident. Because now the Gunman's shirt has been removed, do to said noodles being spilt not only on my floor but on the Gunman's unbibbed jammie shirt.