Conference!

Oh my goodness. This General Conference was so great. 

Here are just a few high lights from things that I loved. There were so many but these are just a few I am pulling from my notes. There are so many more. 

• Quentin L Cook: "Parents need to step up. Do not be afraid to say no. To filter things and bear powerful testimony. Spiritual maturity MUST flourish in the home!!"
• Ann M Dibb: "I know it, I live it, I love it! Be doers of the word!"
• Dieter F Uchtdorf: (really the whole talk) but "Try to be your best self. Excelle to be the person we were meant to be. Let yourself be happy. Don't let external circumstances control your happiness. You are in control of your happiness. Don't ruin sweet and memorable experiences by rushing to the end. Enjoy the moment and happiness." LIFE IS NOT MEANT TO BE ENJOYED IN RETROSPECT! One sees clearly with the heart. Anything essential is invisible.
• M. Russell Ballard: Honey Bees. Imagine what could happen if we were all anxiously engaged to serve others? Daily compassionate acts for our friends and neighbors. 
• Neil L. Anderson: I really enjoyed his talk about the Gift of Faith. The whole talk was wonderful. I am just going to pull a few things I wrote down. "Fiery trials are meant to make you stronger but often can make us fall away. When you are feel week- Don't step away.". Another part I really enjoyed. " The world asks, How can you ask so much? Just as the Heaves are higher  than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways." Build your faith upon a rock!
•  Dallin H Oaks: Amazing Talk! I mean really, I wish I could copy and paste this entire talk. It was so good and so spot on. One of my favorite quotes, "The best gift we can give a child is Birth!". 
• Linda K Burton: "First Observe-Then Serve" I really enjoyed this talk as well. Something she said that stuck out to me to remember, " Sometimes we want to serve in our way and not in the way that actually needs to be done".
• Walter F Gonzalez: Seek essential truth with your heart. We must be plugged into the "Celestial Web". "We must always be quick to remember the Lord. Pride and iniquity easily sneak in"
• Jeffery R Holland: WOW! I mean what can I say??? This was an AMAZING TALK!! My notes are to many, but as soon as there is a link to the talk, I will come back and post it here. I mean, just a WONDERFUL talk. 
• President Thomas S. Monson: "The Lord is in the Details of our Lives"

Sadly I was am still feeling sore from surgery and laid down in between sessions and slept through part of the last session. I am going to go back and watch it on the internet. But this weekend was so wonderful with such great talks. Like I said I only pulled a little from my notes. But there was so much more that I loved! 

Did you have favorites?? Leave me comments and let me know which ones you like or what stuck out to you!!

general conference traditions

this weekend we did our usual general conference tradition. we always watch it at home and i make fun finger foods for everyone. i try and get everything ready before the first session on Saturday and then we just kind of munch on everything Saturday and Sunday. it is nice because i don't have to cook a bunch and it is fun for the kids. they call it our general conference party!

(this year Saturday conference fell on kaels birthday. when he came into the kitchen he said, mom you made all this food for me and my birthday....you are so sweet!)

so here was our menu.

(i don't know why i take pictures of everything. i guess just for memory sake)

cheese and crackers

veggie tray and ranch dip

we also had stuff to make little mini sandwiches.

this is the only picture i got of the little smokies...because

these two were waiting for them and i barely got them in the bowl!!

wings...as usual. kael loves chicken, but this might be the last year i do them. we need to switch things up a bit!

garran sampling some food. he is so funny. i just love him.

after we had all nibbled on some food and were watching the second session of conference we found briea like this. i guess she was just to tired to even make it upstairs!

today's sessions were great and we are excited for tomorrow. hope everyone else has a nice weekend. it is chilly here.. in the 50's so we are definitely starting to feel like fall is in full swing!

Saturday's Confrence

well since sickness is still lingering a little at our house and things have been super busy, we decided to just take it easy this weekend and enjoy general conference. my dad made a trip up today to bring some moving supplies and a few items for the kids. one of them being this chair. the kids love it. it is big enough for all three of them to sit in. it used to be my aunts and she thought they might enjoy it. anyways. here they are sitting quietly (for a few minutes) during conference. as usual we had our "super bowl tradition". every year we do this and our kids think that general conference is some kind of party. they get so excited. we set up a picnic on the living room floor and have some yummy food in between sessions. all in all they did pretty well. we had coloring pages for them and i had downloaded some cards about the general authorities for them but did not get them done in time. packing and cleaning have kind of taken over my house at the moment. anyways here was our spread.i think my favorite was the fruit tray. i found the most delicious black berries ever!! i think i ate most of them ;0) I always try a new recipe and so this year was a new Mexican dip. garran really liked it and so did everyone else. (we had the missionaries over for lunch) I personally thought it was a little to salty. I am not sure how to fix that because you do not add salt or anything, maybe i will try a variation of ingredients next time.
anyways, we really enjoyed both sessions today and look forward to re-reading them and hearing tomorrows. hope everyone else is enjoying this wonderful weather!!
Happy Easter Tomorrow!
ps. got to love the moving boxes on the table with the food. we are just running out of room to put them.

general conference and fun traditions~

every six months when conference rolls around our family always gets excited. conference is a favorite of ours. we love hearing all of the talks and being able to spend two whole days together just being together and being uplifted. a few years back we started a family tradition. since we don't ever watch the super bowl and are not really into football ( i know, we are like the only people on earth that are not that into football. we like soccer!!) anyways we decided to do something fun for conference instead. so we do a conference super bowl. i usually try to get food together the night before. since we watch it at home on tv, i put stuff out after the first session and then people can just kind of munch. this gets me out of cooking for the rest of the day, which is also a plus! this is our spread from this year. it is missing one dish. i know some of the stuff is not that healthy, but it is only once every six months. we usually try to invite some people over, but this year just had the missionaries. i try to do a new dish each time, just to mix it up.this was what i tried this year. these are cheesy bacon wraps! they turned out pretty well. i need to figure out how to get them to stay circular, instead of kind of flattening out.

i am so glad that we get to spend this time together and to listen to the different messages. this conference was great. there were so many talks that i really enjoyed. if you are interested in listening you can click on the link below.
www.lds.org

fun around the house~

today we ran some errands early in the morning and then we watched conference at home. we have a tradition where i make what we call super bowl food for general conference. i always do a veggie tray with some kind of dip, some wings, some fruit, all kinds of fun stuff. so in between the two sessions we had fun just hanging out as a family and enjoying each others company. briea was being so good. she has been a trooper. over the past few days she has developed thrush. so she has been a little more grumpy than usual. she is still such a sweet baby though.

our boys of course were being little hams. they love the camera. i accidentally took this picture of kael.cullan then saw it on my camera when i was scrolling through some of the pictures and asked if he could do it too. i started laughing because the one with kael was just and accident, but i said sure. so here is cullan being too funny. he is such a cute boy!

then i wanted to take some pictures with the boys because i am always taking pictures, but am never in them. so i decided to hold my camera out and just try and get a few shots with me and my boys. here is how these came out=)my sweet cullanator.do i have some handsome kids or what! i think i might be in trouble down the road.

of course daddy got in on the fun too. i forget what i had them say, but they are always good for a funny picture together.

loving it~

so i know some of you that read my blog may not be to familiar with some of the things that our church does. so i thought i would explain as i blog. every six months they have a big meeting that is broadcast from salt lake city. the leaders of the church give talks on different topics that they feel are relevant to our times. i love it. i am always amazed afterwards at how wonderful the talks are and what great advise they give. it is both saturday and sunday. it sounds long, but it is worth it. todays were awesome. if you are interested at all you can watch them tomorrow by clicking here. Religious or not, they give great council! hope everyone is having a good saturday, we sure are. we had made plans to do one thing, but then changed at the last minute do to other peoples plans changing. oh well. now we have decided to have a new family tradition during general conference weekend. in the end it all works out!