General Conference, Apple Picking and Pie

On the first weekend of October every year (and the first weekend in April) we get to gather together with our family and our church community to listen to messages from the prophet of our church along with other leaders. The event is called General Conference. This year we were pretty excited to have the live broadcasts at times which made it possible for us to watch them live as opposed to watching them a but later via internet broadcasting. This also meant that we could gather together at our local meeting house with other members in the area and listen all together. It felt pretty special to be able to sit in the chapel with our family and the other families in our area. It was also the first year that the kids were able to watch all 4 sessions of General Conference and they were doing really well with recognizing some of the leadership. Not too shabby for a 2 and 4 year old. Their favorite part? Getting to watch President Monson wave to all the people in Conference building. It was a wonderful conference, as always, and I am looking forward to getting my conference issue Ensign so that I can start high lighting and studying (I think I'll get another one of those conference journals as well!). 

Well, to preface all those great conference session we woke up early to head out of the city to an apple picking farm. We lucked out and picked the perfect farm. It was nestled in some beautiful rolling hills that were covered in autumn colored trees. The drive was spectacular. The rain held off just long enough for us to pick a 20lb bag of apples (which we are still enjoying in various forms). We had a tractor ride out to the orchard and played on the great playground afterward. The fresh air and a little escape from the busy city was the perfect way to kick off the conference weekend. 

Then, between conference sessions, we made our conference apple pie on step at time. After all the sessions we all sat down and talked about our favorite parts of conference. Atticus is old enough now that he is starting to really remember our little traditions and I think it helps Milayla to get excited about them as well.

It was a great weekend and though it was very full between the apple picking and 4 sessions (plus the priesthood session for Jason) we really enjoyed the break from the very full days of trying to get familiar with Montreal and settle into our new home.

It was a great spiritual refill.

Now, enough with the randomly inserted apple picking pictures - please enjoy the photos of our apple collecting :)

LOVE those little pigtails that always seem to be falling out..

Atticus was in search of just the right apples to put into our pie

Look! more apples!

I wish you could see Milayla's facial expression in this one a bit better. It was priceless. 

Milayla decided to lick the apples that she picked before putting them in the bag. It's a good thing we've washed them before sharing :)

Everyone eager to head up the ladder

Trying to see where the good apples are

The Atticus and Milayla series: 

I love these kids.

Our tractor ride back to the farmhouse and playground. Beautiful surroundings!

Milayla LOVES these gumboots. They were perfect for marching around those rows of apple trees!

Having fun on the playground

I think I need some more practice at getting top crusts to work. But here is the pie before it went in the oven. I forgot to snap a photo of it after it was baked when it looked much more appealing.

2013 April General Conference

We like counting down to things around here. It just adds that extra aspect of anticipation that makes a world of difference when trying to get little kids excitement about an upcoming event. Visuals work wonders! Typically, we do a little more comprehensive of a countdown to General Conference, but with Jason's Birthday, Easter and Conference happening on consecutive weekends I did not want the count downs to overlap and just get confusing. So a nice, 5 evening countdown it was.

I picked 5 different talks from October General Conference that stood out to me. Restudied them. High lighted things I felt were applicable for us and put them on little coloured cards with a small illustration that I felt would be a good cue for the talk (and a good little visual for the kids).  I'm certainly not an artist, yet my little doodles seemed to do the trick. So, with the talk summaries tucked away in numbered envelopes I hung them on the wall next to the dinner table with the pictures of the general authorities underneath it. And each night, at dinner time (since dinner time affords us some pretty undivided attention from the kiddos so we use it as best we can), we would take a look at the next talk and find the picture of the person who said those wonderful things. The whole thing went brilliantly. The kids loved it and even retained some of those little pearls of wisdom, not to mention it was an awesome review for us adults :). 

When General Conference rolled around, the kids each had a little General Conference notebook, and a couple coloring pages from the Friend. I know some families do things a little more elaborate but just a couple things that promoted listening seemed to do the trick for us here. In the end, Milayla spent nearing every song conducting and most of the talks trying to find the corresponding picture on the paper on the wall.  

I recorded a video of Milayla conducting because we happen to think it is one of the sweetest things ever. She loves music. She tinkers away on any instrument that she gets her little fingers on and it's not just banging away; she tries to be quite deliberate about it. In any case, hopefully I can figure out how to upload the video (though shortening it may be asking a bit much...) 

(I FIGURED IT OUT! Yay! I love the faces she makes.)

As for Atticus, he loved listening for key words in each talk and drawing the speakers. 

Because of the time difference between here and Salt Lake City, the kids needed to head to bed on Sunday night before they got to hear President Monson speak and they were pretty sad about that, but I think the anticipation made it even better for them. They both sat through President Monson's entire address - now, that was a blessing :)!

Now, typically we would be busy making cinnamon buns amidst all these conference sessions, but not this go around. We simplified (something we've been trying to do a lot around here). Jason found a Gelateria not too far from us that makes Sorbet with only fruit and water and pitched the idea that we celebrate conference by going for ice cream. It was an easy sell; a treat we could all eat, an outing as a family, and an opportunity to talk a little bit about conference. Yes, please!

We didn't tell the kids where we were going beforehand, so they were pretty anxious to find out. Atticus was just excited that he was going to get to bike down there. He is getting so good on his Laufrad and has been pointing out to us nearly every time he gets on his bike that he is good enough for pedals. Perhaps there is a new bike in his future, his birthday is coming up...

Milayla went in the stroller, though she would have preferred to walk - or to ride a bike. She is just anxious to get on a bike and get moving. She is going to be one happy girl when her birthday rolls around...

In the meantime, she is pretty patient and makes the most of the stroller when we are traveling a little too far for her to walk. 

And after a very looooooong journey (according to Atticus), we made it. I don't know what kind of machine they use to make blueberries and water taste so delicious, but I love it. 

Milayla was not too pleased about the ice cream. We really never have it around here (though she is quite fond of green smoothies!) and I think she was a little surprised at how cold it is. 

 Certainly no problems or complaints from these boys though.

While enjoying our treat we each talked about our favorite parts of conference. The kids picked the music - big surprise ;). Though, Atticus went on and on about how we got to watch President Monson just like when we saw him in person! So perhaps that was his second favorite part; watching and listening to President Monson. I know I feel pretty blessed to listen to the words of a living prophet and to have the technology at our fingertips that allows us to hear those words no matter where we are living. I am so grateful for that. And I am so grateful that conference is every 6 months. I never quite realize just how much I need it until I have an entire weekend packed full of inspiring and uplifting talks that help me to be a better person, wife and mother. 

And with our ice cream complete (and our insides sufficiently frozen), we snapped one more picture and continued our conversation on the way home. Jason and I always seem to come up with lots of wonderful ways to enrich our marriage and our family that we fine tune and put into action. We're definitely not the best about putting them into action, but we're trying and getting better at it!

Yes, we are siting outside, bundled up and eating ice cream. We felt sufficiently crazy Canadian while doing it. Though, I think our Canadian friends and family would laugh at us if they knew we bundled up like this and it was above 0 degrees Celsius.  

 And of course, upon arriving home Milayla had to make it up all three flights of stairs on her own. Her determination is adorable. It doesn't matter how she has to get up those stairs, she is making it up them and will conquer them. She is pretty good at walking up the first couple flights, but the third one sometimes ends up more of a crawl. Particularly sweet is that he big brother stands at the top of the stairs cheering her on. Making it up all those steps is a BIG accomplishment and we are pretty proud of her.

 And then another conference weekend had come and gone. We've set a plan forward to do better at reviewing conference talks this go around. Jason and I will be rewatching and relistening to them in the coming weeks and talking about them more. Then we are planning on having more family home evening lessons focusing on conference talks that we feel would be good for our family to learn about together. I'm excited. So much goodness! I love the gospel.