Conference Weekend____________________
I love General Conference weekend. It is fun to have a change in schedule and to spend so much time together as a family. I also love hearing all the talks from the apostles and our prophet. The boys have come to love and anticipate conference weekend as well. We like to pick 5 words or topics as a family to listen for. In the past we have assigned each word a bowl of candy and when the word is mentioned in General Conference everyone gets to eat a piece of candy from the assigned bowl. The kids go crazy for this idea and it keeps them engaged so that Zach and I can also listen to the talks.
Saturday morning we watched the first session of conference together as a family. We had our bowls of candy with the assigned words ready to go. The first half of the session went smoothly but by about halfway through the boys were getting a little wild. Soon Ryan started bringing Post It notes out to change the words on the bowls to words that were mentioned more frequently. I knew it was all over when he assigned one of the bowls, "Every Word He Says." Needless to say, we decided to put that tradition on the back-burner for the next sessions of conference.
Camden napped during the second session on Saturday and we let Ryan and Brady play in the basement while Zach and I got to watch in peace. It was wonderful. After 4 hours in front of the TV and begin cooped up in the house all day, we were all anxious to get out of the house and move our bodies after the second session ended. We headed over to a baseball field to play some baseball as a family. (Ryan watched The Sandlot for the first time earlier that week and had been itching to get out and play baseball ever since.) We played baseball for quite some time before Camden got distracted by the playground. Soon all the boys were playing on the playground while I watched on. At one point Brady ran off to explore and came back looking like this:
I guess there was a huge section of sidewalk that was covered in mud from the rain earlier in the week and he slipped and fell right into it. It was pretty funny and he definitely needed a shower when we got home. In fact we had to strip him down to ride home to avoid getting his seat muddy. Believe it or not the mud was soaked clear through his underwear. It was hilarious.
Sunday morning we started off fresh with a new attention activity. We had so much candy left over from our last activity that I decided to make Bingo cards and use the candy as the markers. I figured this way it wouldn't matter how many times a word was said, just that it was said. The kids loved it and it kept them busy for most of the morning session.
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| The set up |
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| Camden thought it was pretty great! |
I wish I had taken a picture of Ryan's card. We worked together to pick all the words before conference started and he wrote his own card. He can be very creative with his spelling on some words and his card turned out so cute! He knew what each word spelled so that was all that mattered!
The second session on Sunday was much like the second session the day before. Camden was napping and Ryan and Brady were happily playing downstairs so we just let them play while Zach and I watched the final session together upstairs.
After the final session we were feeling that antsy feeling to get outside again. This time we ventured up American Fork Canyon to visit Cascade Springs- one of our favorites. It was raining when we first arrived but stopped within minutes of us getting out of the car. The temperature was perfect. It was busy but not crowded and the scenery was beautiful!
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| Brady's jacket didn't have a hood so we had to make one out of an extra t-shirt we had in the car to protect him from the rain. |
My favorite spot to take a picture. We were here in the spring and I took this exact same picture and it became the wallpaper on my phone for the next several months. The fall version of this shot is just as stunning and is currently the wallpaper on my phone again!
Brady's Soccer______________________
We signed Brady up for soccer again this fall. He has not been crazy about it in years past but said he would like to play again this year. Since he is not yet in Kindergarten he is still in the Tot Soccer league (3-4 year olds). I was excited because this was his advantage year. With a September birthday he was sure to be one of the oldest kids out there. I thought it would make a big difference and it did! He remembered what he learned in past seasons and really seemed to grasp the concept of kicking the ball to the appropriate goal. As an incentive to get him engaged in the game Zach promised him a dollar for every goal he scored in the first game. He scored 6 goals that game. This was his year.
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| I love the "soccer herd" that is Tot Soccer. |
Zach was pretty excited when we discovered that Jackson Emry (a former BYU Basketball star) would be coaching Brady's soccer team. Jackson has a son Brady's age who was also on the team. He was a great coach and the kids just loved him. He secured a spot in their hearts forever though when he showed up to the last game with trophies for each of the players. Those kids were in tot soccer heaven. To this day Brady's soccer trophy is one of his most prized possessions.
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| Brady and Fischer were on the same team again- it is so fun to have a buddy to grow up with! |
On October 10th my sister, Holly and I all ran in the Cougar Run 5K. I felt a little crazy signing up for a 5K run seeing as I hadn't run in over a month. Exercise has been hard for me this pregnancy. I feel like I have been a little gun shy coming right off a miscarriage and then with spotting early on in this pregnancy I have been even more hesitant to be too intense in my exercise. I pretty much just go on walks now. As I'm sure you could imagine, I was in no condition to run a 5K come October 10th but I pushed through and did it anyway. I ran the whole thing without stopping and finished in 32 minutes. (I figured if I finished in less than 45 minutes it would be a success; so I guess I'd call it a success?) I will be excited to run it again a year from now and see how I do.
It's always fun to get together and do anything with these girls- even if it is running in a race you feel completely unprepared for!
2 comments:
Ryan's "every word he says" had me laughing out loud!! ;) And Zach paying Brady for every goal he made?! Genius! Why have we never thought of doing that before??! Bribing with money = awesome. And you are an all-star to do the Cougar Run. I still feel bad for asking you to sign up with me...but you are amazing to even do it!! (and still as fast as you did!!!) I totally chickened out and didn't even try to run it when I was pregnant, so you are amazing.
I'm really impressed by the Conference activities you did with your kids! I'll have to try something like that next year. I thought it wouldn't work with the younger ones, but now I think it's worth the chance. Here it was just Jeff and I watching it while we tried to ignore the children pretty much destroying the house—getting out EVERYTHING.
Go Brooke! That's a great pregnant 5K time!!
I wish my kids wanted to play soccer this year. :( They both did last year, but this school year Jill chose gymnastics and tennis, and Daniel tried both of those and didn't want to continue but also refuses soccer. :( So he just has lots of energy to expel. Somehow. Somewhere. Usually on my couch. I'll figure something out!
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