Kids & Conference Weekend

We really enjoy the ability to watch our church's semi-annual General Conference at home over the internet.  The new video stream this year was absolutely fantastic, too.  I could watch it all on my full screen, and the quality was as good as I would see on a TV.  But best of all, it was practically seamless in the streaming.  In past conferences, we've had to give up on the video stream and settle for the audio only, because it would just hiccup too often, and have to sit and buffer before it started again... it just created too much of a disjointed listening experience.  This conference was so nice!!

The biggest benefit of watching conference at home, of course, is that the kids aren't going crazy in a dark chapel for several hours all weekend.  Most of the time, the kids just entertained themselves with their toys while Jesse and I listened to the conference, but we had a few fun moments I caught on camera.

During one session, Melinda and Jacob broke out a bunch of canvas toy bins and played in them like nests.  Alex, of course, couldn't help but to join in on the fun.  I just love the range of expressions and interactions in this series of photos.

 

 

There was one point where Jacob and Melinda were running back and forth, and Alex was "chasing" them as best he could.  They play this game every now and then, and it's just too funny.  The two older kids run pretty much at top speed across the room, and stand there laughing their heads off while Alex starts to crawl towards them.  As soon as he gets just a few paces closer, they dash back to the other side of the room, and Alex starts heading back, completely unruffled.  As soon as he gets a few paces in, they race past him once again.  What a silly bunch of kids!  ;)



During the last session, I broke out the paints, and we painted some autumn-themed pictures.  Or, at least, that was the goal.  Jacob mostly just made big layers of paint squiggles.  I was quite impressed by Melinda's pumpkin painting - she outlined a pumpkin first, then sketched in a face, and then started painting it.  She called it "done", until I suggested she add some other things, like a sky and the ground.  Then she quite happily added a blue sky, a yellow sunshine, and a patch of green grass.  She also had the start of a small red pumpkin in there, but left it as it was.  I couldn't be left out, either, so I tried my hand at autumn leaves.  Not terrible, for years of having no painting practice of my own.  We taped them all to the wall after they were dry.  Fun!