Saturday, April 6, 2013

Enjoying 2 Hours of Conference with a 2-Year Old

Up until this conference Addison has napped through part or all of every session of conference and so we haven't needed to have things to occupy her time.  Claire is taking after her and will sleep through every session of conference with her morning and afternoon naps.  Addison will nap through every afternoon session - so we only needed a little bit of entertainment to keep her occupied for the morning session.

I printed up a picture of each member of the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 and when each one speaks she matches their picture and removes them from the row.  When all 15 have spoken conference will be over - or almost over.  Addison can actually name more than half (typically Monson, Eyring, Uchtdorf, Packer, Perry, Nelson, Oaks, Holland, Bednar, and Cook) and she can tell you something about each of them.  For instance President Monson's bday is in August and President Eyring loves to make bread and Elder Perry likes to do yard work.  We're still working on Ballard, Scott, Hales, Christofferson, and Andersen - they are hit and miss.   
President Packer was the first to speak and she was really excited to actually get to remove a paper.  We've been preparing for conference for days and so she was so excited for it to actually be happening!  
I have also filled mason jars with little treats when she hears certain words like Priesthood, prayer, scriptures, temple, family, baptism, Jesus Christ, service, and family home evening.  They are labelled with a word and picture so she can recognize them.  Elder Packer started it off right away by saying Priesthood and she was beyond ecstatic!

Mom soon realized that Priesthood was going to be said way too many times to have a peppermint stick every time and so we changed out the jar and filled it with kix.
Addison soon decided that she didn't want anymore Jesus treats which were only animal crackers but she was begging for someone to say service so she could have a lindor ball.  It took all the way until President Eyring for her to hear the magic word and then he must have said it 5 or more times.   I'm not sure that Addison understood a lot of the messages but she at least knows some of the words that were repeated during conference and how to recognize our Priesthood authorities.
We ended up moving the jars to the floor and she wasn't that excited about prayer, scriptures, Jesus, Priesthood, or temple (craisins, cheez-its, animal crakcers, kix, apple jacks) but she did get 1 fruit snack for baptism, 2 lindor balls for service, and several mini M&Ms for family.  It worked great and she lasted all 2 hours of conference - not all the way attentive - but at least engaged and we would say somewhat exceptional for only 2 years old.  

Oliver and I are looking forward to enjoying this afternoon while our kids nap and then having more fun tomorrow morning with some other fun activities that I have planned.  I LOVE Conference weekend!

2 comments:

Desiree said...

Oh my gosh! Kendrick and I are dying over this idea! How brilliant and cute of you:)

Tiana Smith said...

Very cute ideas :)