General Conference and my flowers

For General Conference earlier this month, I was looking around for some fun things to help my kids participate in conference so hopefully we'd all get more out of it.  I found this cute idea from an old Friend Magazine:  For the family home evening before conference, we read the story of King Benjamin and how all his people pitched their tents facing the temple so they could hear what he had to tell them.  We also discussed about how there were so many people that not everyone could hear what he said, so they wrote it down and brought it to the people who were too far away.  We related that to General Conference and how not all the Mormons in the world can be at the conference center, so we can watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio, and then later, they publish the Ensign and everyone can have a copy of the talks from the prophets and apostles who speak at General Conference.  

So when conference rolled around we made some "Conference Tents" and faced them toward the television so they could hear the words of the apostles.  The rules were you had to be quiet when you were in the conference tents (or anywhere in the family room, for that matter.)  

Here are some pictures of the kids playing Conference Bingo in their Conference Tents.  They got to keep whatever beads they placed on their bingo cards for use in "purchasing" screen time or prizes from the prize box.

The kids loved the tents, but truth be told, they worked for about 30 minutes, and then the novelty wore off an the little boys were kicked out to play so the rest of us could hear.  But 30 minutes is better than nothing, I guess.  And it made them feel excited about conference.

And below are just my flowers that we planted in our front yard planter.  They have nothing to do with Conference, but I just love them and wish they would last a little longer.  They are mostly gone now, so it's time for me to start planting stuff to stay through the summer.  I'm already looking forward to next spring!