Conference Tradition

This year's general conference Sunday began with the Blueberry Boy Bait cake/coffee bread (thanks Hillary). Mommy really liked it, Dancing Princess Leia liked it enough, Belle picked around the blueberries, the boy turned up his nose and I'm not sure if daddy even looked at it. In this case it was not true to its name. We will here forth refer to it as

Yummy Blueberry Cake.

Next time I will try it using brown sugar as the "berries."

Since we are soooo far ahead of the mountain time zone and our kids have such a short attention span for old people talking, we have instituted a picnic lunch that get the kids in the same room as, if not listening to, conference. And by conference, I mean a tivoed session from Saturday because the morning session doesn't even start until 3pm!!!

We all have our specific assignments for getting this party together. Mommy is in charge of bitesize picnic fare. This year's menu consisted of the following:

Pigs in sheets (tortillas are not thick enough to be called blankets)
A hot dog and a slice of mozzarella cheese rolled up in a tortilla and zapped for 20 seconds to melt the cheese, then sliced into bites.

Above: Open Egg Sandwiches. Mini toasts topped with a four cheese spread to adhere the egg square to the top with a dollop of more cheese spread on top.

Below: Mixto Quente (ham and cheese) on Crackers. Super cute, super mini crackers with prato cheese and tiny sliced hot dogs on top. Again, zapped for a bit to melt the cheese to adhere the hot dog to the cracker.

Extreme close-ups!!!

Dogs in sheets.

Open Egg Sandwich

Mixto Quente on Crackers (the obvious favorite)

The kids have the task of laying out the blanket, setting out the tea set dishes and finding special toys to have at each person's place. This is the fun part for them.

This year's blanket of choice was princesses, as was one of the two tea sets used.

Everyone's place setting was color coded. And extensive.

Notice my kids still haven't quite figured out that the picnic is supposed to happen on, not around the picnic blanket. I find that cute. And a dead giveaway that they have not really ever had a picnic outside, or at least not enough.

Rex had is Lego collection with an extensive clone and Jedi army behind him.

And his sleeping car.

Dancing Princess Leia chose her bald eagle and pony.


Belle, who refused to help set up, rejected the stuffed tiger (as seen behind her) and decided to eat without toys.

This is Belle's plate. When she was done eating, there were tiny toasts and tortillias left over.

Rex chose to separate his food onto different plates. We actually used the tea cups and pots for this picnic, a treat in itself for the girls.

Sweet Leia trying to daintily use her rounded pronged fork in vain.

We ended up listening to the Saturday afternoon session. At least the beginning. Rex liked the singing. Belle liked the pretty dresses. We- Mommy and Daddy -listened carefully to the releases and callings to see if any of the people in our area were changing. Rex seemed to find many names that interested him, like the names of his friends or some that sounded Portuguese.

Then mention was made of the four temples dedicated last year. One of these, we were able to participate in, and tour, so I replayed that part to see if Rex heard about the Curitiba temple. The first time, he responded to the Panama temple because one of his good friends is from Panama. I rewound it again.

Still just Panama.

Then I said, there is a new temple in Brazil, try and listen for it. Lost cause, maybe because Curitiba was pronounced wrong, but mostly because my boys have one track minds (and apparently don't like blueberries).

Then we heard how many missionaries there are and told the kids that their uncle Owen is one of them. And then we listened to the first speaker, Elder M. Russell Ballard while the kids started drifting into their Lego worlds. Every once in a while Rex or Leia looked up and responded to something said, but did not protest or distract.

Improvement.

I have not personally listened or watched the rest, but have it both on my DVR and iPod so somehow, somewhere along the way I will get the rest of the messages.