The secret to 4+ hours of active listening and semi-quiet...

This weekend was General Conference Weekend, which means that on Saturday and Sunday we gather to hear our General Authorities and the Prophet speak to us for 4 hours on Saturday (with a two hour break in between), and 4 hours again on Sunday. It was really good. In case you missed any of the talks you can check them out here...

http://www.lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-1-1032,00.html

(I really enjoyed the very first talk by Elder Robert D. Hales, President Monson's talk Sunday morning and Elder Dieter Utchdorf's talk on Sunday. There were some others I really got a lot out of too, but off the top of my head those ones stick out.)


Needless to say, it is very difficult to get the kids to sit and listen for very long, and it is hard to listen as parents with small kids. (I have to admit it is even hard for adults to sit and listen this long too :). I have tried several things over the years to try and keep them quietly occupied, at least for parts of the conference, so we could hear. I read an idea online and tried it. It worked like a miracle. In fact all three of the kids, even the three year old, listened intently to the talks (at least the three year old for small amounts of time). Kacie listened to about 6 hours of it quite well, but overall for 4+ hours all three were actively and relatively, quietly listening. I put out 4 bowls with some treats in each. I put pictures behind each bowl and whenever that was mentioned in a talk then they got up and got one treat out of that bowl. Sometimes I switched the pictures or items so they had different things to listen for. They all loved it and we loved it too!