Squirrelly kids and screen time saves

Today was Stake Conference. We thought that we would go to the broadcast at our regular building instead of the live session at our Stake center. We figured that we would be less distracting there than at the broadcasted version, because have these two noisy, squirrelly kids. You know the ones I'm talking about:

We were wrong, very wrong.

We walked in and apparently only those with no small children who are looking for a very quiet meeting go to that building. We walked in... and walked right back out to go to the (noisier) Stake center. We lucked out by ending up in a side room with a big table and big comfy chairs where a few families and their kids were. That was perfect. Lots of wiggle room and just enough noise that no one was bothered by our additional noise.

Some highlights that I pulled from conference in the midst of wriggly children:

-Sometimes it feels easier to leave family members behind when we are trying to travel on the road of following God's commandments, but the difficulty does not merit abandoning our family members.

-Holding tight to the rod of iron (the word of God) can take us through rough terrain and sometimes it is going to feel incredibly difficult to hold on. If we ever find that we have let go and are lost, we should kneel down and pray to find our way back.

(Side note, this resounds with my reading tonight in 2 Nephi 7 (or Isaiah 50), in verse one the Lord points out that he never leaves us, it is only us who leave him. He will always be there.)

-The real mission of the Church's increased focus on sabbath day observance is to help foster an increase of faith in our Heavenly Father. (According to our speaker Elder Worthen) That's one I'm going to need to ponder some more, and/or figure out how to improve my sabbath day worship, because right now I don't see that direct connection. That was very interesting to me.

After Stake conference it was time for naps, for all parties here in the Cluff home. Marty and I made a deal that this time if the babies woke up, it was his job to go get them. I'm always on the night shift so I figured that was a fair trade. Sometimes naps are not even worth it for me because getting woken from a nap too soon makes me crankier than not taking one at all. Today was a good nap.

We went to visit Gma and Gpa Cluff today, and Marty's brother and sister-in-law who live a couple of doors down.

Check out the beautiful snowy trees down Main Street in Farmington:

Peter loved playing with the cousins and everyone loved Carolyn and her little dimpled smile. (Seriously, everywhere we go, people fawn over her. It's hard to keep my mom-pride in check sometimes).

When we went to leave both of the kids were overtired and Carolyn did NOT like how cold it was on the thirty second walk to the car. She usually loves her carseat but this time she screamed and screamed for the first 10 minutes or more of the drive. That is rare, she never screams like that. We finally decided to pull over and calm her down (because it's a 45 minute drive home), so we took her out and got her calmed down, but when I put her back in the carseat and she started screaming and screaming again. Marty put on his quick thinking cap and pulled up this video on youtube:

She LOVES this song. It was insta-calm-baby. We played it once and then started driving again, and I had to play the song one more time before she finally fell asleep. Phew. Luckily Peter was pretty good on this drive thanks to that DVD player and borrowing UP from Gma and Gpa. The last 30 minutes of the drive were lovely.

Now we're home again, both babies are sleeping, and I think Marty and I will have some ice cream. Not a bad night, not bad at all. 

(Random ice cream tip: If you like butterscotch dilly bars from Dairy Queen (like Marty loves), melt some butterscotch chips with a little bit of coconut oil and drizzle it over vanilla ice cream. If your husband is like mine it will win you some big time wife points.)

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