Catch up list vs Conference list

While there is a lot that has happened in the past year
*deployment
*military hops to Hawaii with beaches and burns and sleeping on a terminal floor and a flight to California with crazy connections to get to family
*Utah fun and then a day trip back to California to hop on a military flight back to Alaska
*family visits
*Kindergarten with a first day fiasco
*beautiful long Alaskan fall
*Complete house rearrangement including moving sofas up and downstairs solo
*return from Deployment
*holidays and birthdays
*Hosted my 2nd Turkey Trot
*dog sledding
*Baptism
*Callings and Releases
*Ice Fishing
*Snowboarding/skiing
*Ice Festival

I think today I will start with gratitude for General Conference.  I really resonated with almost every talk which hardly happens for me.  I felt strengthened and chastised in the most loving way.  I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when Elder Bednar shared a story of a man trying to convince his wife of the necessity of a 4WD truck for emergent milk runs in snow storms.  I don't want a truck, but have told Fernando that if our Alaskan stay is more permanent than the one year we are set to have--I NEED a 4WD vehicle to help prevent all of the times our minivan has become stuck in snow even with snow tires.

The kids were great.  I can't begin to tell you have lucky I feel to have found that blog post (pre-pinterest days) to have gifts per Apostle who would speak.  Even though I have been doing it for years, I still wait until the very last minute possible to decide what to do.  Thank heavens for Talia's birthday party coming up.  Many of the activities were for the sole purpose of assembling the parts of the goodie bags the kids would receive.  (I have serious issues with just putting in candy that I don't even let my kids eat.)  So the night before conference, I headed to Walmart to wander the aisles in search of possible activities.  My list this year:
1-3 Puzzles (I meant to have this just be for one talk, but I ran out of ideas)
4-painting bird houses
5-Yarn balls (for a snowman corn hole-like party game) which turned into Pikachu balls
6- Elsa ribbon dolls and "Olaf" snowman ribbon dolls for pen toppers
7-Sven and Elsa foam head dress 
8-Playdough
9-3D Snowflakes (which was an epic failure. . .every time I cut it wrong)
10-Easter egg (didn't attempt.  The yarn balls were a bit too exciting and I was glad not to start this mess)
11- Easter Egg II  (also was grateful not to have to attempt this feat.  What was I thinking?)
12-Melting Beads which turned into Joaquin scooping and dumping all over the place
13-Picture of the Salt Lake City Temple with legos to make a small scale version
14-Ballon Animal Maker (again, what was I thinking?  Thankfully, the Elder Oaks spoke at the Priesthood Session  because that would have been a noisy, frustrating experience)

We also had note pages that the kids were supposed to use to write down their thoughts and impressions they had during each Apostle or Prophet's talk.  Bingo cards and a word search were waiting for them as well.  Over all it was very successful and now I have Talia's party pretty much ready for next weekend.