William Swift

Ethan has his biggest assignment of the year due tomorrow. He had to pick and ancestor, do research on the individual, write-up a final report, make a doll of the individual, and then he will present it in class sometime this week. They were very specific in how he had to do each of the steps. He had to complete an outline, he had to use multiple sources for information (he used Grandpa Swift, familysearch.org, internet searches, and library books), he had to write at least one draft, and then his final report had be error free. They even specified that within a paragraph all of the sentences had to start differently and he could only include one sentence that had the word "and" in it. I was thinking that he might do a little complaining on some of the specifics, but he actually enjoyed it. He liked coming up with different ways to start the sentences and he wanted to try to be creative with his words. So here is his final product. It is about William Swift, who was our first Swift ancestor to come to America (he came when he was 10 so his whole family were actually the first ones).


In class they are going to take pictures and put their own head in for the face.

Fast Sunday Sacrament Drawings

Just wanted to share the kids' drawings from sacrament meeting again.

The boys have been on a zombie kick lately. Ethan is wanting to do a zombie theme for his birthday party so they have talking about different ideas for that a lot.

Elliott's

Christian's

Christian's

Ethan's

You can tell what Julia was thinking of this Fast Sunday. She does a good job with it, but it is still hard for her. We always have waffles for dinner for Fast Sunday.

April Fools' Day

Rebecca and I love April Fools' Day, but for some reason our kids don't like it as much. We usually like to play some type of joke on our children, and then lots of time some type of joke on our family members. I often try to get in a joke on Rebecca too, but that is often hard because after 10+ years together she has come to expect it.

This year we weren't all that creative. We tried to think of a few ideas, but nothing was really coming to us. On Fridays we do pancakes for breakfast and pizza for dinner in our home. So on April Fool's Day we tried to do pizza for breakfast. They were giant pancakes with raspberry jam for the pizza sauce, coconut and almond bark shavings for the cheese, and chocolate chips and marshmallows for the toppings. It didn't fool the kids at all, but they thought it was a good try. For Julia and Ethan's lunch (Christian doesn't have school on Fridays) I put some spaghetti noodles in with their sandwiches and cut their apples in the shape of eyeballs with a chocolate chip for the pupil. They did not like it at all. They said all the other kids at their tables were reading their notes and saying gross, that they were going to barf, and making weird faces. Right when they got home Rebecca had to listen to them complain about it for a few minutes, but by the time I got home they had softened up some. Little do they know that all their complaining only made me want to do something way worse for next year. I better start thinking of some ideas right now.

Happy Easter

It was fun to have an early Easter this year. It came right at the end of our Spring Break here, so we had a whole week to prepare for it. We did a few small activities (games, videos, crafts) on Easter as well as the days leading up to it. On Saturday we officially started our Easter celebrations with an early morning temple trip. We left our house at 5 am to get to the temple next to BYU-Idaho by about 6:30. We had a couple family names that we needed to do baptisms for, so both Rebecca and I did that this time. The temple workers told us just 30-45 minutes, so Rebecca just sat in the car with the kids while I went in first. Unfortunately it was really crowded and it took me 2 hours. Rebecca went next. Knowing that it would be a while I took the children to the BYU-Idaho campus to play some games and walk around again. We spent some time talking about the temple and how the work done in there only makes sense if there is a resurrection.







When we got home the kids hung out downstairs for a bit and while I was "taking a nap" upstairs the Easter bunny came. Earlier Christian, Elliott, and I had organized all of the eggs by color so I just hid all of the eggs around the upstairs and then all the children got to go at the same time and just find their colored eggs. I hid them extra hard for Julia and Ethan this time so they needed a little extra help.



















Then on Sunday we tried to keep things more Christ-centered. We started breakfast with our resurrection toast tradition (really toad in the holes, but the middle bread piece represents the stone that they get to roll away). It was sunny out, so we were able to walk to church again. There were many great talks and lessons. We had our Easter sacrament meeting a couple weeks back, but the talks on that day still had an Easter focus, but linking it to the temple. It was great because it was exactly what we just talked about with the children.









For dinner we had ham like usual, but this time Rebecca boiled it, shredded it, then baked it in the oven with a little brown sugar and mustard powder. It was really good. We also had rolls, asparagus, and scalloped potatoes.



That night we got to do skype with my parents who are on their mission in the Philippines. Rebecca also got to talk to her parents. Overall it was a wonderful Easter weekend. I am so glad that we have this holiday to celebrate the resurrection of the Savior. What a wonderful gift that we have been given. That after we die, not only will our spirit go on living, but because of Jesus Christ our spirit will be reunited with a perfected body - one without flaws a limitations and one that will allow us to enjoy all of the physical things that we get to enjoy in this life, like eating yummy food, giving our loved ones hugs, exercising, and so much more.