We all had our first dentist visits here in Pocatello this past week. I had my last visit in May right before we left Anchorage, but for everyone else I think it had been about a year. We ended up deciding on going with a dentist who lives in our ward. I think it is kind of weird having a dentist or doctor who is also in your ward. Rebecca visit-teaches his wife who works at the front desk in his office and I talk to him sometimes at church more than just the "hi" in the hallway. Anyway, there were a few cavities that needed filled. Julia was the one who ended up needing the most work, which she was pretty upset about because she said that she is always the one who does the best job brushing. One of her fillings had fallen out and so her tooth had a hole in it that was about 1/3 of her tooth. The hole went down to the nerve so she ended up having to get a root canal (although the dentist didn't use that label).
I was sitting in the front waiting room when I first started hearing the screams. They said I could go back all I wanted so I went back to check on her and she had just gotten her numbing shot. The screams came and went after that, but there was non-stop crying through it all for about 30 minutes. I wasn't sure if I should stay back there with her because sometimes she cries more when Rebecca and I are around. After a few times of going back and forth, I did end up staying in the room and holding her hand until the end. It is not a very big dentist office and I wondered what the other patients must have been thinking to hear these death cries while they were getting their teeth cleaned.
Today in church our dentist came to check in with Julia and make sure she was okay. I think she thought it was cool to see him in the different context. Hopefully she wasn't too traumatized because she has to go back tomorrow to get another cavity filled on the other side.
The Swift Family Blog
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Castle
We have been having a lot of extra boxes with all of the furniture that we have been buying. The biggest of our boxes so far came from our two couches. We ended up buying two couches from Costco and they came in the giant boxes. I cut them up to lay them out on our garage floor for the cars (even though we are a one car family we have three cars in our garage right now) to drive on so all of the rocks and snow and everything will be easy to clean up once Spring rolls around. The pieces I cut are big enough to fit one car completely on them each. Even so, there were some pretty big pieces left over. Luckily we get free curbside recycling here in Pocatello (you had to pay for it in Alaska, so we ended up just stockpiling our recycling and making a big trip to the recycling center about once a month).
Anyway, the kids asked if they could borrow a piece to make a castle. They were down there for a couple hours or so working away and when I came down I was pretty impressed with what they had created. They had windows and a door and had colored it and everything. We have had some fun sword fighting games since then with me storming the castle and them trying to take it back.
By the way, I love Costco. I always feel good about the quality of the products that I can buy there, but if something does go wrong I am never worried about them not letting me take it back. I don't even have to keep the receipt because they just look it up on the credit card. Yesterday we were in there and I noticed that the couches were $200 less than what we paid for them. I told them that at the customer service desk and they just put $400 back on our credit card. I thought that was awesome.
Anyway, the kids asked if they could borrow a piece to make a castle. They were down there for a couple hours or so working away and when I came down I was pretty impressed with what they had created. They had windows and a door and had colored it and everything. We have had some fun sword fighting games since then with me storming the castle and them trying to take it back.
By the way, I love Costco. I always feel good about the quality of the products that I can buy there, but if something does go wrong I am never worried about them not letting me take it back. I don't even have to keep the receipt because they just look it up on the credit card. Yesterday we were in there and I noticed that the couches were $200 less than what we paid for them. I told them that at the customer service desk and they just put $400 back on our credit card. I thought that was awesome.
Spiderwick Chronicles
I am a few weeks late on this post, but we got the Spiderwick Chronicles books for Christmas. It was a few days before things settled down after Christmas before we started them, but once we did the children really got into them. Rebecca and I really liked them too. Each book is pretty short and only took us maybe 2-3 hours to read to the children. They each build off each other to make one giant story, but I think they could be read independently too. We ended up reading one or two a day and finished them in just under a week. Overall, I liked the books because they were short and kept the kids attention easily, they encouraged the children to imagine and make believe about cool little creatures and fairies that might be all around them, I could imagine how excited I would be if I was in the main character's situation and I discovered the things he discovered, and although the siblings in the book disagreed with each other and bothered each other some, they worked together throughout the books and it showed how much they really cared for each other.
When we were all done Caleb let us borrow the movie to watch. I like it when the kids can watch a movie after reading the books. It often gives them something to look forward to and get excited about while reading and it seems like they have fun comparing their imagination to what is in the movie. Also, it seems like it makes the movies a little less scary for them because they know what the end is going to be like. I thought the movie was pretty good. It covered all of the books in one, so they had to leave a lot out and change a few things, but it was still entertaining. It is funny because Rebecca and I watched the movie by ourselves maybe 8 or so years ago and neither one of us liked it. But now that we had read the books and we were thinking about how excited our kids were for it, I liked it a lot more.
When we were all done Caleb let us borrow the movie to watch. I like it when the kids can watch a movie after reading the books. It often gives them something to look forward to and get excited about while reading and it seems like they have fun comparing their imagination to what is in the movie. Also, it seems like it makes the movies a little less scary for them because they know what the end is going to be like. I thought the movie was pretty good. It covered all of the books in one, so they had to leave a lot out and change a few things, but it was still entertaining. It is funny because Rebecca and I watched the movie by ourselves maybe 8 or so years ago and neither one of us liked it. But now that we had read the books and we were thinking about how excited our kids were for it, I liked it a lot more.
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Rexburg Idaho Trip
On Saturday we decided to make a family trip up to Rexburg so Rebecca and I could attend the temple in one trip rather than driving up two separate times. It is about 1 hour and 15 minutes away. Our usual temple would be Idaho Falls (45 minutes away), but it is closed for renovations until October of this year.
We got there a little before 10:30 hoping to make that session. However, they told us that the 10:30 session was all full, as well as the 11:15 and the 12:00 noon session. So I got I slip to be in line for the 12:45 session. We are not supposed to save spots, but I went and did sealings in the temple right then since there was only an hour wait for that. In the LDS church we believe that marriages that are performed in the temple through the authority of God can last after death in the next life. However, since most people do not have the opportunity to get married in the temple, we can represent them and do that work (sealings) for them in the temple after they have passed away. They still have the ability to choose if they want the temple work to count, but at least once it is done, they get to choose.
Rebecca took the kids for a walk around the temple and then to a few stores while I was there.
Right after I was done with sealings I ran down to meet Rebecca at the front and give her my ticket for the 12:45 session. It was probably 12:30 when I met her. When she went to get in they told her that all of the session were full for the day and so she wouldn't be able to do any work. That is the first time I have ever heard about that happening, but I guess it is a regular thing at this temple since the Idaho Falls one has been closed. Luckily she pulled out the card that I gave her. They were surprised she had it, but said she was good to go in then.
While Rebecca was in the temple the children and I hung out at BYU-Idaho. It seems like a pretty fun campus. We did a few games of bowling which were only $1.50 per game. Luckily we made it there before they opened because about 5 minutes after we got in all the lanes filled up. The teams were Wolfmen (Elliott and Ethan), Lightning Bolts (Julia and Christian), and Mom's Fans (me and Agnes). The Wolfmen got the top score with a 111. After bowling we walked around their student center, played a little ping pong, the kids asked all of the students in line at the testing center why they had to wait in line to take a test on a Saturday, and we had some races around campus. It was a fun Saturday outing for our family.
We got there a little before 10:30 hoping to make that session. However, they told us that the 10:30 session was all full, as well as the 11:15 and the 12:00 noon session. So I got I slip to be in line for the 12:45 session. We are not supposed to save spots, but I went and did sealings in the temple right then since there was only an hour wait for that. In the LDS church we believe that marriages that are performed in the temple through the authority of God can last after death in the next life. However, since most people do not have the opportunity to get married in the temple, we can represent them and do that work (sealings) for them in the temple after they have passed away. They still have the ability to choose if they want the temple work to count, but at least once it is done, they get to choose.
Rebecca took the kids for a walk around the temple and then to a few stores while I was there.
Right after I was done with sealings I ran down to meet Rebecca at the front and give her my ticket for the 12:45 session. It was probably 12:30 when I met her. When she went to get in they told her that all of the session were full for the day and so she wouldn't be able to do any work. That is the first time I have ever heard about that happening, but I guess it is a regular thing at this temple since the Idaho Falls one has been closed. Luckily she pulled out the card that I gave her. They were surprised she had it, but said she was good to go in then.
While Rebecca was in the temple the children and I hung out at BYU-Idaho. It seems like a pretty fun campus. We did a few games of bowling which were only $1.50 per game. Luckily we made it there before they opened because about 5 minutes after we got in all the lanes filled up. The teams were Wolfmen (Elliott and Ethan), Lightning Bolts (Julia and Christian), and Mom's Fans (me and Agnes). The Wolfmen got the top score with a 111. After bowling we walked around their student center, played a little ping pong, the kids asked all of the students in line at the testing center why they had to wait in line to take a test on a Saturday, and we had some races around campus. It was a fun Saturday outing for our family.
Monday, January 18, 2016
One more Christmas Picture
I found this Christmas picture that I forgot to post earlier. Maybe we will have to use it for our Christmas card picture next year. P.S. if you didn't get a Christmas card from us this year, sorry! We weren't able to send them out to anyone this year.
Parent-teacher Conferences and Student of the Week
The kids had parent-teacher conferences this last week. They all did great! Their teachers said they are doing a good job adjusting and making friends, they are participating well in class, they are following class rules, and they are in almost all cases exceeding the education expectations (In 3 weeks of school Christian has already passed off all Kindergarten requirements, Ethan is particularly advanced in reading, and Julia is excelling in pretty much every area).
Julia did get nominated by her classmates to be the class president (I guess they rotate about every month). However, she declined. She told Rebecca that if they nominated her again she would feel confident enough to do it next time.
Ethan also got nominated by his class to be the "Student of the Week." He was pretty happy about that.
Julia did get nominated by her classmates to be the class president (I guess they rotate about every month). However, she declined. She told Rebecca that if they nominated her again she would feel confident enough to do it next time.
Ethan also got nominated by his class to be the "Student of the Week." He was pretty happy about that.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Builders Christian and Julia
I mentioned in a previous post that we bought two dressers from IKEA. We ended up deciding to put the tall one in Julia's room and the wide one in Christian's room (we got our dresser from another store in the same trip and Ethan's should arrive this Thursday, so that just leaves a dresser for Agnes and Elliott).
We put Julia's dresser together first. It was fun to work with her on it, but she ended up getting bored with it after a little bit. I think it ended up taking about 3-4 hours to finish it completely. A few days later we were able to put Christian's together. He was super excited about it from start to finish. He knew exactly how to read the instructions and how to follow them. When we did something wrong, he would look back at the pictures and figure out how to correct it. He kept saying it was just like legos and that he was having so much fun. I let him take the lead on the whole thing and I mainly just tightened the screws and made sure things were hammered in tightly. It was a lot of fun for me to do it with him and it made me wish we had a few more to put together like that.
We put Julia's dresser together first. It was fun to work with her on it, but she ended up getting bored with it after a little bit. I think it ended up taking about 3-4 hours to finish it completely. A few days later we were able to put Christian's together. He was super excited about it from start to finish. He knew exactly how to read the instructions and how to follow them. When we did something wrong, he would look back at the pictures and figure out how to correct it. He kept saying it was just like legos and that he was having so much fun. I let him take the lead on the whole thing and I mainly just tightened the screws and made sure things were hammered in tightly. It was a lot of fun for me to do it with him and it made me wish we had a few more to put together like that.
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