John's Wisdom Teeth

John has been pretty "lucky" with his teeth, for the majority of his life, up until a few months ago that is.... Back in December we were at a Christmas Parade and he asked me for some Advil, I asked him if he had a headache, he said no a toothache.  Needless to say, a few days later he was at the dentist.

 He had an infection and needed to have a root canal.  Apparently he has a baby tooth that never came out, and the adult tooth is sitting up there crooked and never came down.  (Now we know why Ashlee has had to have some major dental work done.  She also had a tooth way up in her cheek area that had to be forced down).  He was put on antibiotics for 10 days and scheduled for a root canal, piece of cake!

A few weeks after he had the root canal, he developed another toothache.  This time on the opposite side.  A few days later he went to the dentist, the dentist couldn't find anything obvious, so he told him it has to be his wisdom teeth and sent him to an oral surgeon.  Long story short, John had all four of his wisdom teeth removed on February 12th and it has been anything but pleasant for him.

John was sedated for the procedure, and it's a miracle I got him home and in the house without hurting himself.  It took the nurse and I about 10 minutes to get him in the car and once he got in the car, he face planted himself into the center console.  I finally got him in his seat and buckled in and as we were leaving he started playing with the visor, he was checking to see if he had lipstick on!  As I drove home, I had one hand on him and one on the steering wheel.  It was like he couldn't control his head and he was saying stuff and then he would go to sleep.  Once we got home, it took about 20 minutes to get him from the car into the house.  He was very "loopy", he could barely walk, he was wondering why his feet wouldn't work.  I had to hold on to one side of him, while he held on to something else along the way with his other side.  I finally got him to the living room, turned for a split second to get him some Kleenex and he had fell off the couch on to the floor.  I knew I was stuck, there was no way I could lift him.  I grabbed him a pillow, put it under his head and told him to stay there.  Unfortunately, he didn't listen.  He crawled to the couch, got himself back up on the couch and almost fell off the arm of the couch.  I finally got him to stay put, and by this time he was asking for pain medicine.  There was no way I could leave him at home and go to the pharmacy to get his medications, so I called my mom (who was getting ready to go bring my grandpa home from his prostate surgery) and she came to watch him while I went to the pharmacy.

While I was at the pharmacy, John started to become semi-conscious again, he was a little aware of what was going on around him.  When he finally came completely to, about 3 hours after his procedure, he didn't remember anything.  He doesn't even remember getting home.  He was definitely out of it!

The plan was to have the surgery on a Thursday, John would miss work Friday, Monday was a paid holiday, and he would return to work on Tuesday.  Things didn't go as planned, John was in a lot of pain and had lots of swelling. The pain medication wasn't working real well at controlling the pain, and the medication was making him, drowsy, nauseous and dizzy.

By Monday morning, John had went through and entire bottle of pain medication, so I took him back to the oral surgeon.  The surgeon said he may or may not have a dry socket, and said we needed to wait a day or two more to know for sure, and prescribed a new medication for him.  Tuesday morning, John got up and got dressed to go to work, but he was in so much pain, he just couldn't do it.  All day Tuesday he was in pain, the new medication wasn't working.  Wednesday morning I took him back to the oral surgeon and they started to treat him for a dry socket.  The surgeon cleaned the area, packed it with medicated gauze, and within minutes, John had relief!

 John still has packing in his mouth, every couple of days he goes to the oral surgeon to have the packing changed.  Tomorrow he goes in, hopefully for the last time and has the packing removed for good.  Saturday was the first time in 10 days he had an actual meal to eat.  He is finally back to work and able to eat some food.  Hopefully in another week he will be back to a 100 percent.

John says he is never having his wisdom teeth taken out again !!! Ashlee and Mikayla say they are never having theirs taken out!

SNA

Ashlee turned 14 about a month ago and tonight she attended her first SNA (Saturday Night Activity) a church dance.  She went with a friend from church who also recently turned 14.  She had fun, she said she would go to another one, so that's a good thing.

New Beginnings

Tonight the girls and I attended our wards Young Women's New Beginnings Program.  The theme for the night was a cruise ship theme, which tied into the 2015 church theme of "Embark in the Service of God."  They did a great job planning out the activity, and did not leave out any details, they even had entertainment during dessert, a skit performed by the Young Women and their leaders.

Ashlee had a few parts in the program for the evening and Mikayla was introduced as a new beehive entering the program in April.

Our ward has a very small Young Women's group.  Half of these girls are new beehives that will enter into the program this year.

They had a photo booth, with props for the girls.  They had a leader taking pictures with a Polaroid camera, so they could take their photo's home that night.  This is Olivia and Ashlee, being silly.

Valentines, a day early...

This morning we woke up and found this on the kitchen island.  Mikayla got up sometime during the night and left us this note.  So sweet.  It really is the little things that count.

Relief Society Activity

I have a new calling at church, I am now the Relief Society Activities Leader.  I was kind of scared about this calling,  since I haven't been able to attend very many of these activities, I wasn't really sure what to do.  Thankfully I have an awesome committee and there are resources widely available on the internet.

Tonight we had our first activity.  The theme for our activity was "This Little Piggy."  I found the idea on Pinterest, and we changed it up some to meet the needs of those in our ward.

When each sister arrived we had them write their name on an envelope, each envelope contained a note card which would be used later on.  They also picked a "Pig Pen", this cute little piggie on a chocolate heart, glued to a popsicle stick determined which "pig pen" (center) they would be starting at.  We also hoped that by randomly selecting a "pig pen," we would be encouraging sisters to mingle with others, instead of those that they usually mingle with.  Unfortunately, many of them kept drawing sticks until they ended up in a pen with their friends.  That was discouraging!

  We had four "pig pens" each pig pen rotated every 15 minutes to another pig pen.  At the pig pens they learned the following:

This Little Piggy Went to the Market-a center about budgeting and using your monthly cash flow effectively.  This center was taught by a sister in our ward that uses the Dave Ramsey budgeting method.  Each sister at this station received a chocolate gold coin and a laminated monthly budgeting/cash flow chart.

This Little Piggy Stayed Home- a center about organizing your home, simplifying and donating to those in need.  A sister on our committee taught this station.  Each sister received a chocolate heart and a daily chore chart.


This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef- a center about menu planning and making freezer meals.  I taught this station.  each sister received a hand out on freezer meal planning and prepping, along with several freezer meal recipes.  I also had Orange Chicken for them to sample.

This Little Piggy Had None- at this center, they chose a note card with a name on the envelope and wrote a note to the person who's name was on the envelope.  They also received a little treat bag that said "Hogs and Kisses", inside the bad were Hershey hugs and kisses.  At the end of the evening, before desserts, each sister received the note card that was wrote to them, for them to take home and read.

This Little Piggy Went Wee-Wee-Wee All The Way Home- our "trough" dessert station.  Everyone gathered their chairs around the "trough" and enjoyed desserts and socialized with each other.  Belinda, Jen and Traci did the desserts.  They all looked and tasted great.

We also had a gift for the person who arrived on time.  This person received a chocolate pig, with baby chocolate pigglets inside of her!

Some pictures of the room.  We went with the black, pink and white theme and incorporated pigs and damask print.  Belinda and Jen did a wonderful job with the decorations.

The evening seemed to go well.  We received positive feed back, so that was a good thing.  My committee, Belinda, Jen, Marsha, Traci, Katie and Tara, all did a fantastic job.  Everyone had a part and they did their part.  Now it's time to start planning for our next activity.....