DECEMBER BIRTHDAYS

Our little Hallie May Eggett turned one year old on Dec. 27th. What a cutie! She can walk now and she smiles all the time. She is a real sweetie.

Brooke turned 30-something. Her birthday gets overlooked a lot because of her choice to be born so close to Christmas on the 21st of Dec. And to complicate things, her wedding anniversary is Dec. 30th - She just wanted to get everything over with in a weeks time. She looks as cute and young and skinny as she was in high school even though she is the mother of 5 kids!

Notice the candles and you can guess her age.

BOOK REVIEWs

For Christmas Rock bought me a reading lamp. It is great! (I suspect he didn't like all the overhead lights on at night while he was trying to sleep or the lights on at 2 a.m. when I can't sleep and decide to read a book or crochet instead....) Anyway, here are the books I have read since Christmas;

Sweet, sad, absorbing, and a bit depressing, but don't let that keep you away, it is a simple read that really depicts the character and emotion of a small family in Germany during WWII - well, yes, it's been done before but these characters will steal your heart. Literary devices are a little reminiscent "Meet Joe Black-ish" as the Narrator/Grim Reaper absorbs himself in the personal life of the main character...I recommend it highly.




Okay I am bummed that one of my favorite authors wrote such a dumb book. Really dumb. But Erin brought it home from the library and I was scouring the bookshelves for something anyway.....Okay, well if you like Pride and Prejuduice read it anyway. It is beyond silly, but sometimes silly is a good way to spend a mindless evening, especially if your other choice is watching re-runs of "Star Trek" with your husband. I recommend reading her other books - she is a great writer normally.

CHRISTMAS NATIVITY

This year for our Nativity Scene we tried to follow the same pattern President Eyring talked about in the Christmas Devotional by starting with the Samuel the Laminite Story and progressing to the Bethlehem Story. All the Children were dressed up in their parts. In this picture we have baby Jesus trying to destroy his manger, Addy as Mary, Hayliann as the Star in the Heavens, and Hunter as Joseph. River was a shepherd, (not in this picture...) We also had Kayla as one of the "Choirs of Angels" and the rest of the "Choir of Angels are somewhere in the background, but they were really cute! There were some fantastic"Wise Men (Women)" pictured below and some of the smaller children were "Cattle Lowing" /"Lambs" dressed in cotton balls and brown furry clothes. I hope someone else got the good pictures because I was on Stage crew and didn't get my camera. I need my kids to pass on the pictures...
(L to R) - McKay, Alyssa, and Mylee as the "Wisemen from the Orient a-far" McKay had a quick change because before he was the Wise Man he was Samuel the Lamanite on the wall prophesying of the coming of the Christ. We had an "angry Mob" trying to hit him with the tin foil arrows and stones, and of course they couldn't hit him. However, some of the "Angry Mob" can't aim that good, and one may have mistakenly hit him...

Next year we are just going to make the pictures into a DVD and watch it on TV.

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR 20 GRANDCHILDREN?

CHRISTMAS GIFTS for 20 granchildren can be challenging and time consuming. I decided that a good little book/church bag would be a good idea. Each bag contained coloring books, little toys, pencils, gum, crayons, books, gloves, socks and misc toys.

EACH BAG had a homemade case for either crayons or colored pencils. You put them in the slots, and then roll them up and tie with a ribbon. These were fun to make as I had to choose material that really resembled the personality of each child.

HOMEMADE CHRISTMAS GIFTS

I have always loved to make homemade Christmas gifts - and this year was no different. I had a lot of fun crocheting hats for each person in the family. As I was working on each hat it gave me an opportunity to to think about each person as I crocheted. I am so grateful for each of my children and grandchildren! (NOt pictured is Seth's family - they were at the in-laws)

It wouldn't be Christmas if I couldn't make PJ bottoms for the 8 boys - (Seth not pictured)

I love to make these scripture bags, they are so cute! Each of the 8 girls got one. (Cairen not pictured) Maybe not everyone thinks it's fun, but I really love to do it!

SUB FOR SANTA

TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS our grandchildren and children met together to make some homemade gifts for an INNER CITY PRIMARY PARTY.


here are some of the kids in the basement sanding and painting the little wooden cars. Sage later added the wheels.

These are the blocks that Smith made, and Erin and Lisa painted.


All the little children at the PRIMARY party got a car, some blocks or a doll that Amber purchased, (not pictured).




Amber purchased some darling little dolls that were wrapped for the children also. We also made 120 sugar cookies and decorated them as CHRISTMAS TREES for all the kids.

OUR MISSIONARIES reported that the children loved their homemade toys and all the cookies!!!!

Some of the grandchildren donated $5 of their money to buy the cars. Joel's children donated a toy from Santa's list to give the INNER CITY CHILDREN instead of keeping them, and they were things they really wanted.

Some of our children donated gift cards from Wal-mart to some needy families as well as my sister and my brother and Rock's Auntie. We gave them to a Branch President so he could give them to needy members of his Branch. He was very grateful. We knew that he himself and his family needed a lot of help too, but they were very humble expressed their love and gratitude on behalf of those people who he would give the cards to.

Erin said - (I copied off her blog) -

"It was a lot of fun making these, but what was even more satisfying was the attitude our kids had about giving away. Mylee said, "We're only getting one thing for Christmas this year because the poor kids are getting our stuff." McKay, Hunter and Emma each gave away one of their "Christmas list" presents (which were really cool looking) and many of the children gave $5 of their own money to pay for the toys we were making and giving away. Several other children went out and bought toys. Erin made a small baby blanket, and I know several in my family donated Walmart gift cards, and I am sure there are many things that I do not know of."

I FEEL BETTER NOW

I had my gall bladder out November 19th. ...After 20 years of pain, I sure feel better now.

I am still trying to figure out if I am going to miss it.....hummm - It's the green thing in this picture. I can't believe such a little tiny thing can cause so much pain. Well it isn't there anymore.

The worst thing about the surgery was that they gave me too much medication, I slept 3 days, and then I had a massive hangover with the worst headache of my life. I could hear my heart beating in my head and it felt like someone hitting my head with a hammer. (I wonder if that is what drunks feel like?)

My sweet sister Ruth brought me a yummy dinner the day I got home from the surgery. It was really a good day!
Look at these lovely flowers the office sent me after my surgery - they made sure it was all purple. How cute!

7 days later I got a bad reacation to the steri tape - I broke out with hives on my incisions and it spread all over my stomach, and everywhere. OUCH! you know how you want to scratch your skin off and you can't so you go crazy?

Well, I am enjoying not being sick everytime I eat.