and SEW it was christmas....

yep... it's been years since i have really sewn any thing in the way of clothing. but, this year, haley had a stash of fabric hiding down in her sewing room, whispering my name. so, i decided to make all of the grandkids same, same jammas (just the bottoms). then i bought the girls long sleeve red t-shirts and the boys long sleeve green t-shirts. on the boys, i put a cuff and pockets, and the girls, i put ruffles on the bottom (i remember WHY i don't sew anymore! and ruffles are a pain in the patootie!), then i bought them all red slippers. i think they were all tickled with them, mostly just because they were all alike. we let them open them on christmas eve and put them on. don't they look cute!

the little girls.

the boys.
(action shot with the ropes that cheyne and sarah bought them)

the whole gang.

we were fortunate enough to have "poppie" spend christmas eve with us this year
in his own words... "it was chaos!"

.

then since i didn't get any christmas cards done this year, this little dity of our family will have to do.

the big bear and me.

isley, melanie, siona, and george.

kendyl, tiffany, ryker and chet

kamryn, jeff, haley, jack, and hunter

cheyne and sarah

falute and sheila
(we've adopted them into our family)

and yes... it was christmas!

we hope you all had a merry christmas! we sure did! spending time with family and remembering our elder brother jesus christ, is what it is all about!

and... here's to wishing you all a very happy and prosperous 2010 !
love, the hunter's

ho! ho! ho!

merry christmas!

may all your wishes come true!
Love, Don and Jacki

merry christmas....

to all of my many family and friends! i was sitting here thinking about this past year, and how many blessings i have received because of you. thank you. because of your prayers, i am able to continue with my life in a somewhat normal fashion (what ever normal is!). i have been so blessed, and i have so many dear family and friends, that i don't know what i would ever do without any of you. thank you, for your prayers. thank you for you listening ears, thank you for your patience, thank you for all the acts of kindness. what would i ever do with out you? you have made my life so worth all i have gone through. not all people have a doctor (who is also a dear friend) that will cancel his whole mornings schedule to be at the hospital with you when there is really nothing he can do, but give support to you and your family, because he has no rights at that hospital. and not all people are blessed with a husband and children (including in-laws) that are right by your side to help with anything and everything they possibly can. and not all people are blessed with wonderful friends that will drudge thru a terrible snow storm to get to the hospital as soon as they hear that you are there. and not all people are blessed with a very busy visiting teacher who drops everything, because someone calls her and tells her that i needed to be taken to the doctors office right now! and not everyone has great friends that will make the trek to slc early in the morning to be with donnie, so he didn't have to wait alone, while i was in surgery. there are so many of you out there that mean so much to me and have been such a big part of my life. words can never express the deep appreciation i have for all of you. thanks to all of you for everything! i love you all and wish you the merriest of merry christmases.

i love you!!
merry christmas!

we have a new baby!

Jack Murray Murdoch
November 28, 2009
7 lbs 2 oz
19 1/2" long

you can see more pictures on Haley's blog

http://www.jeffandhaley.blogspot.com/

thanksgiving

since i did absolutely nothing to decorate for halloween this year, i decided to be a little festive for thanksgiving, and put a little pizazz into my decorating.
this is my front porch. i had to go "borrow" a pumpkin from someone else's front porch, then gathered branches of different kinds of berries to put in my basket. i had some mums that were still kind of pretty, so i cut them and put them in the basket, too. then all of the squash that didn't get picked, kind of looked like gourds, so i used them, too. (gotta use what you can find.)

just another turkey.


the only "thanksgiving" pillow i've made

i decided to decorate my mantle, again, only this time with a fall theme.

sometimes we have to be reminded to have 'gratitude'
(we have soooo much!)

(the whole mantle)

always have to have a cornucopia~ shows the bounties of life we have!

my "big" purchase in st. george this month
( the platter, not the pilgrims)

a table runner that i finally finished, after 3 years in the making.

so anyway... my house feels kind of festive right now, but in few days, it will be time to take it all down and start on christmas.

"not what we have
but what we enjoy
constitutes our abundance."

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

where have i been?

trying to keep myself busy lately. somedays, finally have enough energy to to something, and it scares me to think that one of these days, i'll be headin' back to work and i haven't accomplished a whole lot the past 6 months, that i have been off.
so this is one of the projects that i have been wanting to do for a while now. what a bugger it was! we bought this dresser over 30 years ago. (i think it was just before chester was born, and he just turned 32). anyway... it was looking pretty gross (and I always forget to get a before picture, but here it is, as i was sanding my little fingers to the bone.) see all of those little lines... well i got to sand those by hand. so these are the drawers....

and this is the dresser ~ all sanded. i decided not to put the mirror back on it, because donnie thinks he needs a t.v. in the bedroom ~ those 'hunting shows' are pretty darn 'portant, ya know!

and, walla! this is what it looks like now!
i was going to go get new hardware for it, but instead decided to try out the spray paint. didn't turn out too, bad, if i do say so myself!


i found a picture of the night stand that goes with it. (this is actually for my sisters, they said they couldn't see that it looked any different, but i promise! it really does!!)


for mother's day chet and george worked on moving the t.v from one wall to the other

i also painted my room. don made me promise him that i wouldn't paint it "yellow". i don't know why, it's his favorite color. but anyway... i honored his wishes... and painted it "september leaf". first i was only going to paint 2 walls, but the "september leaf" didn't really go with the paint on the other walls, so ended up painting all 4 walls.

this is my bedspread, that i made a couple of years ago, and the rug above, i made last year. i planned my color theme around them.

don hated to admit it, but after i got it all painted, he really liked it. now i have a few pillows to finish (and he has a log bed, lurking in the shadows of the barn somewhere).
off to the next project.........

thank you!

can't go to bed tonight without sending a great BIG

THANK YOU

to all of those who have ever spent time serving in the armed forces defending the freedoms that we have in our country today. just to name of few... my grandpa dodge, whom i believe fought at iwo jima, my wonderful father-in-law, who left behind a wife, a little boy, and one on the way, and spent months on a ship going to italy, only to get there and find out that the war was over and had to turn around and return to america (and swore he would never get on another ship). and a son who left his wife of only three months to serve in afghanistan for 7 months.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
TO ALL OF YOU! I HOPE YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOU ARE APPRECIATED!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

our "hunter" man is 4 !

Yep... Our little "hunter" man is 4 years old!
for his special night out with 'dampa and damma' we took him to the 'texas roadhouse' for dinner. when we asked him where he wanted to go, he told us that he wasn't hungry, he just wanted to go to 'cabewa's' and get his pwesent (i think 'dampa' had something to do with where he wanted to go get his present, what do you think?). so, we told him he could go in and watch us eat and then we would go to 'cabewa's'. when we got in the restaurant, he decided it was pretty cool, cuz he "yikes" peanuts!

he got to sit on the saddle, while we sang "happy birthday" to him.

on the way to 'cabewa's' he was looking at the 'toy r us' catalog, and had just barely got out of his mouth, "damma, dis is what i weally, weally want". and when i turned around to look, he was out like a light.

when we got to 'cabewa's', we woke him up.
we were thinking about getting him a sleeping bag, but then he told us, that he "aw weddy has a sweeping bag!"
so we went down to the fishing pole department, and as soon as he found what he wanted, there was NO talking him out of it!


'dampa and damma' with hunter and his new fishing pole.

with those cute dimples, how could you resist giving him anything he wanted?

what a cutie! they grow up waayy to fast!

gotta love this picture!

happy birthday hunter!
'dampa and damma' love you to the moon and back... and then some more!

halloween, halloween....

lots o' fun on halloween!

since halloween was on saturday this year, there was a lot of celebration going on friday, too. kendyl and ryker were leaving for california late friday night, so they did their "trick or treating" here before they left. i happened to have had carpal tunnel surgery that morning and was lying in bed when kendyl and ryker came "trick or treating" to gramma's house. ryker climbed up on the bed and said, "look!, grramma, same, same!" (he broke his arm when he fell off the slide in their basement.) he thought it was cool that we both had the same hand wrapped.

ryker was "bronco mendenhall" and kendyl was catwoman.


then halloween night, mel made chili and cornbread, and brought it over.
the kids were all so cute!
isley was pocahontas


kamryn is getting to the age where grandpa likes to embarrass her

hunter, kamryn, siona, and falute

isley

hunter, haley (with little "jack") and kamryn.

haley found this shirt, and since she is sooo pregnant (you can't really tell by looking at her straight on, but beleive me, she is) . she decided to dress up, too.
hope you all had a happy halloween!
having all of my kids around makes every day happy for me!

happy? halloween

first can i tell you that halloween is probably my most unfavorite holiday!
this is the pumpkin we carved on our first halloween (ahhh... sweet huh?!)

when my kids were little, i hated (i know, thats a pretty strong word), but i really, really, disliked trying to come up with costumes for them every year.

chet as "aunt jemimah" and mel as a witch
i do have to admit, that chet was pretty darn cute! and i did a pretty good job making mel the witch costume that she wanted soooo bad.

haley and cheyne
the clown costume was a hand-me-down, and the cowboy... well it was always a good stand by!

then we had some friends that loved halloween and had an adult party every year.
what a pain to come up with costumes for us, as well.
here are a few that we came up with (at the last minute of course!)

jacki as a "black widow" donnie as a retard!

jacki and don

don had a sign on his butt, that said "if only i had a brain!"

can you guess who's who?


well... i think we are over that stage of our lives. now we can just sit back and enjoy watching the kids come up with all of the extravagant costumes they come up with these days, and enjoy the thrill that the grandkids bring with all of their excitement!
happy halloween to y'all!