'Twas the night...

An account (a bit late, what can I say...) of our Christmas... We hope yours was merry!




Twas the night before Christmas, the presents were wrapped,
Pa and I could not stop eating, all those sweet yummy snacks!,
The kids were all nestled with Christmas lights burning,
Dreaming, no doubt, of presents they were yearning.

For Austin a DS (Nintendo) was the gift that he sought,
For Landon the same, with not much other thought,
Dallin bought his own DS with his very own penny,
so this year a game--two or three would be plenty!

Benson's gift was all planned, he had his mom post it--
On a big cardboard sign so Santa could notice it.
"Santa please stop here" it said, "Benson wants Aragorn!",
"Make it the same size as Legolas", he made that clear for sure!
(of course this toy is discontinued...Amazon saved the day!)

Jenna's easy to please, just find something pink,
A barbie, a pony, and a bookshelf we think.
Mom and Dad want her healthy, nothing would please us more,
A bad case of pneumonia has her sleeping on our floor!
(antibiotics x2, steroids and nebulizers...)

For me the best Christmas was easy to see
It had nothing to do with the things on the tree.
Our cozy little house full of a girl and some boys,
Who love life and each other more than any amount of toys.

Christmas morning was nice, we slept in a bit more (7:30!)
Fresh bread and hot chocolate---we could not ask for more!
Afternoon was filled, with family and fun
Capture the flag in the snow, kept all on the run.

Seven siblings are all home, they have traveled many miles,
Mom and Dad are so gracious, they host all with their smiles,
Fifteen cousins are in heaven, with sleepovers and games,
Snowball fights are the favorite, not a soul can complain!

The holiday's not ever, Rustin's home for a week!
We have Austin's 9th birthday and Hatch party to seek.
We'll head down to Franklin, hope the roads are all clear,
We will surely all say, this has been a great year!

Look what I did!

This took at least 2000 hours because I was trying to learn how to use Photoshop. I'm sure there would have been a more efficient way but this is a start. I even figured out how to save it so I could put it on the web! Yea!!

Heaven on Earth...

An ENTIRE day with my husband to myself. It was Rustin's birthday Monday and he took the whole day off work. He humored me in the morning and helped me get the house all spic and span (who can enjoy a day with a messy house?). Then we farmed the kids out to all their really great friends for the afternoon and evening (we had a babysitter at our house for bed time) and we headed to Boise.

We went shopping for ourselves, I mean the kids, and pretty much got all the gifts done. Except for my mom and dad. What do you give parents who have everything and to whom you owe everything?

We listened to great Christmas music and spent lots of time talking. My family met us at PF Chang's for dinner (so awesome)and then we headed over to The Christmas Sweater.


The show had a great message. Very inspiring. The main thing we took away is that though life can be very hard and we make mistakes, our challenge is to face the storms head on and have faith that we can overcome with the help of the Savior.

I was particularly impressed with the film they showed about Jon Huntsman during the intermission. He is a billionaire who has managed to keep himself grounded and righteous. He lived in a 600 sq. foot house with cardboard walls as a boy. He remembers having only one shirt to wear to school and he remembers the other kids making fun of him. He was once facing bankruptcy and he mortgaged everything he had so he could still donate to the charities who were counting on him. I find that really amazing. He does so much good in the world. And he says his goal is to die broke. I love it.

We are happy and busy here. I have to teach my first relief society lesson Sunday which makes me nervous. We are also in the final stages of preparing for the Christmas program. Which makes me even more nervous.

Rustin had one of his home teaching husbands die this week. He has taught them for years and was with them when the wife was baptized and when they went to the temple to be sealed. They didn't have children. He died of complications from a ruptured appendix. He had been to the doctor the day before he died (after having been in intensive care for almost two weeks). The funeral was really simple and very touching. Surprising how much peace we can have even when things are very difficult. We still have a lot to learn!

Just to catch up...

Christmas is in full swing around here. We put up our tree the minute we got home from Thanksgiving. We had a blast over Thanksgiving down in Franklin. All six original Hatch kids were home with their families---that is 13 adults and 18 grandkids with another on the way. The big boys slept out in the trailor with their cousins and had a ball. Rustin and I feel really lucky to have cousins for our kids on both sides of the family that are really great. It makes it so much fun to go home.

Loalee did a great job of assigning out most of the meals so it all went pretty smoothly. The really amazing thing--there aren't any strained relationships between anyone in the family. Not even a little bit. We didn't even have any fighting between kids (at least not beyond the usual scrabble for the favorite toy of the day!). Grandpa Hatch got up at 5 in the morning on Thanksgiving to make sure that each and every one of the grand kids could have their own awesome handmade sword.

We also went up the canyon and cut a Christmas tree. We've done this every year for quite a while now. There wasn't any snow this year. Sometimes we have gone up in a blizzard (which the kids love!). I don't have any pictures because I still can't find my charger for the battery. Ugg. And that image of Sam walking down the path with only his head and a giant tree bobbing along is priceless.

Loalee and I made some really great fresh wreaths. All of the girls went to a craft fair in Logan. Very fun. I didn't do one single bit of shopping on Friday morning. Which was actually very nice. Rustin left us on Friday and went to Boise for the BSU football game with Tom and Jeremy. They had a blast.

We attempted to get a few holiday pictures today. As usual it will take a bit of photoshopping to get it right. I may have a nervous breakdown trying to get the software to do what I want. I really need to take a class one of these days!

Benson just came in and told me there is a party in his stomach. And he told the water left in his glass that it wasn't invited to the party. Where did that come from? He also came up to me last week and said--"Mom, is Disney World where dreams really do come true?" Those darn commercials... I told him that home is where dreams really come true. Someday we'll get these kids to Disneyland though.

Tomorrow is Rustin's birthday and we are headed to Boise for the day. I can't wait. In the mean time we are enjoying the sweet spirit of the holidays. I am determined to keep Prisident Monson's advice to "Keep Christmas not spend it."