Christmas - a Season of Peace and Good Will

We had a different Christmas Day this year. With no one staying with us, we had no real reason to get up early to "tackle the gifts under the tree", but we did have an unexpected gift presented to us. Some years ago we asked our children to use whatever they would have given to us for someone in need. This year Trina and Guy and the boys had identified a family who didn't have much. So early Christmas morning, before they had opened their own gifts, they loaded everyone into their Windstar and secretly left gifts and a box of food for this family.
Normally, we would have received a gift letter reporting this service but this year, because they forgot their camcorder the night before, they came by to pick it up Christmas morning after delivering their gifts and we were delighted to the boys' insightful report of their experience while eating breakfast with us.
Our best Christmas presents each year have become the reports we receive from each of our children and their families of the service gifts they have given to others.

My Mother's Hundredth Birthday Bash!

Saturday, December 15th, we celebrated Mother's 100th birthday at the LaVerkin Stake Center.
Following a dinner we provided for approximately 100 of Mother's posterity, we had a brief program that consisted of a song, "Star of Bethlehem" by three of our lovely daughters - Trina Hansen Harding, Kendra Hansen Halterman and Shanda Hansen Hickman.















My younger brother, Corrin, then offered a tribute to Mother from an experience each of us shared with him. He ended with a lovely tribute to Mother from our Dad - who passed on in 1988. This was taken from his personal history.



















Pictures were then taken of Mother . .








Of Mother and her 5 children -
Front: Quinta N. Beatty (1st child), LuDeen N. Lundin (2nd), Mother, Janice N. Hansen (3rd)
Back: Corrin G. Nielson (4th) & Eric G. Nielson (5th)

Her children by marriage were then added:
Front: Janice Gerber Nielson, Quinta, LuDeen, Mother, Janice , Marsha Barratt Nielson
Back: Corrin, Fred Lundin, Garth Hansen, Eric

Of the original family of 10 children these 4 lovely women and Aunt Ella Gubler (married to Tell Gubler) - who couldn't make it - are the survivors of their generation.

Left: Aunt Genevieve (married to Mother's brother, Horatio Gubler, Mother, Aunt Ardella Heiner - Mother's only living sibling, and Aunt Edna (married to Uncle Ovando Gubler).


This is a picture of the posterity who were able to be there for the occasion. There would have been nearly twice that many had everyone come.

Fun with Grandchildren

While in LaVerkin, Kira told me that Sheridan had climbed on Grandma's roof before and she wanted to. I took her up and here she is near the peak of the roof. She wanted to do it but was very happy to get down.












This is the flat part of the roof where many of our girls have had slumber parties over the years.















Inasmuch as the babies really don't care about opening their packages on Christmas Eve, I had Kendra and Shanda open the ones for their little girls because they were alike. Here are my two little pixie girls though neither one of them is too happy. Talia is crying for her Mother and Tessia is sucking hard on her pacifier.

A proud grandmother is holding her newest grandchild - Tessa Ruth Halterman













Just before they left for Arizona, Trenton and Kira had to have one last play in the snow by our house in Springville.



















Talia's last morning with us. She was having lots of fun with the "peg people" and Fisher Price toys.

Mother has her 100th Birthday

On December 7th Garth and I traveled to LaVerkin for our week with Mother. Because her 100th birthday was on December 12th, this was an important time.
On Tuesday, the evening before her birthday, she wanted to go to St. George and see the lights at the St.George Temple.
After looking at this lovely Nativity scene, we went into the Visitor's Center where Mother was greeted by the missionaries and others as a celebrity as they found out she was turning 100. She thanked us over and over for the lovely evening.

On Wednesday, December 12th, I fixed a birthday dinner for Mother and invited my brothers and sisters and spouses and Mother's only living sister, Aunt Ardella and her daughter Jeanette.

One hundred candles was too many so we just got candles with the numbers.













Back Row: L to R: Fred Lundin, Garth Hansen, Middle Row: LuDeen Lundin, Quinta Beatty, Mother (Ruth Gubler Nielson), Aunt Ardella, me (Janice Hansen)
Front Row: Jeanette Staheli, Randi Haws, Eric & Marsha Nielson


A big family party was held on Saturday, Dec. 15th at the LaVerkin Ward building but I don't have any pictures, yet. I was too busy making sure everyone was fed, etc. I will post pictures when I receive the professional ones that were taken.

WOOPS!

Some of you have wondered what was going on when I didn't update my blog.

The big reason was that I spent almost all of my time sewing Christmas pajamas and I am not about to put the pictures I took of them on the blog until after Christmas.

We were successful in getting packages in the mail to India and Michigan. On Saturday night

around 11:00 p.m. I was just finishing up the 20th pair of pajamas when I got too tired and became careless and ran a needle through the middle fingernail on my left hand.

Here you can see the missing part of the needle and the hole in my finger.




On Monday (Dec. 3rd, we went to Urgent care where they took this picture but said they couldn't remove the needle point so they sent me to a specialist, Dr. Kevin Rose.

We stopped in at their office on our way home and, at first they didn't

think they could fit me in but by the time we got home we got a call saying they would see me at 4:00 that day. With the help of good, caring people, I was scheduled for surgery this morning (Wed. Dec. 5th) and the picture shows my bandaged finger and the needle tip that was removed.

A warning to all: Haste makes waste!

Getting Ready for Christmas

You will be proud of us.

On the day after Thanksgiving we put up our Christmas decorations and on the following Monday we had our friends, the Smiths from Sandy, down for dinner to compare notes on teaching in China.

They took our pictures so we would have something to put on our Newsletter this year.

Thankfulness at Thanksgiving

Here we have our tables set in anticipation of a good sized gathering arriving shortly.


With the Hardings : Guy, Trina, Sheridan, Marcus, Caleb & Mitchell;

the Deren Hansens: Deren, Liz & Drake;

The Browns: Sam, Marenda, Addie & Kasen

and Kalen Reynolds and Mellissa Rosenhan,

we had a wonderful time of eating, visiting, and playing


Sheridan wanted some football so Sam, Sheridan, Garth and Guy played a game of touch football. Garth didn't want anyone to know but the fall he took bruised or possible cracked his ribs on his right side.

The "girls" sat around sleeping and crocheting.




I just couldn't resist getting a picture of our little "Shirley Temple" as we all called Addie.