Christmas Eve 2010

I just thought I would share a few of the beautiful decorations at our oldest daughters home. This year we were blessed to see the decorations and trees at my parents and youngest daughters when we were there around Thanksgiving, and over Christmas at our oldest daughters home. We had a great time.

This is our youngest granddaughter, her mom knit her Christmas dress. It turned out lovely and this was her first try at knitting a dress.

Yum, yum, Christmas candy from the Christmas Eve church bag.

Here she is in her pajamas with a matching doll pajamas. All the great grandchildren got PJ's from my parents for their Christmas gift.

Chick #4 is five years old . He seemed to be the most excited about the Christmas gifts under the tree. But then when Papa tells you it is wood chips, that makes one even more excited to see if that is the actual truth!

He wasn't too overjoyed to have Nana take his picture

but he knows how much I enjoy my pictures so he tolerated it!

This is the smack in the middle child, she is 8 yr old and very proud to have a new store bought dress for Christmas.

Here she is practicing for her before the program piano solo piece,
she did a very good job playing Oh Come All Ye Faithful.

She was an Angel in the Christmas Eve children's worship service.

These are her and her dolls PJ's from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa.

The three oldest grandchildren played a Christmas Hymn before the Christmas Eve service. Our 11 yr old grandson had his memorized and we certainly enjoyed the many times he practiced and played Silent Night perfectly.

He is growing so tall and such a very handsome young man with his new black shirt.

This is our oldest granddaughter, she is 13 yr old and is wearing her wool dress she sewed for the wool fashion show and competition. It turned out just beautiful but then, about anything she wears looks marvelous on her.

She played a very lovely arrangement of Away in a Manger.

Good friends of the family also spent Christmas at our daughter and son-in-laws. This sweet little girl is only about 3 months older then out granddaughter and they got along so well. Here she was making our youngest granddaughter beautiful by brushing her hair. It was so much fun to watch the two of them play and interact. I think it would be great if they turned out being as great as friends as their mothers!

Such good friends! We enjoyed spending time with their family.

What a beautiful new Christmas dress for such a beautiful little girl.

Our five grandchildren from youngest to oldest.

OK, so its six, she is almost like a granddaughter!

I thought it was so cute that she wanted to be in the picture.

This is our whole group minus one dog, our elderly, almost 14 yr old dog

was off taking a nap and we didn't think to wake him.

It was 6 adults, 6 children and 4 dogs.
REALLY, it was great fun!

Jeff and myself with out 5 grandchildren.

Jeff and myself!

I took our daughter, son-in-law and family picture after the Christmas Eve Service.

The big church Christmas tree made a lovely setting for their family picture.

Here with our daughter on the platform, you can see how the two oldest children and her are about the same height, even a bit taller.

It wont be long and they will both be way taller then her.

The children's service was so good. Lots of singing and readers. The full gospel of our New Born King was told both from scripture and song.

Christmas Letter 2010

A Blessed Christmas to everyone, God Bless your New Year 2011!

The cross in memory of my brother Dale, in the Wheat field

Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, Jesus, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Jeff and I enjoy gardening, fishing, and camping. We truly love spending time with our family and friends. We enjoyed going to Hills alive with Melissa, Tim and Ansir in July, we went to the Omaha Zoo with Charity’s family. We spent time with Snyder’s when Leslie was home. We met cousin Don and Barb at Alpine Inn in early June. Went to county fair with the Baker family and saw the girls model their sewn dresses and win awards. We still do mission work at Porcupine on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The year 2010 is about over, some of the memorable things that happened are shown in picture. We did spend some great time with family and friends. You can tell we enjoy the outdoors. Left, we spent time with our oldest daughter, Charity and our 5 grandchildren in June when they spent a week with us. We went to Custer Park for sightseeing, picnic a hike around Sylvan Lake and the grand kids had fun on the rocks. We had a great day trip to Spearfish Canyon with good friends Joe and Barb. Below, our oldest grandson, Ansir who is 14 was confirmed in June. We were all together. Back row, Melissa, Tim, Ansir, Me, Jeff, Charity and her husband Birkley holding our youngest granddaughter, Lydia who turned 2 yr old in September. Front row, Tristen - 11yr, Adriana - 13yr Wyatt - 5yr and Constence - 8 yr. It was a great day to all be together and spend some time at their home in Williston, ND.


Jeff was blessed to celebrate his 60th Birthday in August. We had several celebrations. The first was at my parent’s home the week before his birthday. Then we traveled to Charity’s where we celebrated on his actual birthday, then back in SD we had an evening out at the Alpine Inn with friends, and finally in Oct we traveled to Jeff’s home state of WV where he celebrated with his siblings. According to age, Jeff is the oldest, Debbie, Regina, Kenny and Tina is the baby who turned 49 while we were there. We certainly enjoyed the colorful leaves of WV and many stops at friends and family on the way going and coming. It had been many years since we saw Jim and Judy Brown and visited till early morning. We spent an evening with Jeff’s Aunt Wanda; Uncle Gene went to be with the Lord in March. We had a Mt. Top experience when we spent the weekend with my cousin Debbie and husband Tom at a condo on Snow shoe resort. What a breath taking view & experience of God’s creation. We enjoyed that time and our scenic route back to Charleston and dinner at The Hawks nest St. Park.
My only brother, Dale Hanssen past away on August 17th, He was just short of 62 years old. The picture of him with his only grandchild, Brayden, was taken just 12 days earlier when we spent a week with my parents in ND. It was a blessing to see the joy in my brothers eyes every time he saw Brayden. He loved his family and I remember the Sunday we arrived he was out grilling Turkey breast for our family gathering. It was a fun day and great memories. He died very fast while on the swather cutting his wheat. The picture above was 2 days after my brothers funeral when over 20 friends, family and neighbors helped my nephew Jamie take off the wheat harvest in one afternoon. It was a spectacular thing to see, the love and compassion of a community coming together to help when it was most needed and appreciated.

Jamie placed this cross in the wheat field in memory of his dad. The whole family was there when Jamie combined that final swath of wheat that His dad had last cut. The family signed the cross and since that time any other signatures have appeared on that cross in the wheat field. The three children wanted their dads boots present at the prayer service and funeral so they had this arrangement of flowers done in them in honor of their dad. My parents are doing very well with strength from our loving Father in Heaven. My 92 yr old father is a big support to Jamie as he has farmed his entire life. My 89 yr old mother said, it is good for Dale but not for us. It was a hard thing for all of us and we will never again think of the year 2010 without remembering my brother. We give thanks to God that my brother knew the love of Jesus. That Jesus sacrifice on the cross paid the debt of our sins that we might live eternally in heaven with our Savior whose birth we are about to celebrate and whose second coming we eagerly await.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope? Romans 15:13 I am on Face Book; don’t forget to check out my blog at http://nanaporcupin.blogspot.com/ or give us a call or stop in for a visit when in SD.
Treasure every day! God bless and keep you in His loving care Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year! From Diane and Jeff

Christmas Trees and other decorations

The first tree I got to help decorate was my parents tree when we were there for Thanksgiving. You can see pictures in my previous blog post.
This is the second tree I had the privilege of helping decorate, I belongs to my youngest daughter and family. It is decorated the old fashioned way with popcorn, cranberry's and clay ornaments. It sure turned out beautiful. I am looking forward to seeing our oldest daughters family Christmas tree and decorations as we visit them for Christmas.

This is our tree that has been similar for the past 3 years except for the Christmas train under the tree. I love the pre-lite, artificial tree, It is way easy and especially when one travels over Christmas so we don't have to take it down early. We always leave our tree up until January 6 or longer. That is Epiphany.

A close up of our lite Christmas tree and just a few of our special ornaments.

Below is our Advent wreath. We have had and used one since our children were little girls. We light the candles on the appropriate week during our devotions. Tomorrow we will light the pink, the JOY candle. The first two weeks were the HOPE candle and the LOVE candle. The week previous to Christmas is the PEACE Candle. The white Candle is the Jesus candle for Christmas day!

Two pictures from the Zion school preschool and kindergarten program.

Here are the doors that we enter into our church. I really like the decorations this year.

The two trees in front of the church are decorated so nice. I love the big words
declaring Christmas messages.

The decorations as we enter the worship area.

These two banners hang on the west wall of the worship area.
The banner below is in the entry when we first come in the door.

Most years we have had a huge tall live tree from the Black Hills forest cut and placed in the Narthex but this year in place of the tree, the windows overlooking the city are decorated with swags, stick-on's and wreaths. It looks very nice and leaves plenty of room to use the spacious area.

I hope you are enjoying Christmas and the many meaningful decorations that go with it.