Merry Christmas and goodbye 2010!

Our 2010 small summary is here!

Merry Christmas everyone.


A.: “I like pink and my class and to color in my class. I am ticklish. I like to make donkey noises and cow noises. I love to dance and sing. My favorite songs are the Spider Song, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam, Hallelujah, and Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree. I love to climb, and everytime I jump off of something, I yell ‘Canon Ball!!!’ I love Tinkerbell, and look like her, too, but for Halloween, I changed my mind at the last minute and had to be Minnie Mouse!”







I.: “I sat around and played in my room this week. I went to Christmas parties, like today. I was in an InsectLore commercial and in a movie called Measure of a Man. I did gymnastics. I learned to do a bridge-up and balance beam. I’m learning how to read. I read Green Eggs and Ham. I practiced painting a picture of a fairy named Sil. I will start to paint this year, so I can be an artist when I’m older. I like to play checkers with my brother. I like to clean the table because it is one of my chores. I like to have my friends over. I beaded two bracelets because I love to bead.”






H.: “I started acting this year. I’ve had 7 jobs. I’ve been in 2 commercials, 3 movies, 2 voice overs, and a fashion show. I started 2nd grade this year. I moved up to level 2 in gymnastics. I dug a big hole in the back yard, that’s now filled with leaves, when we were digging for dinosaur bones. Sometime next year we’ll clean it out and keep digging. I lost three teeth this year, and I have one wiggly one. I learned how to do a cartwheel this year, and I can almost do a handstand. I learned to pump with my legs to swing higher on my 7th birthday. I completed Tiger Cubs this year. I read Stewart Little this year and Of Mice and Magic and Mouse and the Motorcycle and Runaway Ralph. I read Dreams of Flight this year because I want to learn a lot about planes so I can try to design them when I’m older. I won 1st place for my Legos in the fair this year, and I got 2nd place for Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Sugar cookies. I won 2nd place for my story The Space Flight to an Astroid. I won 2nd place and a big ribbon for my garden scene plot with my Lightening McQueen collection and some cacti. I won honorable mention for my stepping stone.”

R.: “This year, I taught CTR 7 (Choose the Right, age 7 and 8) in Primary at church. This next year, it is H.’s class that I will be teaching. Now I can finally complain about his teacher. Hehe. I still home school the children. We have had lots of adventures this year like going to the Ostrich Farm, Disneyland, the L.A. Zoo, Cove Fort, CaLM (local zoo), the Discovery Center, La Brea Tar Pits, USC Science Center, LA Natural History Museum, and lots of different places in LA and Santa Monica for the children’s acting. I’m working on goals for the new year to prioritize needs more than wants in my life. I got out my Strawberry Shortcake collection to enter in the fair. I also dusted off the alto sax to play for Christmas this year and realized how much I miss playing it.”



T.: “I put a new floor in the bathroom this year. I’m trying to find the perfect recipe for rootbeer.”


We each wish each of you the
merriest Christmas of all.Have a wonderfully cheerful 2011!

Remember, “wise men and women seek Him still!”


Love, The Hansen’s

T., R., H., I., and A.

One pair of earrings...

My children, when they see my earlobes, always ask me why I have two holes in them. This is what I tell them: "From when I was 17, until October 2000, I wore 2 pairs of earrings in each of my earlobes. At that General Conference, the Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley taught that women should wear only one earring in each lobe, that boys shouldn't wear any, and that body piercings are not to be done."

I found the talk where he talked about it:

"Teach them to respect their bodies. The practice is growing among young people of tattooing and piercing their bodies. The time will come when they will regret it, but it will then be too late. The scriptures unequivocally declare:

“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

“If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor. 3:16–17).

It is sad and regrettable that some young men and women have their bodies tattooed. What do they hope to gain by this painful process? Is there “anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy” (A of F 1:13) in having unseemly so-called art impregnated into the skin to be carried throughout life, all the way down to old age and death? They must be counseled to shun it. They must be warned to avoid it. The time will come that they will regret it but will have no escape from the constant reminder of their foolishness except through another costly and painful procedure.

I submit that it is an uncomely thing, and yet a common thing, to see young men with ears pierced for earrings, not for one pair only, but for several.

They have no respect for their appearance. Do they think it clever or attractive to so adorn themselves?

I submit it is not adornment. It is making ugly that which was attractive. Not only are ears pierced, but other parts of the body as well, even the tongue. It is absurd.

We—the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve—have taken the position, and I quote, that “the Church discourages tattoos. It also discourages the piercing of the body for other than medical purposes, although it takes no position on the minimal piercing of the ears by women for one pair of earrings.”"

That is found at: http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ca73a1615ac0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

Lovingly remembering my mom...

Today would have been my mom's 67th birthday.

She passed away 17 yrs. ago (this Christmas).

Something she always taught me and even would include in letters she would write to me is to always be worthy of the Spirit of God in my life. She was always such a good example of that to her children. Her influence has helped us in our decisions...4 out of 4 are sealed in the temple, 3 served full-time missions, all are temple-going, all are increasing her posterity.

My mom served others. She loved her family. She always made sure to remember others'. She fulfilled her church callings. She served in school boards. She was at every activity that we did. She was creative. She sewed, painted, crafted, and scrapbooked (the old-fashioned way). She studied to get her degree, and nearly finished, but her time was cut short, and she was needed in the Spirit World to help save souls there.

I love you Mom. I miss you. I hope that I can become what you always hoped.

Great (to the kids) Granddad McCown

My dad wrote this about his dad for the paper:

The year was 1913 when Jim joined the McCown family in Ada, Oklahoma (or rather, Indian Territory, as his father always called it). The family was part of the Scotch Irish immigration. After the Civil War the family had moved around the South. His Grandma was a Cherokee princess who had walked the Trail of Tears. When he contracted polio, she took him out to the reservation for treatment. He did walk, but with a slight hitch in his giddy up. Maybe that came from his bull riding days.

The family suffered through the dust bowl, trying to farm and often failing. Jim and his friend Rob Johnson decided to go to California. They left with a few dollars and an old Chevy with weak brakes. One time they stopped at the top of the long downhill stretch of road outside Lincoln County, New Mexico, Billy-the-Kid Country. Rob got out and walked. Jim rode the car down through town and up the other side. They handled another down stretch by backing down the steep road.

Earlier they had looked ahead and seen tremendous black clouds on the horizon – more dust storms like back home? A few days later, they approached the Rocky Mountains and saw that the dark clouds were really mountains. Back home, Tea Cup Hill was 25 feet high and Tea Kettle Hill was 30 feet high.

Just outside of Needles they were stopped by a California Highway Patrolman who said, ”Boys, by order of good ole Governor Hyrum Johnson we have enough of you Okies here so just turn your rig around and head on back home.” They said, “Yes, Sir.” And headed east until they were out of sight. Then they turned left, looped around Needles to the North, caught Route 66 west of Needles and kept on a coming.

About Barstow, Rob headed down to San Bernardino and Jim headed on into the Central Valley. He learned to eat lettuce picking it in Salinas. He cut wood up above Toll House outside of Fresno on the way to Yosemite. He ended up in Shafter working the front end at the potato shed for Camp, West and Lowe. He took dance lessons so he could go to the company dance – took his teacher to the dance – and married her. He said she married him because he was the only one she could not teach to dance. They started a family. One day the shed foreman, Ted Vignolo, came to him and said, “Jimmie? How would you like to take a cut in pay and move into the office to work on the books?”

Jim accepted. That led to him becoming the first resident of Kern County to earn his CPA designation, only the third CPA in Kern County, and a founder of the Bakersfield Chapter of the California CPA Society.

And all this with only an abbreviated 6th grade education and a few courses at BHS Adult School and Bakersfield College.