Owen at 18 months

Unbelievably, Owen is 18 months old!  A year and a half!  Crazy.  So here are a couple of stories to illustrate how shockingly old he is.
#1 earlier today he walked into the kitchen and said "piece, bum" and I was like "what?" and he repeated it a couple of times and I was about to check his diaper because he said bum, but then he started pointing at the cupboard where we keep gum, so I said, very surprised, "you want a piece of gum??" and he was like "YEAH!" his really big YAH that he says when we figure out what he's trying to say and he's really happy.  But really, did my baby just come ask me for a piece of gum out of the blue?? Wow.
#2 Yesterday I was making enchiladas for dinner and I put Owen on a chair next to the silverware drawer so he could play- that usually keeps him happy while I make dinner.  So then I had mixed up the sauce for the enchiladas and set the bowl on the counter, then turned around to flip a tortilla and when I looked back Owen had stretched over and gotten a spoon in the bowl to "help me" mix it. And I thought, "what the heck, might as well try it" so I put a tortilla next to him and asked him to put some sauce on.  He did a great job dabbing sauce on it for a minute, so I decided to let him put the black beans on, and then the cheese, and he did this for all of the enchiladas!  He was so cute and I kept praising his efforts and it was so fun for both of us!  When Eric came in Owen said, "Daddy, me heppi!" like "Look dad, I'm helping!"  It was SO cute.
#3 He recognizes music notes and whenever he sees them on a page, like an actual songbook or just in a story or something he says "song! song!" it's so awesome.  He's trying to sing little songs, like the Itsy Bitsy Spider and We are a Happy Family, and the other night when I was singing him to sleep I started falling asleep and I remember singing "...I'm just...going..." and then a few seconds later when I was almost asleep I heard him say the last word "...home."  Then I had to wake up and laugh and kiss him, the little cute-face. :)
#4 He can say over a hundred words and he's adding more daily!  A couple of weeks ago I started writing down everything he could say on his own, not just copying me (because he will try to copy anything I say!) and I got to 80 and gave up.  The doctor said "we hope for about 8-10 words by 18 months." So yeah, he's a little talker!
#5 Two of my favorite things he says are his sisters' names: "Nit-ney" for Whitney and "Kate" or "Kat" or "Kakey" for Katelyn.  Adorable.

He loves to read stories "sories" and wrestle and play ball/catch with Dad.  He loves to go outside and he's gotten pretty fast on his little push car thing.  Yesterday he just started riding it up the street and didn't look back!  I followed him, but he didn't turn around and see me until he was almost a block from our house!  I asked him where he was going, and he said "dance cass"--he was planning to ride all the way up to the city Rec building (a mile away)?!  Silly.  So I said "let's go!"  We got over another block away (uphill) before I convinced him to come home and get a drink. :)  Apparently he's got some endurance!  He likes to play with cars and trains and megablocks and he LOVES to color!  He'll carefully draw long lines, then short lines, then swirly circles, he usually doesn't just scribble, it's like he's actually trying to make something. :)

His favorite food is cottage cheese.  The only vegetable he likes is peas.  He occasionally asks for rice and cheese for breakfast. He loves cords and laces and carries around small appliances like the iron or blow dryer.

We love love our Owen and hope he stays this much fun forever. :)

#3 The Lake

#3

Yuba Lake

So Eric's Dad offered to come down and take everyone out on the boat- so nice of him and so fun!!  We had never been to Yuba but had heard tons about it from everyone in Santaquin because they all go there.  Turns out it's only 40 minutes away and it's a great lake!  you can drive right up to the beach, so convenient!  Sadly Katelyn was sick and Caleb (therefore all the MacKays) had had a rough night, so a few people stayed home to rest and had fun doing that. :)  The rest of us had a blast!  Here's my Dad, Natalie, Donny, Christine, Whitney, Jonathan, and Eric.

 Owen and Lydia were having fun in the water together!  

 Silly :)

 and more silly!

And now she's getting him back!

 Owen glancing down at his puny arm wishing it was big like uncle Derek's :)

 Cute aunt and uncle playing with Lydia

 So then it was time to go on the boat, and Natalie was like " I don't want to go on the boat, boats are boring." But Eric convinced her to get on.  Then she and Whitney and Eric went for a ride on the tube, and the girls were laughing and screaming with delight the WHOLE time, and apparently Natalie said " I sure hope I didn't say boats were boring!!" haha.  Super cute.  

 Owen loved the boat too, he kept waving his arm like "faster, faster!" But he didn't really want to go on the tube.  He did jump in to Eric though when Eric was down in the water! Brave!  The boy just loves water.

 We had fun on the boat with Kurtis driving, he did a great job.  and Derek was the star tuber, he stayed on FOREVER!  On his second run he almost DIED though, he tried to stand up and was flung forward and the rope hit his neck and gave him a nice burn, but at least he wasn't decapitated!

We went back to shore and the girls didn't want to get off!  So they stayed on with my dad, Jenae, Donny and Christine and Phillip.

 The girls got to go on another ride with Uncle Donny. :)

So, not pictured is the awesome Waverunner that Phillip borrowed from his sister and brought down, it was so fun to take turns on that too!  Eric took it out and when he came back (he'd never been on one before) he was in LOVE, he was like "I gotta get me one of those! It's like a motorcycle but you can't crash!" So then he took me out for a ride and it was SO fun, I hadn't been on one since I drove Teri's back when I was home from BYU one summer.  He did flip us off one time, which was great fun!  Anyway, it was good times at the lake, I also got to talk to Katrina a lot there, which was nice.  

Hansen Reunion Top Ten #7, 6, 5, 4

#7

Everyone being happy together!  Sure we had moments of frustration or stress, but overall it was just a really happy time of being ALL together!  

Kate was sick for most of the reunion, but I was really happy that Whitney had lots of quality bonding time with her cousins! 

Lydia and Whitney.

Our awesome family picture

Sparklers!

The matching shirt girls (Natalie and Whit) with their glow stuff on

Owen and Jenna getting to know each other

The kids all enjoying the SUPER cute treasure hunt Katrina made as a little birthday party for Lydia, whose second birthday was on Sunday!

#6

Ryder's Blessing.

How cool it has been to have the last couple of baby blessings in our family be attended by EVERYONE!  That is rare, and very cool that it could work out that way for Owen and Jenna and now Ryder.  I love to see the priesthood at work in our eternal family. :)

Here are all the grandkids!  Owen, Whitney, Jenna, Natalie, Katelyn, Caleb, Lydia and Ryder.

The grandsons!  Caleb making a funny face, Owen, and baby Ryder!

Sisters!

Finally got a picture of Katelyn and Natalie!  They spent all of Sacrament Meeting making an adorable card for Katrina and Ryder.

The beautiful Craven family!

 #5

So maybe this is silly, but one of my favorite parts was playing Wacky 6 on Saturday night!  Lots of people played this game and other games on different afternoons/nights during the reunion, but I was never able to join in because I was always busy with something else.  So finally I had a chance to play and it was SO fun.  This picture shows Mom, Donny, me, Christine, and Derek in the garage playing singles, and before that Allison, Kent, and Jenae had been with us and we played doubles.  I was on teams with Derek and then Christine- they are both super good so that was fun. :)  It was good times and I love games!

#4

So I made up a couple of games for the Reunion, and they were SO fun to play, I thought so anyway!  Sadly I didn't get a single picture of either one!  First there was Hansen Family Trivia- I sent everyone a questionnaire/survey thing to fill out with questions like "Favorite color" "If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?" "Favorite animal" and "Time period in history you would most like to time-travel to"  and some of the answers were just hilarious.  Even the kids filled them out, it was so cute.  It was also cool because I tried to find similarities among us and make up questions about those, like "Which two people said their favorite sport to watch is figure skating?" and it was my Mom and Christine!  (FYI the most common fav sport to watch in our family is football!)  The most common favorite color in our family is blue, and the most common favorite fruit is grapes, obviously :).  Oh and Donny and I have the same favorite smell (fresh mountain air!). It was fun to read everyone's answers, and I printed out all the answer sheets for everyone to read after.  So we had 3 teams and if a team didn't guess correctly another team could try.  I don't even remember who won but it was fun.:)

Then I asked everyone to bring a few favorite family pictures and we played a version of Awkward Family Photos.  We would randomly draw out a picture and a question for everyone to answer about that picture, then we would read our answers and laugh. :)  So the questions were "write a speech bubble for someone in the picture" "write a caption for this picture" "what was the person NOT thinking in this picture" and I can't remember the others.  We should have also done "write an advertisement logo for this picture"!  Probably the best part was finding out that in one of our classic family pictures Katrina was injuring Derek so his shout was one of pain, not of crazy fun!  Half of us had NO IDEA that was going on and we had been looking at this picture for years!  Anyway it was fun to look at old pictures and see baby ones of the in-laws.  

Top 3 best parts of the Reunion To Be Continued...

Hansen Reunion Top 10

Over the 4th of July weekend my family ALL came to my house!  I kind of forced them to-- last summer I made them all promise to come unless someone got married (because then we'd all be together at the wedding instead). I really wanted to have a family gathering since we are all ABLE to get together- no one is on a mission or living really far away or extremely ill.  As it turned out, we did have a 6-week old baby (Katrina's Ryder) and 2 very pregnant sisters, (Allison due Sept. and Christine due Aug.) but we timed it just right so everyone could come and stay for 3 and a half days!  wow!  So much time together, what a gift! :)  Seriously, I told Eric I didn't even need any birthday presents, I feel so loved and blessed and fulfilled, with all the hard work he and his dad put into our bathroom (which needs a whole other post!) and all the joy of this family reunion and Kurtis' homecoming- I'm good!  

So anyway.  Here are my top 10 favorite parts of the 1st ever official Jamie Hansen Family Reunion.

#10- A lot of little things that I don't have pictures of, such as:

--Derek spending most of Tuesday and Wednesday before the reunion helping me get ready!  I never could have shopped for all that food, or gotten my yard looking so nice, or cleaned my banisters so well without him. :) And during the reunion he was always asking if I (or anyone else) needed help.  If anyone knows a cute girl in the search for a good husband, I have a prime candidate for her!

-- My mom enjoying being a grandma, or should I say, a Grammy!  holding the baby and reading to the kids and entertaining them with fun games while we made the campfire dinner, there were a lot of cute moments.

--running with Jenae!

--hearing all of Melissa's fun college stories

--standing in the kitchen with the MacKays and the Idahoans waving up to Lydia when Phillip brought her out to say goodnight, it was hilarious, she had just gotten to our house and she looked at us like "who are all of these people waving excitedly at me??"

--the several That Thing You Do references that were thrown out- and understood by others!!  I love being around my family because they can laugh with me about things other people don't understand. :)

#9 The Hike

 We hiked the Grotto in Payson Canyon- perfect for our crowd of kids and pregnant women!  And everyone had fun.

 Kate finally got to do something with everyone (she had been sick with a high fever for a couple of days, SO sad!)

 The boys!  Caleb and Owen definitely have some similarities- in looks and personality!

 Donny and Christine, soon to be super cute little new parents to a little girl!!  So exciting!

#8- T-shirt Painting

So I knew everyone in my family would love this!  And not surprisingly, Eric and Phillip did not paint shirts haha!  But really, every Hansen has an artistic side, and if you give them some paint and a T-shirt, they will enjoy creating something!  So the theme was hand prints, I wanted to have the kids paint their hands and then put overlapping hand prints on a shirt to make a heart.  We did get a couple of those made and it was super cute, and then everyone used their creativity to make some great stuff!  Derek had a hand stripe going up his shirt,

 Jenae made an amazing rainbow hand shirt,

and I didn't get pictures of Dad's amazing Family tree shirt with ALL of our handprints or Jonathan's cool shirt or melissa's amazing Hansen logo or Jenae's flag feet and hands shirt... all so awesome.

My kids loved painting their shirts- especially Owen, who loves painting, and Katelyn, who painted the cutest little monkey on her shirt.

I didn't get to make my shirt during the reunion, so I did it last week.  It's like Dad's Family Tree shirt, but with circles :)  There's a color for Hansen boys, one for Hansen girls, one for brother-in-laws and grandsons, and one for sister-in-laws and granddaughters.

 Here you can see at the bottom my mom and dad, then me and Eric with our kids branching off, then Allison and Kent with theirs, then on top Donny and Christine and their little girl, and Melissa and Jenae on my shoulder.

Then on this side Katrina and Phillip and their kids, and Jonathan and Derek on top.

I love them forever. :)  

Top Ten to be continued...

Yearly Stats

Just realized I never posted about the girls' 5- and 7-year-old checkups and Owen's 15-month check-up (when he was actually 16 months.)

I just think it's interesting to look at their stats.  

Katelyn, age 7 

54 lbs  (70th percentile)

52.5 in (98th percentile) 

So in the last year she gained 6 lbs and grew 3.25 inches.

I was excited that her weight finally passed her height!  Because last year at age 6 she was 51 lbs and 51 inches, which I thought was pretty cool.  But as you will see below, Whitney's height and weight have equalized at age 5, a year earlier than Katelyn!  So it will be interesting to see when Owen equalizes... I love looking at stats like that for my kids. 

(Side note- a couple of weeks ago when Katelyn was sick we went to the doctor and they measured her at 53 lbs and 53 inches- she had lost a pound from not eating much for like 4 days, and apparently had grown a half inch??  So unfortunately she had equalized again- not good!  She's okay now though and has probably gained it back.)

Whitney, age 5

44 lbs (74th percentile)

43.5 in  (70th percentile)

So in the last year she gained 6 lbs and grew 2.75 inches.  I think it's funny that Kate and Whitney both gained and grew about the same amount this past year!  And I love how Whitney's my only "normal" child so far.  She looks so solid and muscly to me- because she's not super skinny like her siblings!  They are all adorable and I really shouldn't be comparing their body types so much.  I hope I do it in a positive, "everyone is different and beautiful" way, because that's how I truly feel- as long as you are taking good care of your body, you can rejoice in the body God gave you!

Owen, at age 16 months

23 lbs 2 oz (47th percentile) 

32 in (69th percentile)

So in the last year (from 4-16 months old) he gained only 6.5 pounds and grew 6 inches!  No wonder he's so SKINNY!  The hilarious part is, he maxxed out at the 94th percentile for weight when he was 2 months old- he was 15 lbs 4 oz!  Then his percentiles dropped off slowly until, between 9 months and 14 months he only gained half a pound!  Want to guess what happened in that time?? That's right, he walked at 10 months.  And became the non-stop mover that he is today.  Luckily between 14 and 16 months he did gain a little over a pound, so he's back on a normal growth curve and we're not concerned. :)

Anyway, fun for me to see and probably no one else, haha. :)

Ragnar

Ragnar a couple of weeks ago was awesome!!  

Training for it was so much fun and so good for me physically and mentally.  I've decided that running 25 miles a week is tiring but I LOVE it!  I feel so good when I am in that mode.  

So then the actual race was just icing on the cake!  

Luckily I was with some seriously awesome people (well I don't know about serious, they are all pretty hilarious actually!)--Eric's cousin Natalie and her husband Jordan, Eric's cousins' husbands Scottie and Steve, and Scottie's brother Robby.  

Here's me and Natalie, the girls surviving the boy van!

I have always loved Natalie, she's my age and has always been so sweet to me. :)

 Here I am after my first run trying to get some sleep in a sleeping bag on the ground at a campsite SOMEWHERE up in the mountains!  It didn't work. :)

 Luckily I got my second wind in time for my second run- because it was 12 miles, from about 12 to 2 am!  I made my goal of 8:30 mile average the whole way, and had 30 kills (passed 30 people)!  It was pretty scary sometimes, to be on this trail in the dark by myself!  But right when I started to get a little afraid I'd always see a blinking red light ahead on somebody's back, so I'd just go catch up to them and I wouldn't be alone anymore. :)  I greatly enjoyed some circus peanuts and some music-boombox style- at about mile 10, I hate headphones!  and I think I was the ONLY person in the entire Ragnar (and there were about 20,000 people!) who did not run with headphones!  Everyone thinks I'm crazy, but there's something peaceful about running with a clear head!  And you can see how happy I was about running in the middle of the night:

 My van at the last major exchange, all of us about to start our last legs- we had just had a pancake breakfast and all slept for about an hour and a half on a gym floor. Such good times!

 Not the best example of self-photography, but I was running up this beast of a mountain and I was really happy to know that I only had one mile of straight uphill left!  That last leg was hard, but also very cool because every van that drove by me would shout encouragement, it was a really big boost actually!  I love the camaraderie that comes with this race.  Seeing all the fun team names and decorated vans and funny shirts and costumes- it's great.

 The top!  I was done!  The scenery was gorgeous and we had just watched scenes from Rocky to pump up our second-to-last runner, so I was in a pretty good mood. :)

Sadly I didn't get a picture of our whole team at the end- the other van was 4 of Eric's cousins who are siblings and 2 of their friends.  It was fun to spend time with them at the major exchanges and at the end.  Basically, Ragnar is a big party with 20,000 other crazy runners, so obviously I loved it!  And I was so grateful that Mary could watch my kids since Eric was at scout camp!

Kurtis!!

Kurtis is home from Japan!  He served in the Tokyo mission for 2 years and we are so happy to have him back!

Here we are at the airport with all of Eric's mom's signs :)

 Even Owen was excited!  We'd been teaching him to say "kurtis" for a while and he totally smiled and was happy to see him!  He doesn't do that for strangers!

 Here's the first hug for his mom- it's blurry because she pretty much jumped up to grab him! :)

 mom and sister!

 So happy!

 Elder Murray with Kate!

 then finally Whitney got over her shyness after a few minutes and talked to him!

Kurtis's Homecoming talk was awesome and inspiring.  He's on fire!  We love him.

kate date

Katelyn and Eric went to Hang Time on a date!  So so fun.  They are SO cute!