the murrays: July 2016

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Maris becomes an official 2-year-old!

Our adorable Maris turned 2. She was delighted with the tiny scriptures we gave her.

If you can tell through her crazy hair!

And all the other presents including this from Grammy!

It was cute to have Evelyn and Claire with us that morning!

I made her a BB-8 cake. :)

and we had fun at the park.

Then we got to celebrate more with Grandma and Grandpa that night.

We love our Maris. She is speaking in paragraphs, still copying everything Owen does, and loving her daddy more and more. She loves to look at books and is starting to pretend play with dolls or animals, it is SO cute. She finally likes nursery and can sing a few real songs/countless songs she makes up on her own. Joy, joy, joy is what she brings us!!

Hansen Family Reunion 2016!!

I'm so glad it worked out to have a family reunion before Jenae's mission! In a year and a half we may be more spread out, Donny and Christine could be living internationally, and who knows what else. So we've got to take these chances while we can!

For this reunion we stuck close to home for everything and it was great.

We started with a hike Friday morning with us, the MacKays, Donny and fam, and Jonathan. (Donny and Christine stayed at our house and it was SO fun to get to spend extra time with them!)

Then Friday night we all went to the temple together to do sealings! It didn't turn out quite how we thought but it was still special to all be there together. My mom was SO happy to have all her kids in the temple- one of her and my dad's goals in life.

Ice cream at my house after the temple of course. :) Sister picture!

Then Saturday morning was Whitney's baptism! Here are a couple of pictures I missed in my post about that. The Ward mission leader who was conducting asked all the kids to sing I love to see the Temple for the closing song, so cool!

Whit with my parents, I need to get the one of her with the Murrays from Mary!

Then to celebrate her baptism we had lunch and treats and played at the Salem Pond! It was a success!

Cute cousins eating lunch.

It's so fun to have a nice big group!

Eric and Owen out on the kayaks! Owen was on his for at least 45 minutes! Luckily we borrowed a couple of others for the day. Everyone had fun taking turns on them.

Cuties (including Raycelan!) playing on the beach!

I was happy Mom got a picture with me in it. :)

Kate relaxing,

Whitney jumping off the kayak.

Then at home we hung out, had dinner,

and of course had a talent show. Most of the acts were impromptu, and fun! The MacKays sang their awesome family song:

Karl and Melissa did a funny skit-like joke.

Donny and Evelyn showed us the hog tie!

Grammy and Grandpa Jamie sang the chicken pox song!

We siblings sang the Jamie Hansen song for Dad. :)

Then we tried re-inacting some old family photos.... it was fun for a minute but then everyone was over it pretty quick.

So we ate ice cream!

These cuties were so adorable together the whole weekend! Evelyn, Ryder, and Seth played with them a lot too.

Everyone slept at our house that night so we could put the kids to bed and PLAY!

Then Sunday morning was one of my favorite parts. We went to the Payson cemetery and I had prepared a treasure hunt to find our ancestors' graves there. It turned out great I thought; at each grave the kids got a bead representing that person and I told a few facts about them. Except at Dad's Grandparents' graves, he told us a little about them, it was cool. I loved researching these people and I feel so close to them now, living under the same mountains!

Next we went to our ward for church, then to Allison's house! Karl did balloon animals,

we had a baby shower for Melissa, complete with fun games by Allison,

Then we had dinner and got ready for our family fireside! Jenae wanted a picture with all her nieces and nephews:

Ryder and Maris were being adorable reading books together for like 30 minutes!

And then we had the fireside. This picture of Dad giving his part is the only picture we have, but it was SO AWESOME and it was one of my favorite parts of the reunion. Good job organizing it Allison!! SHe asked each of us siblings and mom and dad to talk about something she felt we were strong at, and the theme was preparedness. So we had amazing heartfelt comments from everyone and it was really special. Mom and Dad talked about things they wanted us to know at this time of our lives, and then we excused the kids to go play. :) THen I talked about marriage, Allison and Kent talked about emergency preparedness, Katrina and Phillip talked about finances, Donny and Christine talked about education, Derek and Raycelan talked about physical health, Jonathan talked about service, Melissa and Karl talked about parenting, and Jenae talked about the temple. And then the reunion was over, the Cravens had to leave!

The next day was Maris' birthday and we had a little party at a park for her, but mostly everyone was gone by then. I am really so glad Donny stayed with us, it was great to talk to him and Christine so much!