⛄ JANUARY ❅
We started 2021 with Cameron receiving the Priesthood!
and this is a good representation of what Western Washington is like...
💕FEBRUARY💘
Happy Valentine's Day!
We get at least one good snowfall in the Winter
Matt made this great time lapse of us shoveling the road.
By the size of this road - we're glad we only get snow once or twice!
Trevor's snow sculpture...
but what a funny panorama picture - look at my eye at the end!!
Matt's sister Sandy got married! She doubled the size of her family!
Alissa has a great group of friends here. They're headed out on a big group date.
Matt was pretty sad when he found the gnome graveyard for all the broken figurines.
The weather started warming up just a bit so we couldn't resist a backyard cookout!
Happy St. Patty's Day!
Because of Covid - school was all online this year - this is the best we could do for getting a picture of Jacie with her teacher!
Happy EASTER!
Behold - the amazing birthday cakes! I was especially proud of how Jacie's turned out - probably the coolest cake I've ever made - and I've made erupting volcanos, fire breathing dragons and ice castles before but this one was pretty cool. It even has red plaid layers inside like a lumberjack's shirt!
Hard to believe our babies are 10 - loving every minute with these two turkeys.
Matt and his Dad taught Cameron how to make a remote-start campfire - very cool.
The inside of Jacie's cake...
I love being a Mom. I love it so much.
All the kids have one of these cute squishimal bulldogs. This was a fun photo shoot.
GREAT News!! My baby brother and his wife had TWIN BOYS!! 
Back at home - the 3 youngest kids had a great time practicing their BB gun skills on our back deck.
And Alissa got her hair done! She cleans a salon for 2 friends in our ward and they offered her free haircuts and highlights while she works for them - so cute!
We even got to see Matt's 92 year old Grandma and his Aunt and Uncle let us crash at their house.
We love Grandma Turner!
We spent a day in Rexburg so Alissa could tour the campus of BYU-Idaho then had fun at a hotel before we headed north to Yellowstone.
And you can't drive north of Rexburg and not stop for a giant hamburger lunch at Big Judds.
Cameron MADE this awesome wind chime for me during his Young Men's Activities and 
🍀 MARCH 🌈
We visited The Gnome Trail. People have hidden all kinds of gnomes along this hiking trail.
APRIL 🎕
Happy April Fool's Day!
Cameron had his 12th birthday this month! He grabbed a friend and we had a fun day at a nearby farm with all sorts of fun animals.
MAY 💜
Matt and I flew his parents out for the weekend so his Dad could ordain him to the office of a High Priest so he could be set apart as the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric. This just happened to be the same weekend as the Twins' 10th Birthday so we had lots of fun together.
And they were born on my twins' birthday - May 2nd is officially TWIN DAY!!
I asked my friend Denise to make this delicious and beautiful ice cream cake for my birthday.
She makes AMAZING cakes.
For my birthday every year I like to go on hikes - this year we decided to go on a little Memorial Weekend camping trip at the church campground that the teenagers go to for Girls and Boys camps in the summer. It was SO fun. We got a cabin and promptly locked ourselves out of it at 11:00 at night and Matt had to MacGyver his way back into it. Matt was trained previously for the rock wall so we were able to do some rock climbing (way harder than you might think when you get older and bigger - the little kids just darted up that wall and loved rappelling down it too). We went out on canoes, made s'mores around a campfire and played games in our cabin. They also have a ropes course that Matt got trained on for Boys' Camp that he was able to walk us through and teach great lessons - like how to not get stuck in the swinging tires life might throw at you. :)
JUNE 🎈
June is my birthday month! My favorite month of the year! ;) We packed a LOT of fun into June this year. My sister Marinda and I were in charge of our big JUDY REUNION in Idaho and we did a fantastic job of that if I do say so myself. We then met up with Matt's parents and spent a few days enjoying the wonders of Yellowstone National Park! Matt's mom even made us all matching t-shirts!
It's simply not done.
We also stopped at Mesa Falls on our way up north - so beautiful!
And before we left - Alissa had fun with her friend Ryan at a mini Prom.
Happy Father's Day to Matt. Best Dad Ever.
Alissa came up with a new way to take a funny picture - haha.
Watching an annual slideshow of our family on the side of the house
I came up with a fun Family Memories Bingo Game. When you got a Bingo - you opened a little gift that had a Family Memory associated with it - there were lots of roping and goats and dog and tractor and farm memories that were so fun to revisit.
This dragon eye rock is one my sister LaDawn painted - WOW! This was our list of painted rocks that the kids had to go find to get a special prize. So fun.
One of these things is not like the others...gotta love cousin time!
To end our reunion - we drove about an hour south to a fun farm where they've rigged up giant slides to go tubing on - they also have a big playground and will shoot off a candy cannon if you bring the goods. It was a lot of fun and we got some pretty stellar sunburns too.
We, of course, had to have our good old water balloon dunk tank as part of the reunion. Matt invented these bad boys and we get lots of good use out of them!
Sorry the pictures are all out of order and we have to keep backtracking events - but I'm not about to take the time to get it all organized - I figured I'm doing pretty good to actually get this blog post put together for this year - haha!
As part of our Judy Reunion - we made a rock hunt for the kids. My sister LaDawn painted some rocks and we painted some too. Carly loves to be artistic and took her rock painting to a whole new level! Mine are on the left and Carly's are on the right. I'm not too bad myself!
Also before we left - the kids finished up their school year. The twins had fun doing a famous person project - Can you guess who they are?
Benjamin Franklin meets Abraham Lincoln :)
Now some pictures of my Judy Reunion...
Twins holding twins! 10 years apart.
Handsome little nephews of mine with suave mustaches.
My sister TeraLyn brought this super fun game called 9 Square in the Air. It was a hot weekend so my brothers in law figured out how to rig it up with a sprinkler - lots of great fun for everyone. We loved it so much that we all voted to buy a game set to keep at my parents' house for every reunion!
Here we all are with our beloved Grandma Turner.
This is part of the tour of BYU-Idaho that we went on with Alissa. Her Aunt Taletha met us there and her cousin Katelyn was currently attending school there so they joined us on the tour. I was surprised to learn about this room on campus - it's a slightly smaller version of the conference center in Salt Lake City.
And we made sure to play some cosmic bowling while we were on campus.
Here's a great shot of most of the family members that came to the Judy Reunion.
This is the room we found at the Yellowstone Country Inn that had 5 beds in it and plenty of room for the 9 people we had on that trip. Worked out great.
Beautiful summer day by beautiful Yellowstone Lake.
And we saw BUFFALO!!
Here's our Yellowstone crew. We said goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa Hansen as they headed home to Wyoming then we headed north to our Washington home via Montana. We made sure to stop at the Lewis and Clark Caverns on our way. We went on a guided tour and learned all about stalagtites, stalagmites, cave bacon, cave popcorn and to be quiet around bats. My favorite part was a section of rock we had to slide down - so many bums had slid down that rock over the years that it had a permanent bum print shape in it - haha!
HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!
As soon as we got back from our fun family adventures Matt and Cameron were off for a week to Young Men's Camp. This was Cameron's first year - it looks like he had a great time!
While the boys were away - the girls decided we needed to have a girl party - they did blindfolded makeovers, put on face masks, took lots of pictures, watched a Disney movie and had a sleepover.
Then Carly got to go on a backpacking trip for Girl's Camp.
While the girls were at Girl's Camp - I took the youngest 3 kids to the Point Defiance Zoo.
I have been working with the 8-11 year old kids at church - we meet biweekly for activities. This was a fun Halloween activity we did with all of them.
Some Halloween Fun all month...
We did some fun senior pictures for Alissa - what a beautiful girl - inside and out. Glad she's mine.
I got a fun new shirt and Trevor wanted to make a fun snack for his classmates.
We decided to shake things up this year and spent Thanksgiving at Leavenworth. It's a fun town that they've turned into a Bavarian Village with lots of Christmas Lights and fun gift shops. Our hotel had a balcony that looked over a pretty river and mountains. It was a fun trip.
My mom is turning 80 this year so my brother is putting together a video for her - he sent these fun pictures of her as a child. She's so cute!
Entertaining ourselves at the hotel on Thanksgiving. Cameron started it.
Carly and her friends turned 16 this year - they had a fun celebration with bowling and lunch.
Cool picture of Trevor at Leavenworth and we got lots of rain that flooded the walking trail I like to go on - the ducks loved their new swimming spot. That's a cool artistic photo I took, huh?
DECEMBER 🎄🎅
JULY 🌟
Alissa made sure we included a trip to the Playmill Theater while we were in West Yellowstone. We went last year to see the fun 7 Brides for 7 Brothers and loved it. She fell in love with one of the youngest actors and wanted to see him again - heehee. Her Grandma helped her dreams come true by walking her right up to him after the show and asking for a picture - he was happy to oblige! :) She may or may not have made this picture her screensaver on her phone for a long time!
HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!
Pretty fun July!
Check out Carly's face in this one...I can't even.
Once they returned - we visited the ocean!
Lots of sand dollars at this beach - and Matt relaxing
We've figured out a good way to keep the sand out of our stuff - a fitted sheet!
Our cute kiddos
And August took the kids back TO school. They've been home on computers because of Covid for the last year and half so they were pretty eager to go to in person learning again. This year we have kids in Elementary, Middle School and High School.
Later in September we had fun at the State Fair
And Matt was excited to have an EGG DROP youth activity for church. He brought one of the big bucket trucks home from work and had it raised up to 70 feet by the end! There were around 10 kids that had inventions that protected the egg from that high - all of our kids included! :)
This is the little cutie that Alissa is a nanny to.
Carly is in Driver's Ed - and guess who has to go on most of her drives to teach her...
Just....wow.
OCTOBER 👻
AUGUST 🌞
We took some updated family pictures in August. I just love how awkward Cameron looks standing there in the front. He's hit a growth spurt this year. Guess it's time to rethink our arrangement now that I'm one of the 3 shortest in the family!
While the girls were at Girl's Camp the rest of us visited the Museum of Flight - TONS of big airplanes and cool displays.
SEPTEMBER 🍎
September brought ALISSA'S 18TH BIRTHDAY!! She was super excited for this and wanted us to throw her a big Disney themed party with all her friends. She had everyone dress up in costumes and we had fun with the cake, the decorations, and Disney themed games. Great party!
Now that Matt is in the Bishopric they are over the youth program at church. The Young Men do weekly activities. One week Matt had them all meet at our house so they could pick all the apples off our tree and process them into applesauce and pie filling to give to the widows in our ward.
NOVEMBER 🍂
We made these fun gingerbread houses at Activity Days.
My Mom turned 80!!
Our Elf friend JINGLE has returned!
CARLY TURNED 16!!
Carly was in the High School play this year - Beauty and the Beast. She did SO great!!
We found our Elf friend Jingle trying to play the piano one morning - haha. He's so cute.
This was our Christmas Card this year.
Alissa put up some Christmas lights for us - while her cute friend Reid and I watched.
Trevor's art skills are impressive.
GRANDMA AND GRANDPA HANSEN got to visit for the last 2 weeks of the year!!
This was a pretty intense game of chess. The other kids are playing Pictionary with Grandma.
We loved having them with us for so long. Great memories made.
We made lots of yummy treats for some goodie plates this year.
Grandma is making her mom's yummy chocolate truffles with Jacie.
Here are our traditional Christmas Eve sugar cookies
And we had LOTS of goodie plates to deliver this year -
I decided that I don't need to make this a tradition - haha.
Traditional "Magic Cocoa" on Christmas Eve
We got matching jammies!! We also scored some bells this year that were so fun to play Christmas carols with. Jacie and Grandma won the prize for the funniest face made.
Christmas Morning! Matt is so happy to have his parents visiting us.
We came up with a couple fun creative gifts for them.
Alissa has been dreaming of having her very own "boyfriend pillow" ever since we gave one to her great grandma a year or two ago. Haha.
We went and played with some of our new toys at the church on Christmas afternoon.
And then....the snow hit. We got a good 6 inches the first day, about 4 inches the next day, and a couple more inches of fluffy snow to end the storm. LOTS of shoveling so it's a good thing we have 5 shovels and lots of helping hands!
We love to make a sledding run down the side of our road - this one plows through some pine tree branches and ends at the neighbor’s house! The neighbors loved using it too!
We played lots of our new games all weekend - Poetry for Neanderthals going on here.
The second bout of snow was good for sculpting so the kids made a snowman, a cool shark, and their favorite - a giant nose with a green ball stuck up one nostril. Haha - they're so funny!
LOTS of puzzles were done during the holiday break - most by Grandma and Grandpa while they waited for Matt and I to be done with work for the first half of both weeks!
And - the sad news of the holidays - my dad got pretty sick with Covid and had to be admitted to the hospital. The doctors and nurses are working hard and taking great care of him. So far so good. My siblings are being great to take care of him and be with my mom during this trying time. Keep him and all of us in your prayers please.
We made a lot of Thin Mints snowmen gifts for Alissa's friends - very cute.
Jacie invited her buddies over and we all joined them to make sugar cone trees.
We braved downtown Bellevue to see the Christmas Lights but missed the parade due to being late and WAY too many cars and people to find a parking spot fast enough.
Taletha and Merrilee took good care of my Mom.
Grandma bought a bunch of playdoh and one of our favorite games was to play "Sculptionary" - we had to sculpt something and everyone else had to guess what it was.
Midnight arrived and 2022 began.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Grandma treated us all to Dairy Queen after we delivered our goodie plates. Matt and his dad were out doing the traditional Christmas Eve shopping!
We found some pretty awesome balloons at WinCo - Cam put activities on papers in each balloon and we popped a balloon every hour waiting for the New Year to arrive.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
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