Summer catch up and Back to School

 Hello! It's been a fun summer and a busy first few weeks of school! I did this school pictures page from last year over the summer...the kids have grown up so much in just a year!

We went to Disneyland in June and had an awesome time!

We also made our traditional summer trip to Utah. My mom was on her class reunion committee this year. I made 5 posters (20x30) and she had them printed at Staples. These were displayed on easels throughout the room. I had so much fun putting these together!!

These pictures were taken from the yearbook. Do you see the foxy girl in the top right hand corner in that silver jacket?? That's my Mommy! :)

 Pop culture events from 1974

Also while we were in Vernal, we had our family pictures taken at Remember the Maine. It's such a beautiful place!

 

Disneyland 2011

I was just looking at some of my layouts and realized I didn't post any of my Disneyland album from this summer. I had a blast putting this together, Disneyland is just too awesome! I really like doing albums like this because there's a start and a finish. And again, the templates saved me some serious time. Mom joined us on our Disneyland trip so I made her a duplicate album (another advantage to digital, I love that!)

These are 12x12 but I just printed them as 8x8. I love the 8x8 size when I'm doing little albums like this. 

Here are some of the pages... 

Title page

  I thought it would be fun to include all the rides and shows from each day. When we got back to the hotel, I jotted the info down so I could remember :) 

Don't you just LOVE Disneyland?! So much fun!We were so happy Mom joined us this time.
And I'm glad that H stopped sticking his tongue out every time I took a picture on the first day :)



Donald Duck

This kid loves Donald Duck. He found this Donald in California Adventure and was so excited to take him home to AZ. I took a video of him in the hotel room just chatting away with Donald. It was so cute...we couldn't stop laughing because if you know Hes, he's not a chatty kid :)

Heston is 4 (almost 5) and he could ride almost every ride. It was so much fun for all of us to see his excitement over everything there. What a great age for Disneyland! His favorite rides were:

-the "spooky, fun ride that went up and down" (Hollywood Tower Hotel)

-the "ride that took us to space" (Space Mountain)

-and of course Star Tours. (they just opened it back up after re-doing it. We had an early entry pass so we were able to ride it.)

{Credits}

Template- Jessica Sprague, AE Baby Blue patterns and solids paper pack, Buttons- Zoe Pearn You Rock kit, Echo Park All Boy alpha, Font- Stamp

I {heart} MJ & Jessie

So I'm still working on my pages from our Disneyland adventures. I'm almost done. I feel like I have to strike while the iron is hot or it will never get done.

I love everything about Disneyland. (except for the huge crowds) One of the things I was looking forward to seeing this time was the return of Captain EO. I'm so cheesy, I admit it. Loved it!

Another one of my favorites at Disney are the characters. I don't know...after my days of being the Crayola Bunny, I empathize with the people that wear these suits and work hard to make the kids happy.

Outside. In the heat. Without saying a word.

Jessie was my fave character this time. She was so adorable!!

I wanted to wrap my arms around Jessie and tell her (or him, you never know)

'You are awesome! I'll cover for you while you sneak into that building so you can take your head off and get some water.'

Disneyland

We spent our Labor Day weekend at Disneyland. Aaron and Ricci (Wes' fiance) ran in the 1/2 marathon while we were there. I took some video of that but no pictures :( The race took them through Disneyland and California Adventure. We had so much fun while we were there! We spent 2 days at Disney and 1 at CA Adventure. While we were waiting for the parade to start on Tuesday, guess who walked into the ice cream store right behind us? Seal and Heidi Klum! I could have taken a picture but I didn't want to be paparazzi-like. Watching Heidi walk past me eating a huge ice cream cone somehow made me feel better about myself :) And then noticing she was the same height as me and probably weighed 50 lbs. lighter brought me back
to reality :( Our trip was really fun!

Paige's middle name is Cali, kind of fun!

Our Disneyland trip

We had a really great time on our trip to Disneyland. It went by too fast but we had lots of fun and rode pretty much every ride in both parks. It was our annual Hammond Family Reunion. This year, Aaron and I were in charge. We just had Heston when it was our turn to plan so we wanted to go somewhere that didn't require a lot of planning. My mom and my brother's girlfriend Ricci and her kids, Hunter and Gavin came too.

Mom took Paige and they picked up this hairpiece and the crown. Ricci does hair so she fixed her hair. She was so excited and it looked cute!

They have this show at Disney that's called Jedi Training. They choose kids from the audience to come up and fight Darth Maul and Darth Vader. If you know Braden, he has been obsessed with Star Wars for years. The funny thing is, he didn't get chosen. He went up on stage anyway.

We went down to Newport Beach to play and then we made our way to Matt (Aaron's bro) and Alisha's house to see them and spend the night before heading home.

The kids loved playing at the beach and I really enjoy taking pictures at the beach. B&P are good sports when it comes to me and my picture taking.

the happiest place on earth

We got back a few days ago from our Hammond family reunion. We had it at Disneyland this year and it was a lot of fun. How can you not have fun and be unhappy at Disneyland? We were there 2 1/2 days and the kids had a great time, it was their third time there. The only ride that freaked me out was the Hollywood tower hotel. Never again will you see me on that ride. Braden rode it twice, once with me and once with Aaron.
Paige got to meet her favorite princess Cinderella. Braden loved Star Tours of course. My favorite ride was Screamin' California, loved it!