Happy 1st Birthday Heston!

Happy 1st Birthday Heston Robert!
I'm so thankful for this little guy...he's growing up so fast...

The picture in the middle is Hes with my Grandpa. The way Heston is looking at him is just priceless...(Heston was named after Grandpa. My gramps is the handsome guy in the uniform in my previous post.)

Happy 8th Braden!

Happy 8th Birthday Braden!

I love this kid so much...his little "GQ" look cracks me up!

family history

I really enjoy doing family history. I never thought I would say that but it's true. I love hearing stories and finding pictures and getting to know these people who are a part of me.

I'm very grateful to have grown up in the same town with both sets of my grandparents and also my great-grandma. Each one of them experienced many trials in their lives...I'm always humbled by what they experienced. They are truly an inspiration to me.

(Top-Lois Hacking Gray and Robert Marcell Gray)

Calvin David Sorensen and Vel Lavaur Reynolds Sorensen

the purple horse shirt

When we were in Vernal visiting, I decided to take my kids to the rodeo. They had never been and I thought they would enjoy it. We went to the trading post and picked them up hats and t-shirts. Paige picked this number for 2 reasons: 1) it's her favorite color and 2) it had pretty horses on it. Once I bought it for her, I could not get her to take it off she liked it so much. It's so ugly it's cute!!

Braden picked one with a dinosaur on it.

My brother Wes has been dating a girl named Ricci. Her kids Hunter and Gavin are in the pics with the kids. It was fun getting to know them better.

my boys

Can you tell which one is Heston and which one is Braden? It has been so much fun putting my favorite baby clothes of Braden's on Heston. I still can't believe it's been 8 years since Braden was 8 months old, now he's almost 8?!!...I'm tellin' ya, time flies!!!
All 3 of our kids look so much alike in their baby pictures.
Braden is in the bottom pic, Heston is in the top.

pics

Some recent pics i thought I would post.

frogs

Paige is learning all about frogs in preschool this week. She came out of the school this morning wearing this visor and I still can't quit smiling...

new pics

Here are some recent pictures of the kids. We are all looking forward to Christmas and our visit to Utah.

my love of pictures

I love pictures. I may not update my blog enough but I take a lot of pictures. I enjoy taking them, sharing them, collecting them, especially of my kids. My motto is-

You can never take too many pictures of your kids!

I had Aaron take this picture of Paige and I during our visit to the beach. As I was looking at this picture, I realized that I need to take more pictures of me with the kids. I told you in my previous post that my face is still a balloon after having Heston but that's no excuse. I even have a tripod so I REALLY have to excuses now.

I need to go shower and get through my to-do list for the day.

Thanksgiving 2006

We spent our Thanksgiving this year in California with Aaron's older brother Matt and his family. They live in Temecula, it's about an hour north of San Diego. On Friday, we went to the beach in La Jolla to take some family pictures. We were hoping the kids would get a chance to play in the sand and look for seashells but the tide was too high. I didn't get any pictures of my sis-in-law Alisha!!! I need to have her send me some! I need to include some pics of me with my family but I just had a baby 3 months ago and my face still looks like a balloon, need I say more?!

We've been staying busy with school, soccer and other activities. We are looking forward to Christmas. Christmas is so much fun with little kids! Mom always used to tell me that the best times in her life were when Wes and I were little kids during Christmas. We will be spending it here in AZ and then we are planning to go up to Utah after Christmas for about a week. I'm looking forward to going home. I'm looking forward to see my grandma and grandpa. I can't wait for them to meet Heston. Heston's middle name is Robert, after my grandpa. He's so tickled about that and can't wait to meet his little namesake. It will be great to see all my family and friends back home. And to play in the snow for a little bit!

Our baby boy is FINALLY here!

Our little boy is here!

Heston Robert Hammond
Born August 20, 2006 at 10:53 p.m.
8 lbs. 14 oz. 21 1/2 inches

We are enjoying every minute of him. He looks like Braden and Paige but he has his own little look.

Is it August 13th yet?!

I live in Arizona and it's August and I'm a week away from my due date, my doctor won't induce me, enough said!

it's been a while...

I forget that I have this blog...I've been a huge slacker about it.
This is what's new in my life since October

-Braden enjoyed his fall soccer and t-ball. I really enjoyed being the soccer mom this year and Paige is so excited to play soccer just like her brother.

-Braden's enjoying school and hanging out with his friends. Paige is now a Sunbeam and is so happy to be in Primary with Daddy and Braden.

-We went home to Vernal this year for Thanksgiving. Everyone was so excited about hanging out together and just having a great time. The mood this year was different. My cousin Luke passed away on November 12th. He fell from a ladder at his house, he was only 24. He called me right before we left for our trip to Disneyland. We grew up together, I used to babysit him... he was like a little brother to me. He served as a Marine for 4 years and had been working in Fort Hood, Texas as a firefighter. He always wanted to be a fireman. He was fasinated with fire trucks and he was our little pyromaniac. He was living his dream...something he always wanted to do. One of the fireman that he worked with sang, "I Can Only Imagine", it was amazing. Having his fireman "brothers" there helped all of us. The Vernal firefighters put his casket on their trucks and we all followed behind them in our cars to the cemetary. He would have loved it! When I see or hear a firetruck, I miss him.

-We spent Christmas here in AZ. We had a great, low-key Christmas. I made homemade waffles that morning and a turkey dinner that night and in between we just played and enjoyed each other, it was great.

-Another big change in our lives in the past little while is that we're going to have baby #3!!! We get to find out on Thursday what we're having so that will give me a good excuse to update my blog. Paige wants a girl and Braden is fine either way. I was very sick the first 3 months. I was so happy to be feeling better around my 3rd month. I was so miserable! But I'm feeling great now. I'm a little scared about taking care of 3 kids...having 2 was super hard for me. I'm hoping I'll adjust easier this time around. And if I don't, I'll just do what I did last time and just roll with it. Moms can be so hard on themselves sometimes...I think we expect too much at times. A baby is an adjustment and it takes time to get a "normal" routine going. Lack of sleep doesn't help either. It'll all work out...

I'll check back in later to tell you what we're having!
k

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!

Saturday...

just got back from a morning full of games...Aaron and Braden got up early and went golfing, next was Braden's 1st soccer game of the season (he scored the 1st goal!) and then we had his t-ball game. I love fall, it's my favorite season...it's like a renewal. School starts, football starts, and of course baseball starts getting really good. I love AZ but I get homesick for Utah this time of year...there's nothing like Utah in the fall.

wish I had loads of really awesome, exciting things to talk about...Oh! I do have something exciting to mention, we got our kitchen countertops on Friday! That was a monumental day. We bought our house in May and since then we've been in the process of fixing it up. It was exhausting to say the least...anytime the kids saw a Home Depot, they would start whining, "No more Home Depot!" It's fun to see how far this house has come. There's something to be said about how rewarding it is to just physically bust your butt. And I have more empathy for Dad and his screwed-up back from all the flooring his done in his life...

so where was I? Oh, we haven't had a kitchen for 2 1/2 months and now I'm almost to the point where I can cook a decent meal.

not much else going on...I'm the soccer team mom this year and I've been teaching after school sewing classes at Braden's school. I have 8 kids in the class- 6 girls and 2 boys. It's been really fun to see how excited they are to learn how to sew...they take it pretty seriously. I'm teaching them how to do embroidery and then some basic sewing stuff along the way. Good times...

That's all for me for now. I need to post some pictures, I'm still trying to figure this stuff out.
k

here goes...

I've always been a faithful journal writer for as long as I can remember so it seems fitting that I start a blog. I have a webpage but I'm too impatient to figure out how to publish it....I swear I'm a little ADD...

So I named my blog "Kriston's Kafe". When I was little, we lived next door to this lady named Rosy. She was this tiny, little lady that was just full of energy. She owned her own cafe in Naples called "Rosy's Cafe". We would go there and every time we did, I ordered the chili...it was the best chili! So when someone would ask me the "what-do-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up" question my answer was, "I want to be a nurse and a waitress and I want to own my own cafe and name it Kriston's Kafe with a K." I have no desire to be a waitress nor have my own cafe and I needed a name for my blog... it seemed fitting.