Valentine's Day projects

Hi there-
Just wanted to share a little accordian album I put together for Valentine's day. I'm going to include the little notes and Valentine's from the kids on the back. Just a fun little happy project...

Last week for Family Home Evening, we put together some "Love Sacks" for each person in our family. We've been writing notes and kind things this week to each other and putting them in each other's sacks. A simple thing that I think will become a new Valentine tradition for us.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love you Aaron :)

Friday

I haven't added pictures of us to the ol'blog lately, thought I would do that today. Braden is at the stage where he
tries to be cool and makes a face in every picture. He takes his role as the big brother seriously, he's a huge help to me. Little Heston is growing up fast. His new nickname is Bamm-Bamm. Instead of a club, it's a plastic lightsaber. He'll hand you a lightsaber, then he'll grab his and start making the sound effects. He doesn't say much but I'm sure he'll make up for it down the road. He still likes to cuddle with me, I love that.
Then there's our little Paigey, right there in the middle to shake things up. She gets as excited about doing crafts as I do. She comes up with some pretty cool ideas! Ok, mommy brag session is over.

I wish I could share some of this nice sunshine with you. This is the best I can do, enjoy your day!

President Hinckley

Like many of you, I'm going to miss this man. What a great example he was to so many people.

I bawled my eyes out the first time I saw this picture and it was the first image that came to my mind when I heard the news of his passing. He will be missed...

the blues

It's Thursday and time for a recap of last night's Project Runway! Who doesn't love denim?! I was so excited about this challenge I could hardly stand it. I was ready for them to create some cool pieces and they didn't disappoint.

Chris' dress was ok. I really like his personality. My favorite part of the show was when Christian was whining and he said, "Give him a bottle and send him to bed." So true...

Rami puts together some really classy pieces. I loved the detail of the zippers and the button detail on this dress. I really liked it. I know he was running out of time but it made me really sad to see him design this great dress and then use a hot glue gun to attach the buttons.

Victorya's dress didn't have the "wow" factor and therefore she was eliminated.

This dress is my favorite of the night. Sweet P has done it again. It was looking "hippy, dippy" as Tim Gunn called it and then she cut the dress short and it looks awesome! Great job!

Jillian has some good ideas and she's still my favorite but last night, she kind of bombed. I liked the idea of the little red tabs on the shoulder but it just didn't turn out. She did the coat last week and then again this week...I'm just glad she didn't get the boot. Next is Ricky's dress. Cute dress. I was starting to lose interest in Ricky but with this dress he has redeemed himself. Christian designed jeans and a jacket. He is such a diva but he's talented. You can't tell in the picture but these jeans that he designed were cool and original.

Happy Thursday!

FYI

The new season of Trading Spaces with Paige Davis will be on Saturday at 10 pm on TLC!

don't sweat it

Back in 1998, I picked up a book that continues to open my eyes and is one of my all-time favorites.

This little book is just full of good stuff and it reminds me that I need to take a deep breath and to not "sweat the small stuff".

This last week, I was thinking back to when Aaron was in graduate school and I was working full time at NuSkin and Braden was just a baby. We didn't do day care so Aaron and I juggled Braden back and forth between our schedules, we never saw each other...it was the toughest year of my life thus far. I would read this chapter to keep some perspective in my life. I just wanted to share it with you...maybe it will help you as much as it has helped me.

Be Happy Where You Are

Sadly, many of us continually postpone our happiness-indefinitely. It's not that we consciously set out to do so, but that we keep convincing ourselves, "Someday I'll be happy." We tell ourselves we'll be happy when our bills are paid, when we get out of school, get our first job, a promotion. We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we are frustrated that the kids aren't old enough- we'll be more content when they are. After that, we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We will certainly be happy when they are out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire. And on and on and on!

Meanwhile, life keeps moving forward. The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than RIGHT NOW. If not now, when? Your life will always be filled with challenges. It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway. One of my favorite quotes comes from Alfred D'Souza. He said:

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin-real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life." This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness, Happiness is the way.

thursday morning

i love thursday mornings. I have a routine: go to the gym, get the kids to school and then come home and watch Project Runway.

What is it about this show? I have to say one of my favorite parts is when they go to "Mood" to get fabrics.(Going shopping for fabric makes my heart happy) I've never been to New York but someday when I go, "Mood" will be the first place I want to go.

So Kit gets the boot, sad to see her go. I know the judges hated her dress but I liked it. That fabric is adorable. I love the trim but the thing about satin, it's very unforgiving. If it's not sewn well, it shows.

Chris and Christian did an awesome job. This dress is 45 yards

of fabric! Very original and they worked great together.

I also liked Sweet Ps little dress.

I'm pulling for Jillian, she did great this week too.

Wes, Ricci, Hunter and Gavin came down last weekend for a visit. I love having people come to visit, I miss having family around. We had fun and I ate way too much. They couldn't get enough of the sunshine. Yes, the summers here are pure hell but the winters are beautiful.

My dad had surgery Monday on his right shoulder...again. He had the surgery last spring and it was just healing up. He was working about a month ago and heard a 'pop'. He's home recovering and doing well. Mom is taking care of Dad and "holding down the fort" as she says. She's a trooper

Thanks to Casey and Alisha

Just want to say Thanks to Casey for the new blog banner she made for me! Casey is a next door neighbor/friend to my bf Amanda.

The picture on the right was taken back in 6th grade. Permed hair and some messed-up teeth...those were good times. I remember picking that shirt out at Christensen's (one of the only clothing stores in Vernal at the time) and when I found that pink pin to go with it, I was ready to go! The reason I'm posting it is because I'm in the process of scanning and fixing some of my old school pictures that I found at my parents house while we were home for Thanksgiving. I'm doing just a few pictures at a time, I don't want to overwhelm myself.

My Photoshop savvy sis-in-law Alisha is helping me fix a picture that I thought was ruined, I love technology. It was a newpaper clipping that my mom taped in my book with Scotch tape(that is a swear word to scrapbookers everywhere) and she did such a great job fixing it. I'm trying to learn Photoshop myself...there are so many cool things you can do. But for now, Casey and Alisha are hooking me up so Thanks!

Hello 2008!

Happy New Year! I still can't believe that it's 2008 already. We brought in the new year with Heston being sick :( I took him to the doctor yesterday and he has an ear infection in both ears. The doctor said he only had 1 ear infection last year so here's to hoping this will be the only one for this year.

Christmas was awesome and really low-key for us, it was nice. After Christmas, we've just been enjoying each other. There have been a couple of times when I've almost lost it because I'm not used to having the kids home all day (how do people homeschool?!) but honestly, we have had such a great vacation just hanging out and playing. Not rushing to a practice or being on their case to get homework done, it's been enjoyable.

family Christmas journal

If I don't post the pictures now, I probably won't get around to it. I've had this chipboard book sitting in my closet for 3 years so I just painted it with some green acrylic paint I had. I used my Cricut to cut the "H" and the star. Rubons are Daisy D's and the other stuff is Making Memories. I stamped our names on the cover but it didn't work. I will add that today.I added tabs on the side for each year (the book will hold 10 years of stuff) Simple and fun...we will write in it tomorrow. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I hope all of you have a really nice Christmas and create some great memories. Today, I've been creating a family Christmas journal. My thought is that we can start a tradition to write one page in it every year on Christmas Eve, maybe add some pictures or drawings and other things as well. I'm decorating the cover but I will share some pics with you later.





We don't exchange gifts with Aaron's brothers and sisters. Instead, we share scrapbook pages. We started this 7 years ago. We make 2 scrapbook pages and make copies for all the families. It's fun and I enjoy looking through the book at how fast our nieces and nephews are growing. Here's our scrapbook pages for this year:

The picture that Braden drew on our family page is a classic, I hope you can see it. He also wrote this poem.

Family by Braden Hammond

When I was 1 I cried and when I was 2 I cried

years passed I was 8

I was baptized and I was brave

years passed and I was 18

I went on my mission and I was sad I had to leave my family

but no more spankings for me.

Enjoy your Christmas!

Kevin, Jillian or Rami?

I'm having a hard time choosing my favorite on this year's season of Project Runway. I really like Chris March. He's got a great personality but I'm not crazy about his style. So for me, Kevin, Jillian and Rami are my favorites. Didn't you just love the trio they put together a couple of weeks ago?
I can't get enough of this show. It makes me want to break out my sewing machine and go to town. (I'm in the process of tweaking a vintage skirt pattern) I'll have to wait until after Christmas...

Christmas and traditions

One of our Christmas traditions is that we buy a Christmas book each year. I have the kids write their names and the year in the book. We enjoy reading these books throughout the month and I've also shared many of them for lessons at church during December.

The kids and I chose this one at Deseret Book:




This book is beautiful and it has little quotes and stories that go along with different themes. I found this quote from Linda and Richard Eyre in this book that I wanted to share with you.


"Traditions offer opportunites to create memories, share love, and build strong bonds between family members. They will not only help your family life be more peaceful and rewarding, they will also give your children memories they can draw on no matter where they go or who they grow up to be."

Hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season and creating lots of traditions with your families!

2peasinabucket.com

I enjoy scrapbooking. I love it for many reasons. I like recording memories for my kids and taking pictures but one of the main reasons I love it so much is because it's a great creative outlet. Everyone has their own style and way of putting things together. There is no right or wrong way to do it. My favorite place of inspiration is 2peasinabucket.com. My friend Karin introduced me to this site years ago and it's a great place for all things scrapbooking.

One of my favorite designers is Kelli Crowe. This is one of my favorite layouts:

For those of you who enjoy creating things, check it out. They've got some great ideas! (if you're in the market for a website to suck all your precious time away, this would be it)

DWTS final and my other fave TV show

So Julianne and Helio are the winners on DWTS. The fact that Helio had never danced before and was able to dance the way he did, he deserved to win. I was sad that Marie didn't win but she dug her own grave with that doll number.
Just as DWTS is ending another one of my faves is starting again...

Project Runway!!!!
This week the challenge was to make menswear for Tiki Barber (former runningback for the NY Giants). I enjoy sewing. I took sewing classes all through school and I loved it. As I was watching this episode, I was thinking back to my junior year of high school. I was taking Clothing III and we had to make a tailored piece of clothing out of wool. I made a double-breasted, fully-lined wool coat. It was the most difficult thing I've ever made.

Watching those designers gave me an anxiety attack. I at least had a pattern! They had to design it, construct a pattern and sew it all in 2 days time?! Not to mention the detail work! The zippers, buttonholes, darts, pleats...the list goes on. And most of them made 3 pieces...

Anyway, love this show. Tim Gunn is the best.

gettin' crafty

I live for crafts...and I've seen some really cute Christmas ones this year. I saw this one in my Dec. issue of Parent's magazine and I wanted to share it with you all.

I used a 14 inch styrofoam wreath form. I cut 12- 4 1/2 inch circles (used my Cricut for these). Then I cut my black and white pictures just a little smaller than my circles. I glued the circles on with Alene's tacky glue. I tied some ribbon in bows (some of the ribbon I tied little jingle bells on) to fill in here and there. And there you go!

Easy, cheap and cute!

If you decide to get crafty and make one for yourself, I would LOVE to see it!

Enjoy!

Trading Spaces is back!!!!

NEW YORK (AP) -- Paige Davis is moving back to TLC's "Trading Spaces."

Paige Davis hosted "Trading Spaces" from 2001 to 2005. She's returning to the show in January.

The Broadway actress and TV host will return to the once-popular home makeover series beginning in January, the network said in a statement Thursday.
In 2005, TLC announced Davis would no longer host "Trading Spaces" and transitioned the series to a host-less format.
Davis had perkily hosted the show, which features neighbors swapping homes and redecorating a room, since 2001. Besides "Trading Spaces," she's also appeared on Broadway in the musicals "Beauty and the Beast" and "Chicago."
The new season begins shooting this month and will be filmed entirely in high-definition. Designers Doug Wilson, Laurie Hickson-Smith, Frank Bielec and Hildi Santo-Thomas will also return to the show, alongside carpenters and other designers to be announced later.


I saw this on CNN today and I'm thrilled! I was obsessed with this show and was sad when Paige left. And I know what you're thinking...yes, I was pregnant with my baby girl and I just had to name her Paige because I loved the name...and Aaron gave the ok.

kids grow up too fast

I was searching for some pictures the other day and came across these. We had only been living in AZ for a few months...it's hard to believe we've been here a little over 3 years. I'm also still amazed at how much our kids look alike as babies! These pics of Paige look a lot like Heston!

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.

Tuesday

I was just watching Dancing with the Stars that I recorded last night (Monday Night Football and Family Home Evening are a part of our Monday routine.) and Marie was the first one to dance last night. The judges were giving their feedback and poor Marie fainted on live TV! I felt so embarrassed for her but I really think people like her and will keep voting for her.

I haven't posted pictures of the kids for a while so I thought I would do that today. Life is pretty crazy with all the stuff the kids have going on. Braden is playing soccer, doing his Taekwondo and Scouts. Paige is playing soccer as well and she's doing cheerleading. The kids play soccer with AYSO. I'm the team mom for Braden's team. Each team has a banner that they display at each game. I volunteered to do it and it stressed me out! I didn't want it to cost a lot and I wanted it to look half-way decent. So for $10, this is the banner that I made for the team. I'm so glad that it's done!

The kids are growing like crazy! They are looking forward to our trip to Disneyland and they are making their Christmas lists up right now.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Since I talked about my gramps in my last post, I just wanted to wish him Happy Birthday. He's 84 today. He went to the hospital yesterday because he was having muscle spasms. They gave him some shots and he's just fine. Grandma told me that he was up at 3 in the morning shaving yesterday. He knew he had to go to the hospital and had to be clean shaven. That's so Grandpa...love that guy!

PBS series "The War"

Aaron is into war documentaries and we have been watching the new series by Ken Burns on PBS called "The War." This series talks about stories from veterans that served in WWII. What their lives were like before and after the war. My grandpa served in the 342nd Armored Field Artillery unit in the Army. He was the leader and gunner on a tank. (There were 5 other men in the tank with him.)Out of hundreds of men in his company, he was one of 12 men chosen to be a gunner. In addition to his duties as a gunner, he would sit in the tank above the driver and give commands to the other guys in the tank by using hand signals. He also would tap the driver on the shoulder so he would know where to go. Here's a picture of him with the tank. He's the one on the right.

Grandpa never spoke of the war, not to my Grandma, not to Mom and her sisters, not to anyone. It's only been in recent years that he's talked about it. I can recall a time when he told me about his group liberating a concentration camp. When he and his group entered, what they saw...he told about how one of the men dropped to the ground and was crying while kissing his dirty boots. I can't even imagine what Grandpa saw, what he experienced, how many of the friends he lost...

If you get a chance to watch "The War", I highly recommend it.

While we're on the subject of war my cousin, Justin, will be leaving tomorrow to do another tour of duty in Iraq. He'll be there for 6 months. Please keep him and the other soldiers in your prayers. Thanks!

Week 2- DWTS

I have laundry and housework that I need to finish this morning but I've just got to sit down and talk about Dancing with the Stars. Everyone I'm sure has their favorites. My favorite girls are:

Marie- of course, she is my favorite girl. Not the greatest dancer but she is so much fun to watch. And then to see Donny cheering her on last night...love it.
Sabrina the Cheetah girl- Paige enjoys the Cheetah girls (or anything on the Disney Channel) and so she is rooting for Sabrina to win. When the girls come out in their costumes, she says, "I like that dress but she needs to cover up just a little." I agree...some of the costumes they come up with, wow!
Jennie Garth- Maybe it's just me and the 90120 nostalgia but I'm rooting for Jennie. And poor little Derek falling down...poor kid.

My favorite guys:

Helio, the race car driver- He is the guy to beat, in my opinion. Who thought a race car driver could come out and do as well as he has. And even more important, he seems really comfortable being on stage, he doesn't seem to let the nerves get the best of him. The best choreographer, hands down is Julianne Hough. She makes her partners look good and she knows how to put a good dance together. Very talented girl.
Wayne- He's the older guy, what can you say? There's a slight disadvantage because he's limited on what he can do. I can see him being around for a while because he is so well-known.

I'm including a video of Sabrina and Mark's dance last night. I could not stop laughing at Len and Bruno. Watch the part when the judges are giving their thoughts.

Here's the link. I still trying to figure out the video thing

://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pBy1N4oqrY




I need to get motivated to go and do my housework...have a good one!