down and out

well as you can probably tell from the farm pictures i am sick. it started with yucky pink eye and then turned into an awful cough. i hate being sick. josh is of course being amazing and taking care of my every need. poor guy! his one weekend off for the next eight weeks and he has to take care of me. i am so lucky to have a man that will take care of his sick wife, feed the kids, play with the kids, read to the kids, and do everything in his power to make me feel better and rest. josh, i dont know what i did to deserve you. thank you for all you do for me. i love you.

halloween craft number three

this craft took so much longer than i thought it would but it is finally done! last year in the pottery barn kids mag i saw this fancy buffet table decoration and i loved it! i just couldn't get myself to pay mega bucks for something i could do for so much cheaper. this year i was determined to recreate it. i found the spider tablecloths at michaels for $6 and then i bought some white felt for the stars. i cut out the stars and embroidered them onto the tablecloth. i then sewed the tablecloths onto a round ring. josh hung the ring from the ceiling. tada! i loved how it turned out! it took too long to make but hey i spent like $15 on the entire project. not bad compared to pottery barns version.

scary faces

at the farm, they were doing face painting and brody so wanted his face painted. we decided to wait until he could have his scary face on all day long, instead of paying for something that we were just going to go home and clean off. daddy did a great job painting brody's scary face and brody loved scaring everyone yesterday. brooklyn got a little spider on her face but with all her playing it got wiped off before i could take a picture.

farm festivitites

every year this cute farm has halloween festivities going on all through the month of october. we went last year with grandma and grandpa bingham on one trip and we had to take daddy another time for more fun. well josh just finished his obgyn rotation and shelf exam so we headed out on friday night (despite our sicknesses) for some good ol farm fun. the kids once again loved petting the animals, playing on the tire swings, and of course jumping off the hay stacks. brooklyn especially loved it this year since she is a little older and can jump off the top. what would october be without a hay ride?! the kids then went on lots of carnival rides with giggles ringing in my ears through every spin and twirl of the rides. it was a fun night. we came home dirty and tired. we are sad since this is probably the last year we will be able to have fun doing this tradition. we hopefully will be on away rotations this time next year. but the memories of this place will always last.

trains

brody received this train set for his first birthday. this is probably one of the best presents we bought him. he still loves to play with it. he will play with it for hours. constructing new tracks and bringing the passengers to new destinations along the track. i love how intently he works to figure things out. his imagination is priceless to me. he is my dreamer. we will play hours of pretend play. yesterday we were pirates and today we went camping. he is growing up so fast, and i dont want him to.

bad bonk!

yesterday was an eventful day. i forgot to write this down but when my mom was here a month ago, we had to take brooklyn to the emergency room one afternoon because i had given her a nursemaid elbow, i know i felt awful about it. she was a tough little girl. luckily they took us straight back into the room and we were out of there in fifteen minutes. well back to yesterday. we had just finished eating breakfast together as a family, minus dad, and i sent the kids upstairs to get dressed. brody was already in his room and brooklyn was next to me helping me clean up the dishes. well i was finishing up the dishes and i heard her scream and fall all the way down our stairs. i ran to her and she was crying hard. poor thing. her mouth was on an edge of wood so i checked her mouth first but no damage and then i saw the blood. i told brody to get my cell phone, called aunt patti. they came and watched brody while i rushed brookie to the emergency room. thankfully what looked awful at first--blood streaming out and a big knot on her head slowly went down. they didnt have to stitch it up, they glued it instead. today the knot is gone but it still looks bad. how come kids always bonk their head when you are going to take family pictures soon?! little girlie, was spoiled yesterday with lots of extra hugs, kisses, candy, anything she wanted. we love ya baby.

halloween craft number two

so i made this spooky craft in like ten minutes. found the idea at eighteen25.blogspot.com. they used cute little pumpkins to make their frame i decided skeletons were in store for us. just took a target frame, took the glass out. picked some paper to go behind and glued those scary guys on there with some hot glue. tada! so easy and cheap.

new traditions

i decided to incorporate a new family tradition into our celebrations of fall and october....making caramel apples the first FHE of october. we will see how i do in years to come but this year we had pure deliciousness. brody and brooklyn worked so intently on unwrapping all the caramels. i decided to use the southern living recipe since well i love everything that comes out of the magazine. (one tip i learned i don't know where but it helps if the apples are cold before you dip them the caramel sticks better). you microwave 1 (14 oz.) package caramels, 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract, and 1 Tbsp. water until melted. dip those cold apples into the caramel and top with whatever yumminess you would like. i had butterfinger and chocolate. brookie had reeses, josh had peanuts, and brody had everything. as brody would say, "delicious!" happy october!

better than NY fashion week

east coast treated us with fall weather last week so of course we had to do a little fashion show with top model brooklyn bingham.

after the wedding smiles

after the wedding we really just enjoyed being together as a family. nikki and drew came over to swim with brody. drew and tyler convinced brody to jump off the diving board....he finally did and loved it. drew said that brody looked so funny underwater after he would jump off the diving board because he would have a great big grin on his face. brooklyn had fun playing dress up one day with brody's goggles. grandma and grandpa treated us to a nice family dinner the night before we left. thanks again scott and karen for flying us out for the wedding. we loved being there with everyone.

kelly + peter = love

congratulations to the newly married couple! josh's sister got married a couple weeks ago. we went to arizona for the wedding and stayed a few days after for some fun. kelly was such a beautiful bride and peter looked very GQ, but a little nervous. the wedding and reception were beautiful. kelly, i am so sorry it took me so long to get these pictures up but i will make a cd for you of all the pictures and send it with your birthday present. i am so happy for you and peter. peter welcome to the family! you may regret it once you really get to know me! ha, just kidding! congratulations again!