27th birthday

another year gone, 

i have to say it was a great one full of love

thank you josh for making it wonderful

bracelets and bows

it has been a bow and bracelet factory in our house for a couple weeks as i have prepared things for baby kate to arrive on tuesday. we are so excited in our house and cant wait to meet our new little one. i will head into the hospital tomorrow night and will be induced on tuesday. grandma will arrive tomorrow to help take care of our family, which we are so grateful for her help. wish me good luck!

the latest

i wanted to write a quick update on the kids and their latest adventures. daddy gave brooklyn her first rose on valentines day and she loved smelling it everyday. she felt very special. it was so cute to see the expression on her face when he brought it home for her. brooklyn has been in swim lesson the past couple of months and loves every minute of it. she had a hard time the first couple of lessons but once she got to know her teacher (and mommy and daddy bribed her), she was much better. she is almost to where she can swim on her own. we will take a break for the month of march then start her back up again. she continues to love going to the library every tuesday with mom. i can tell she is just going to LOVE school. in the meantime brody usually comes home and is trying to teach her things he is learning at school. today he taught her all about the penny (which president is on it, how much it is worth, what color it is, and what building is on it). brooklyn got confused and now has it stuck in her head that the building is the lincoln obama instead of the lincoln memorial. she gave us a good laugh in the car on the way to church. besides loving "Brother" as brody is being called lately, she has been helping me get ready for baby to arrive. we had a special mommy/daughter date the other day and went shopping for some spring clothes, rode on the carousel at the mall, and got a new charm on her charm bracelet. she is so fun to be with, except when she needs a nap (and yes she still takes naps once or twice a week). she continues to be my messy girl as she demonstrated the other day by running in the mud at brody's school in her nice new pink shoes and covering them in thick mud. josh is smitten by her and they love to tease each other. most of all she is so excited to become a BIG SISTER!

brody has been quite the determined one since january learning new things. he learned how to snap his fingers, ride his bike, is doing awesome at math and loves it (i am teaching him first grade math), climb the monkey bars, and swing all by himself on the swings, he is learning to read (which he doesnt like so much but we continue to work at it). i am so glad that we made the decision to hold him back this year. he has loved his school, teachers, and classmates so much more than last year. he has really come out of his shell. he used to be my shy one but now has made a 180 and is telling strangers all about our lives ("my daddy is a doctor, my mommy is going to have a baby, we are moving in four months, etc."). so if you want any juicy details about our lives just ask brody. brody is very into harry potter right now as josh reads it to him every night before bed but still loves star wars. he is so excited for kate to arrive and was saying to my belly at church "peek-a-boo i love you!" i took him on a mommy/son date as well the other day and i asked him if he was nervous about anything with the baby coming..."mommy can you just make sure she doesnt throw up on me." oh i love his cute comments. he is so good to brooklyn to constantly play "mommy and daddy" with her. he continues to love to draw and color more than anything (i have to keep buying new books for him to fill up." he loves things clean and organized, so much so that he decided to organize all the toys in his classroom for his teacher, because it was bugging him. he is becoming more of a little boy everyday and it is hard on both josh and i, when he refuses to snuggle, be held, give hugs or kisses. i love my handsome boy and he will always be my baby boy even though he is growing up too fast.

a lovey dovey day...

i found this cute idea to give your husband a gift every hour on the fourteenth minute and decided that i wanted to do that for josh. it was a lot of fun and it helped me remember him throughout the day. the kids had so much fun celebrating valentines day as well. brody loved his party at school and brooklyn had a fun time at the library and celebrating with mom. i planned a special family dinner and we couldnt wait to open presents as soon as daddy got home from work. brody was so excited to get the harry potter ds game and we gave him battleship which he is learning to love. brooklyn got new pajamas a personalized journal (more for coloring) but i think she just liked her candy the best. daddy brought home beautiful roses for me and he gave brooklyn her first red rose. she was delighted and smells it everyday. it was a wonderful day to show each other how much we love one another.

something yummy

the kids and i have been making yummy valentines treats and this was easy for the kids to do so i thought i would share. the recipe is at betty crockers website and is called valentine chex mix.

XOXO day decor

 the kids and i made these cards our first year of med school which now hang on our old window frame

 the heart wreath was made last year along with the love canvas...both of which did not get finished till after valentines day

 the kids helped me make the picture for our frame this year

 i found the cute idea online to make cupids arrows so brooklyn helped me glue all these together this year

 the heart garland (awful picture) was also done this year and i love how it turned out in real life...if i could just find the time to figure out my camera better....its on my list of things i want to do

another shot of the arrows. something we did not do this year that we did last year was make a valentines countdown and i made a bunch of hearts that we would write LOVE notes to each other and put them in special places. i wish we would have done those things this year...so i am writing this down so i don't forget to do it next year.

drawing

there are some things i cherish about my kids love of drawing, coloring, painting, etc. but i have to say my favorite is when they learn to write their name by themselves for the first time or the first person they draw. as is the case with this picture. brooklyn drew her first picture of a person...this just happens to be me. can't you see the resemblance? i have long blonde hair....i love everything about this picture and wanted to remember it forever just in case it gets lost some place in time.

tendencies

i have the tendency to start a craft before a given holiday (say christmas in this case), and then get so busy or the craft takes too long to finish that well...lets admit it i don't finish it until after the holiday is long gone. now this has happened a few times and more than josh would like, but hey in my defense at least we get to enjoy the craft for the next year. such is the case with redoing our christmas ornaments. this year my tree just bugged me (don't know why). i kept fiddling with it and finally figured out that i was sick and tired of the gold....it was just too much for me. so after we took down the tree in january i decided to take all of our old ornaments that we got the first year we were married and add some sparkle to them. i just mod podged ripped up book pages to the balls added some glitter, tied new bows and tags and whala....new ornaments. it took time because well i just didn't feel like sitting on a hard stool everyday with a big pregnant belly. but they finally did get finished and we will see how they go on the tree the next year. who knows maybe i will be kicking myself for doing it....just in case i did save a box of the originals.

a long month...

after a very long month in january....our daddy is finally back home and back to a normal (what is normal in med school?!) schedule. josh was gone almost every week in january attending interviews all over the country. he would be home for a couple days here and there but it was a long LONG month for all of us. brody did pretty good, i think he was more angry with josh when he finally was home. but while josh was gone he was such a great help to me. brooklyn had a really hard time especially towards the end of the month. she is such a daddy's girl. it is not uncommon to hear her say, "i wish daddy were here to snuggle." somehow daddy can make her smile and laugh better than anyone. she would cry a lot and constantly want to do facetime on our phones, but she made it through. it was the cutest thing to watch her spot her daddy in the airport and run as fast as she could to give him a hug. that night we picked josh up she couldnt stop hysterically laughing....she was so happy he was home. and then it comes to me, what can i say, i am awful without josh home. i can handle the gone at nights now or the really long days where he gets home just before i go to sleep but to have him gone day after day....i really begin to miss my best friend! i tried to save my crying for after the kids would go to sleep and i truly believe that Heavenly Father helped me get through it all. i couldnt have done it without His help! but we all made it and it was good preparation for residency. the interviews went well and we are anxiously counting the days till match day. the last week josh was gone there was a package on my doorstep one afternoon when i came home from taking brooklyn and brody to the park. the beautiful roses brought tears to my eyes. i have the best husband in the world. he is my everything and i am lost without him. january was a long month but our february thus far has been wonderful!

christmas 2011 was full of laughter and lots of playing! this year because we were gone over black friday...and mom loves a good deal...we decided to buy all of our presents in washington and ship them to arizona (bad idea!). i guess we will never forget this christmas because this is the christmas where all of our presents got lost in the mail! when we arrived in arizona we waited and hoped (PRAYED) that the presents would come but they never did. so josh and i went out the day before christmas eve in search of replacing everything! it was madness and took us much longer than we had anticipated. we found everything except one thing mr. brody wanted. we called stores and couldnt find it anywhere. finally dad found it and all was okay once again in the bingham house. christmas eve we decorated gingerbread houses, watched the christmas devotional, opened 1 present from grandma and grandpa, ate delicious food till we were stuffed, and enjoyed being together. christmas day started by mom and dad waking brody and brooklyn up to see what santa brought (silly kids were exhausted), going to church, eating a yummy christmas breakfast, playing with our toys, opening all the rest of the presents, and of course shooting the gingerbread houses we made with a paintball gun (a fun new tradition), we ended the night by visiting the lights at the temple. the rest of our quick trip we looked at houses with a realtor in hopes of moving there soon. we wanted to get an idea of what we could afford and what areas we thought we could live in. and i have to say i am so glad we went out with a realtor because the only area we thought we could live in was south phoenix (not the greatest area) but in driving around and looking at homes we discovered we could live in north phoenix and the commute would still be do-able for all of us (plus i will be happier there....which is a good thing!). it was a wonderful christmas and we came home ready to make it through the long month of january!

p.s. you will not believe it if i told you...weeks later my mom called out of the blue saying our package had arrived back at her house. she mailed it to us and we returned most of the items and saved the rest for valentines gifts, easter gifts, or just because gifts.

how come dad is more fun than mom?!

Quinn's 1st Birthday

while we were in arizona for christmas we were lucky enough to be there for our niece's first birthday! quinn is such a sweet girl who has everyone trained to help her walk all day long. her mama planned the cutest party for her. we decorated gingerbread girls and boys, pinned the mustache on the nutcrackers, ate cupcake and drank hot cocoa, and best of all santa came to visit all the boys and girls giving them treats from his santa bag! it was such a fun night and my kids loved every minute of the excitement. happy birthday baby quinn! you are such a cutie pie!

Christmas Town 2011

this year was so crazy getting home from all of our travels for away rotations and being home for just a couple weeks we didn't think we would get our favorite family tradition squeezed in before we left again....but of course we couldn't let that happen! instead we were great parents and took brody out of school early on a tuesday afternoon and headed to williamsburg. the weather was surprisingly not too cold and we had a wonderful time being together as a family. we rode rides, looked at all of the beautiful lights, drank hot chocolate and wassail, looked at the animals, but most of all we had FUN! josh even braved the new ride in the cold of the night. i have to say the thing i most enjoy about christmas town are the shows. ireland always has the best shows and this year was no different. they shared in music the most magnificent story ever told...the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. it was truly beautiful, there really are no other words to describe how touched i was that even in today's world...people are trying to remember the reason we celebrate christmas. i loved every minute of it. we will surely miss this christmas tradition that has become our favorite this next year but we will never forget the wonderful memories we had.

Family Christmas Pictures 2011