bingham fam

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.