bingham fam: May 2012

Sunday

Happy Mother's Day!

i woke up this morning to the cutest smiling baby, a song brooklyn made up for me about mothers, a card and plate brody made for me, and breakfast in bed, a letter, and a beautiful necklace from josh. i am one lucky mother who feels very very spoiled on mothers day. happy mothers day to all my mommy friends and to my own mother. you have all taught me how to be a better mother. i hope you feel loved today and know that you are special in every way.

motherhood is “the highest, holiest service … assumed by mankind.” (First Presidency, 1942)

beautiful song about mothers

Thursday

kate's baby pictures (four days old)

perfection.

CUTEST KID AWARD

in conversation with josh we were talking about the differences of each kid and we have awards to hand out for each of them....

Brody wins the award for best laugh

Brooklyn wins the award for best scratchy voice

Kate wins the award for best cutest cry

we truly have the CUTEST kids!

funny things...

the kids have said some funny things lately i dont want to forget...

brody: while talking to uncle tyler on the phone "my life is going to be over soon!" because he is starting kindergarten next year.

brody: "ah, mayonnaise" instead of ah man!

brooklyn: "let's snuggle!" and "yep!"

kate: is cooing like crazy and it is adorable

where has all the time gone...

our time in virginia is winding down a little too fast for me. we move in 18 days and i am getting a little emotional about it all. this has been our home for 4 wonderful years. we have brought 2 babies home from the hospital to this home, we have had friends over filling our home with laughter, i have made countless meals in this home, have cleaned up countless spills on the floor, we have had holidays and created memories that we will cherish forever in THIS home. we are going to miss virginia very much. we will miss our dear friends and we will miss the beach a lot but we will for sure miss our home. i am so used to going to arizona on a plane to visit family for vacation but to go in a couple weeks and not come back is going to be tough. we know we will come back and bring our family here for vacation but it will not be the same. over the past month since returning from arizona we have spent every weekend packing. our house is a disaster (who knew it was so hard to pack with three kids?!) all in this last little bit of time we have we are trying to squeez in playdates with friends, dinners with uncle john and aunt patti (our family here), we visited williamsburg and ate at "The Cheese Shop" for the last time, we will head to D.C. this next week for the last time till our children are much older. but in all the "lasts" we are doing, we are remembering all the "firsts" we had at these places thinking how would we ever make it through medical school? but we have and now we are moving on to another chapter of our lives. we will never forget our HOME here and all the LOVE we found here in virginia. i realize now why we came here...the Lord has a way of showing us that in the end...we are so blessed to have lived here and our family is so much CLOSER because we came here. this post was supposed to be about how in all the craziness i havent taken nearly as many pictures of kate as i would have liked to but it turned into this sappy crying mess. but there are a few big things i have learned while living here....

home to me is wherever josh is...because he makes my life worth living....he is my true love

i have learned to trust more in the Lord and have faith that everything will work out...and i still know that it will

i have learned to be a better mom...i am in no ways perfect (i have my bad mommy days) but i have tried my hardest to be a fun mom, a loving mom, a mom that reads, a mom that makes treats just because, a mom that loves and watches the same trick over and over again or plays tea party for the umpteenth time...but i still hope to continue to be a better mom in my next chapter of life in arizona and i still hope for the Lord to teach me the things i need to learn and mold me into the person He would have me be.

everything easter!

between dying eggs, making treats, afternoon naps, eating LOTS of candy, and having handsome matching boys on easter sunday...i would say we had a wonderful easter weekend. i think the "easter bunny" spoiled our kids.

conference ship?!

daddy hard at work making the ship

our candy bowls this year...a tradition we started when brody was two....every time the kids hear the word "Jesus" they get to pick a piece of candy. It helps them listen a little better than they normally would.

a fun game of conference bingo

brody's pirate sign on the ship

getting excited to play in it

this may be a new tradition added to our family conference watching....a ship, candy and of course moms conference cinnamon rolls.

(this isnt the finished picture. when it was all done it had a steering wheel as well.)

arizona house hunting trip

we headed off to arizona for our 10 day house hunting trip and well lets just say the beginning of the trip determined how the rest of it went! we started our day waking up in virginia at 5 AM to catch our 7:40 AM flight. the morning was a very unusually foggy morning on the east coast. upon arrival at our gate we were informed that our flight was on its way...later to be told it couldnt land because of the fog so back to baltimore it went. we would miss our connection so a new route we would take from norfolk to nashville to las vegas and finally to phoenix....mind you we were changing planes at each place with three children! AGH! by the time we left norfolk it was five hours later and what we started with...10 diapers for lovely kate...we now only had 6 to make it the rest of the day. it was the worst flying day ever...to be honest the kids were AMAZING! all of them!...it was just long and exhausting. we finally arrived in phoenix at 11:40 PM (which is 2:40 AM east coast time)! BUT WE MADE IT THERE! the next morning we left the kids with grandma and a house hunting we went. it was all disappointing and i cried multiple times! nothing we loved and what we did love was too far of a drive to the hospital for josh. so we prayed and decided to wait till we return to arizona to look more. until we do find our home we will be living with josh's wonderful parents who will graciously take us in....loud kids and all! we are SO SO SO GRATEFUL! despite the disappointment with house hunting and the long flight the trip was wonderful! we played outside with cousins all day long coming in exhausted and dirty! highlights from the trip:

Easter Pageant at Mesa Arizona Temple

Kids Easter Egg Hunt

Adult Easter Egg Hunt

Slip-n-Slide

Children's Museum

Gateway Aviation Museum

Basketball

Family Dinners

In-N-Out

Cafe Rio

Olivia's Baby Blessing

Conference Weekend

Meeting up with friends: The Holbrooks for S'mores

Tyler making it home minutes before we pulled out of the driveway to head to the airport to go home

Everything else besides not finding a house!

we left happy and hopeful despite being unsuccessful! we know something with work out for us...eventually!

p.s. adult easter egg hunt has cash in the eggs and josh might have pushed a few of his sisters out of the way to steal the eggs!

p.p.s. the kids fell asleep during the pageant so we had to somehow get all three of them back to our car parked far away! it was quite comical since they were looking forward to it but couldnt keep those eyes awake.

p.p.p.s. i have to say we have the coolest friends (The Holbrooks)! we love them so much and had a blast catching up with them. the kids had us all cracking up as they rode the tractor late at night. ella driving and crashing into chairs. it was too fun! miss you guys!

let's slip-n-slide!

all brody wanted to do was get a slip-n-slide in arizona. it was still too cold for the pool and probably too cold for water in general but thats all my kids wanted! so off to the store we went to start summer early with a slip-n-slide at grandma and grandpas. brody had never been on one before but had seen them multiple times on AFV (americans funniest home videos) with people of course getting hurt...so we had to get one!