Who needs to bathe?

It was a quiet Sunday evening... we had finally finished all our meetings and church assignments and were lounging about watching a movie before tucking the kids in. Sounds nice huh? Well, then we went into the basement and guess what? We now have an indoor swimming pool. Our pressure reducer-thing-a-ma-jig has gone kaput. So, to stop the waterfall on the wall, Brett had to dig under a couple feet of snow to turn off the water main in the front yard. And now I am looking forward to a lovely day without water tomorrow.

(Brett will fix it for Family Home Evening. Maybe we'll have a correlating lesson on water storage and preparedness). Although it still doesn't make me feel any better about a whole day ahead of me without a shower and flushing toilets with a pitcher of water (potty training included). Brett is trying to make me laugh at this "stinking" situation... "Don't forget Hon'... If it's yellow let it mellow... if its brown flush it down." Easy for him to say. He gets to go to work to use the potty!

All in all, it is a great lesson in gratitude. I am so grateful to have flushing toilets, warm water, CLEAN water that comes right into our homes, a washing machine that all I have to do is load and walk away... I really am quite spoiled. So tomorrow we will be playing "pioneers." We might even smell like them too!

You know, its a little like the women going to the well (our storage barrels are in the basement and too heavy to carry upstairs). So I will be making frequent trips to "the well" tomorrow... too bad I don't have any other ladies to chat with like they did long ago. Well, at least I have a good excuse not to do laundry.

Hope you all had a nice warm shower!

Afternoon snooze

Things got a little quiet yesterday afternoon so I went to check on Ben and this is what I found.
That kid can sleep anywhere!

Connor's First Birthday

What do you mean, "there's no more cake"?!!

Connor's 1st birthday was Saturday. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the gift!

He loved the Little People Set... too bad Ben swiped it the first chance he got. Connor has to crawl at top speed to pursue the thief who is currently fleeing the scene.

Connor is the first baby that I didn't have to encourage to go for his cake. He dug right in and I do mean DUG. The other kids were getting worried that they wouldn't get a piece of cake.

We were enjoying taking pictures of his messy face so much that I'm afraid he really stuffed himself with frosting! That night, I was up very late with a little guy who had a very upset tummy. But all in all it was a really fun day for our little Connor.

Loving the holiday break!

Having Madi home from school and Brett home for the few days he got off work was so heavenly! I loved all the extra family fun stuff we got to do!

Madi is reading a story to Brooke. (I sat around the corner and just listened). It was so neat because Brooke really enjoyed being read too as usual, but Madi was reading for fun too. A lot of the time I have to make her sit down and read and she fights it, wanting me to read to her. It is really amazing the things that are changing as my children get older and I am learning to sit back and let them do things for them selves. For example, It is really hard for me to let Madi do her own hair. (Melanie, she's a lot better at doing her own hair than I was thank goodness! ha ha ha).

Dad's night to cook! Hooray! Brett makes dinner on Sunday evenings and it is so nice to just sit back and WATCH.

Ben was Daddy's little helper.

Brett taught the kids how to make tiny smores over a candle. Nice honey! Now every time I burn a candle they are going to be looking for the mallows.

We had a family snow man making session. Ben would rather eat his carrot than donate it to his snow man's nose.

So now I have our FAMILY of snowmen on my front lawn. I love snowmen, but it was a workout making six of them! I don't really look as round as my snowman makes me look.

Grasshoppers and hot cocoa! Yummmmmmm...This is one of our fun family traditions! It is one of those treats that our cousins, Brandon and Michelle taught us. It isn't something you'll want to do in front of company, but pay attention, and kids... Do try this at home!

Nibble off two ends of the cookie and suck the hot cocoa through it... then quickly put the cookie in your mouth. (It melts from the inside out). NOTE: Real "keebler grasshoppers" work the best AND it is kind of nasty if you use flavored hot cocoa... the regular cocoa is better.
So try it and let me know.

By the way... this is one of those awful pictures I post only to show you that occasionally I'm not the one holding the camera. In my defence, I am still getting over pinkeye and can't wear makeup. Waahhh!

Christmas at the Binghams

We had a wonderful Christmas. We stayed home and enjoyed a very nice family day. We always have a big breakfast and have to clean up before the gifts are attacked. It's my favorite tradition and the kids were really good about waiting. (How mean am I... they even had to make their beds and get ready for the day first). Madi, Brooke, Ben and Connor under ready to open gifts.All the kids watched Daddy open his gift. (They were so good about keeping this Christmas secret). I had been working on scrap booking Brett's missionary pictures for two months. I am so surprised that not even Ben spilled the beans. It was one of the few gifts (in the history of our married life) that I managed to surprise him with AND that he actually liked!

The day ended with our little Connor taking his first step!

We also had our own Christmas pageant. Its so fun to have kids old enough to actually do one now.

Brooke was the angel... Ben kept changing his mind between wanting to be Joseph and a shepherd with me...

Madi was Marry and Connor ended up being Joseph... although he kept climbing onto the "manger" and upsetting "Mary."

Things are BUSY!

This time of year is always busy... especially at our house. (All of our children were winter babies) So we start in November for Ben, Madi and Brooke have birthdays in December, and Connor is the day before our anniversary... in January. What ever do we do for excitement the rest of the year right?!? So here is Brooke with her blackberry and whipped cream cake... She picked that! The morning of her birthday, she grabbed her backpack and was convinced, now that she was five, she got to go to kindergarten when we took Madi to school. That took a little explaining.

This was our first REAL snow fall of the season. We got five or six inches and the kids were in heaven. They were launching themselves off the slide on the deck.

This is the project I did instead of cleaning... It was a joint birthday present for the girls. They call it their reading tent or something like that. As soon as it was hung up they immediately grabbed books and settled down. It has been really FUN. (For Christmas I am making two pink beanbags for their reading corner).

These last two weeks have been... well kind of like... "AHhhhhhh!" I got really sick after we got back from Thanksgiving and then the kids caught it too. As soon as we were better an attack of pinkeye quarantined us again. We are almost over that plague, thank goodness... But a long story short... I was trying to do some fun homeschooling with Madi (she was home most of this week because of the pinkeye). This was our baking soda volcano science project. The kids loved it and making the volcano kept them busy most of the morning.

Christmas gifts or cleaning?

Do you ever have a hard time fitting everything in? Well, even if you don't... I DO! In a regular month I find it challenging to teach my children preschool, help THEM do THEIR chores, clean the house, laundry that never ever ever ever ends, read to them, make a meal or three, do my church calling, maybe fit in a little project here or there... (and what the heck is "me time"?)

So now that the holidays are here the real fun begins. I love to do homemade gifts... and it is really fun now that my kids are older, to teach them how to make gift for their friends and each other. Unfortunately, I don't have a maid or an Alice from the Brady Bunch to help with all the regular stuff. So each day its a, "Hmmm... do I do fun gift making or clean and clean and clean." Tough choice right? Well, the cleaning never stays done anyway, so what the heck.

Hope you are all having a fun filled holiday season!!!