Christmas 2009

We were very blessed because we have a great family. We are lucky that they live so close so we can spend this time of year with them. Thanks for everything family!! On Christmas Eve we spent the day in Tooele with Eric's family. Being that we have the only grand kids as of yet, the day pretty much revolves around them. They got some really nice things from Grandma and Grandpa Bingham and Uncle Kyle!! Thanks!!

Alex got some trucks from G and G Bingham Kelly got a Baby Alive from them. Amy got the Three Musketeer Barbie from them. She was so happy!! Heidi got the other Musketeer Barbie from them. They both were beyond excited.

On Christmas Morning we stayed home and saw what Santa brought. The kids got some great things. Then, we had a big Christmas breakfast. The kids got to play with their toys before we left to spend the rest of the day with the Foster family.

Kelly got her own Barbie from Santa. She was so happy to have her own.
Alex got Thomas the Tank Engine from Santa. I think this will be the first of many more trains in his future.

Heidi got a Barbie Doggie set from Santa. This is a picture of a cute snowman a friend gave her.

Kelly got a cute little kitty in her stocking.

Amy did NOT want her picture taken Christmas morning. Oh well. She got a Furreal Lamb that she has wanted.

Christmas day was spent with the Foster Clan at my parents house. The kids got some great gifts from their cousins. Plus, G and G Foster got them some fun gifts as well.

Alex was not sure of his sisters in wigs. He kept looking over at them.

Heidi and Amy got Hannah Montana wigs and a microphone to sing into. Plus a cool dancing video with a dance mat to follow along. They love the wigs. Well, Amy was still trying to decide. Heidi liked it though!!


I hope that everyone had a great Christmas. We sure did!! Merry Christmas!!!!!

The only Boy

Being the only boy living with three older sisters Alex has picked up some bad habits from them. Namely, he likes to dress up like they do. I think it is so funny and he will grow up to be a very wonderful daddy because of it. You got to love a boy in Dorothy shoes though!!

Very sparkly shoes, he LOVES to wear them. Kelly hates it!

Love the hat and purse combo.

He is still all boy to me! Love ya Alex!!

Two Funnies

First from Amy:
(Disclaimer, I am not her mother LOL) We were driving into our driveway the other night and a truck was parked there I didn't recognize. Amy asked " Whose truck is that?" I answered "Oh, I know who it is, it's Butch's (A neighbor friend helping Eric in the basement). Amy says, "Oh I know who that is Son of a Butch!" I about died!! I said "Where did you here that from?" She says, "A movie." I guess we better check some of her movies. (She said Butch, not the other word)

From Kelly:
I was getting mad at Alex and said, "Alex Bingham!!" Then Kelly said, "Oh oh Alex, you being a Bingham" I guess that is now a bad word. HAHAHA

I needed to remember these.

Love those kids!

Amy's Six Years Old!!!

My little girl is now six years old as of December 8th. All I can say is that she is super excited about it too!! She says that she gets to use two hands to say how old she is. We had a party for her on Saturday. Every other year, which is basically even years, they get to have a friend party. So, Amy was able to invite friends over this year. We had the family over first for lunch, then her friends came at 1:30. Being Christmas and all, she wanted to make gingerbread houses. So, I made some houses out of graham crackers and the kids decorated them. They had fun!! I love to watch kids create. They are so amazing at how they look at things and want to make things. Amy got lots of Barbies and art supplies. Her two favorite things in the whole world. She also get to have her ears pierced now that she is six, but is too scared to do it. So we are waiting to see if she changes her mind. She is a bit over dramatic about things, and takes her awhile to get used to it. Once she does, she is there 100 percent. I am just waiting for her to change her mind. She really wants to wear earrings, so I know her fashion diva will prevail!! We love you so much Amy!! I am truly grateful that she is a part of our family. Love my cute little redhead!!

I just thought this was a really cute picture of Alex. He LOVED having all the kids there.

Kelly making her gingerbread house. She had lots of fun with the big kids.

All the kids being creative.

Amy wanted cupcakes instead of a cake. Here is hers with a big "6" on it!!

The finished houses. So cute!!

One of my favorite shots of Amy. She got a Ken doll and was so excited about it. Can you see it on her face??

Amy now, my cute six year old!

Amy then, about 3 months old. How times flies!!

Happy Birthday my Amy!!!

Kelly's 2nd cut

Here are the after pictures of Kelly's hair cut, the save my hair, cut. She likes it!!

She looks sassy!!

Kelly's New Haircut

We have a beautician in the family. Kelly decided to cut her hair. I guess she wanted a new look. Well, she got a new look for sure. It took me awhile to realize that she had actually cut her hair. She only cut underneath her top layer, so it still looked like she had long hair. I actually did not notice it until she sat on my lap. Nice!! I asked her where she did the deed and she told me, daddy's office. Well, that door had been closed all day, I thought. This smart girl covered her tracks and closed the door. So I went to investigate and found CLUMPS of her hair on the floor. She did a number on it. Luckily, it was savable because she only cut underneath that first layer, so we could hide a few holes, LOL!! My wonderful friend offered to cut her hair, so I took her up on the offer and she did a great job. Thanks so much LISA!! I don't have pictures of that yet, but will post later, I promise. Anyway, during dinner tonight, I found out the real reason she cut her hair. Guess what, it was because of AMY!! Yep, my darling kindergartner decided to just barely trim her bangs, which I did not notice either, until she told me, yeah, great going Mom. Anyway, Kelly saw her do this in the bathroom and decided that looked fun too, so why shouldn't I do it. Man, what the little ones learn from example. Anyway, here are the pictures I was pressured into posting on my blog (thanks Sharon, I needed the nudge :)) You can see the "holes" that go up to her scalp. NICE!! Most of the damage was done in the back, she did cut her bangs as well, but not too much, so you can't really tell. Well, all I can do at this point is laugh and tell her if she does it again, her head gets shaved, same for Amy as well. Gotta love those little girls!!

What a cutie!!

Musketeer

For Kelly's birthday this year, my sister Merideth bought her the new Barbie movie that had just come out. Kelly has just recently started to play with Barbie's and dress up. So, when she started to watch this movie, The Three Musketeers, with her sisters, Heidi and Amy started to act out the scenes. Well, Kelly joined right in with them. They have sword practice, they do somersaults and cartwheels. They even dress up like Musketeers. Kelly has now started to watch the movie without her sisters and act out the scenes by herself. I had to take pictures of her latest sword practice. Don't you just love her outfit with high heeled shoes and sword? My absolute favorite shot is the second picture. Check out the look on her face. Now that is a Musketeer!! All for one and one for all!!!

Halloween

Well, it's come and gone and I have done no blogging for my favorite month. Catch up time. LOVE October. It gets a little cooler, the leaves change colors and HALLOWEEN. Love it!! We love to celebrate Halloween here. What is better then getting to dress up, put on make up, and get candy for free???? The kids really get into it and I love it. Heidi even wanted to be scary this year, yep, she is my girl! She was a SCARY vampire this year, blood, fangs and all. Amy was Pipi Longstocking. She has never seen the movie or read the book, but I showed her the movie when I saw it at the store once and she was hooked. A fun girl with red hair??? That is so Amy!! Kelly has been obsessed with Wizard of Oz, as I mentioned in her birthday post, so she was Dorothy for Halloween. What was fun this year is that Kelly really understood what Halloween was all about, and she was all for it. The morning of Halloween, she wanted to wear her Dorothy costume and go trick or treating that moment!! I kept explaining to her when we would go, but all she would ask is "WHY??". Yep, she is still asking that, ugh! Alex was tin man this year thanks for Aunt Lena for finding his costume. He was super cute, I must say, and actually kept his hat on for the whole night. What I love about Alex going trick or treating this year is that he was so cute, that the neighbors gave him extra candy, and he took extra candy too and no one complained. So, his loot was double the size of the girls. Yeah, more candy for me to eat!! (and yes, I have been eating it)

Kelly's Three!

I am a week late posting this, but better late then never. Kelly turned 3 last Sunday, and she knows it. What a cutie we have. We have lots of cuties here, but at three, they are really getting fun and cute. She is a real talker now. She holds her own with her sisters, let me tell you!! She loves playing with babies and Barbies. I think she loves it because that is all her older sisters play, and she is now old enough to play with them too. So that is awesome for me!! Kelly is just an awesome kid. She loves to help me with Alex and Robbie, being their second moms. She also protects Robbie from her mean little brother Alex. She tell Alex, "be nice to Robbie, he your cousin!!" So cute. Kelly has also mastered the tricycle. She "rides" with her sisters now outside and thinks she is so big. Here are a few fun pictures of Kelly's birthday party from last week. She had so much fun opening presents, getting her own cake and have lots of attention. I made a yellow brick road cake for her because she is in LOVE with Wizard of Oz and Dorothy. Hence, her costume for Halloween my mom is making her. One of her birthday presents. Plus, she got a new Ariel baby from Grandma and Grandpa Bingham, which she carries everywhere now. Kenny and Lena and the boys got her a Toto basket and doll for her Halloween costume as well, and she loves that too!! Sometimes Ariel and Toto are in the basket together, they are close friends now. Aunt Merideth got her a new Barbie movie which we have watch a zillion times now. And Uncle Kyle got her a fun and colorful monkey that she sleeps with. All in all, it was a great day!! Love you little girl.

Kelly and Toto The feast of pork chops and baked potatoes. Her Dorothy costume. The cake, can you tell it's the yellow brick road?

Kelly is showing you how old she is.

Funerals

I always find it interesting that whenever I attend a funeral, I came away with a strong testimony of the gospel and feel joy. Is that weird?? I really don't think so. I find funerals comforting in so many ways. First, I know that our Savior lives and loves us, because I know this, I also know where that persons spirit is and that they are surrounded by love. They are with our Savior, and all is well. Second, I know that we have a true purpose on this earth. We are here for a reason. I find that very comforting. It is nice to know that what I am doing, means something. Lastly, I have a true love for family. I want to be able to be with my family again. I know that we will have the opportunity again in the next life. I am sealed to my wonderful husband and children and will have that relationship in the next life. I know this to be true.

I am always reminded of this at funerals more then any place. My testimony was renewed of this yesterday. My wonderful sister in law's mother, Electra Ess, passed away after a lifetime of battling various sickness in her life. Cancer and polio were the biggest enemies. I meet Lena's mother only twice since Lena married Kenny. Both times I was really amazed to look at a women who was happy and content while sitting there in pain. I also knew her through others, mainly Lena and my nephews Kendrick and Johnny. When Kenny married Lena after his divorce, Lena stepped into a very hard situation that was there long before she come around. My two wonderful nephews were really struggling with lots of emotional problems that stemmed from their parents unfortunate divorce. Kenny was also lost and struggling as well. Lena amazed me. She instantly loved those two boys as her own. And that is what they needed. She has made such a huge difference in their lives and in my brothers, more then I think she realized. We as a family were so grateful for her and her unconditional love for these lost boys.

I bring this up because Lena is that way because of her mother. It made more sense to me after hearing more about her at her funeral. She is a strong women, that raised a strong women. She also loved my two nephews as her own, as soon as she met them. It is also what Kendrick and Johnny needed. She was and is their grandma Ess. She will always be that too, even in the next life. Yesterday I realized this when Kendrick, or Rick as it says on the program, gave a wonderful opening prayer and said how grateful he was that Grandma Ess lived long enough for him to meet her. How profound to hear that from a ten year old. I too am grateful for strong women in my life and others that are true examples of the gospel. They live their lives because they believe in our Savior and his plan for us. I am so grateful for this reminder, because I needed that spiritual boost right now. I needed to be reminded of why we are here, and I need to start acting accordingly.

Our newest additions

This last Saturday, Heidi and Amy's school had their carnival. We went and supported it and came back with 3 new pets. How hard are goldfish?? Well, we have already lost one. Thank heavens they are cheap to replace. I love this pictures because you can't see Kelly expect through the bag!! That cute little tummy! The fun part about the fish is that Alex LOVES them. As soon as he wakes up, he says, fsssshh, well something like that LOL!! Here is Brighter (Heidi's), Bisor (kelly's name), and Goldie (Amy's now dead one).

New Goal

At the beginning of the summer I was getting fed up with my lack of energy, fitness level and over all state of my body!! I know from past experiences, and from my education, that I needed to get going. When I was younger I would exercise all the time. Not in a conventional way though. I played sports, lots of sports, and I played them quite a few times during the week. Because of this, I never really stuck to running everyday, joining a gym or even videos at home. I did pretty good at staying fit and trim, and it was nice. I liked that way of exercising. It was fun. Well, I got married, had 4 kids and got old. UGH!! I now have to reshape my way of thinking about exercise. I am not able to go out and play volleyball and basketball like I used to. First of all, I always played with boys. Now that I am married, it is more of a challenge. It feels weird. Plus, boys are weird about that too. So, it's just weird. Second, I don't know that many people that play on a weekly basis right now. Lastly, I am so out of shape, I wouldn't want to make a joke of myself as I pant down the court. I know how important it is, heavens, I studied it for 4 years. I feel that I do okay eating wise, okay, I do need to improve there somewhat, but not too much. I just am LAZY.

Well, I was talking with a good friend of mine (Kristin) that had just finished a half marathon this last spring, and I thought, heck I could do that. It will kick my tail, but I can do that. This way I have a goal. I need goals to get things done. The only problem with me and goals, I procrastinate. Yep, I am a GREAT procrastinator. I still keep the goal in mind, but it just takes me a while to get there, HAHAHA!! Well, my goal is to run a half marathon sometime next spring, for my mom. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer about 5 years ago. It was a very upsetting time for me and my family. I don't think to many people knew about it, it was something that we just dealt with and my mother, thank heavens got better with surgery and radiation. They caught it in time to do something about it, and it was a fluke they caught it. Divine intervention was the only reason for this, I know that to but true. But, breast cancer is something that runs in our family. It is something that I have to think about for my own history and my daughters. So what better goal then to run for a good cause. So, the great procrastinator has finally taken her first steps towards her goal, ummm, just 4 months later then I wanted to, and ran this morning. It felt good, and it was not as hard as I thought it would be. The true test is to keep going and going and going. Thus this blog entry. I need to be checked up on, for my own laziness. I need to do this, and I need to get it finished. I have 9 months to do it. I will blog about my progress so that I can journal my ups downs and hopefully the accomplishment. I have everything in place, the only thing stopping it is me.

Only one more to go!!!

I feel like I have not posted too much lately about this beautiful little girl. She is truly an amazing kid, and I have not given her props for a huge accomplishment that she has performed lately. SHE IS NOW POTTY TRAINED!!! I only have one child left that is in diapers. It feels awesome, and boy, has it saved us some cash, yippee!! She was so good at it too. When we went school clothes shopping for the big girls, she came with us and wanted to buy something too. So, Eric's mom said that she would buy her big girl undies if she would use them. Oh, YES, she said. I will!! She picked out her favorite person of all time, Elmo, for her undies. We started her the day that school started, big steps for everyone that day, and she did so well. Of course there has been some accidents, but not really huge ones. She is even staying dry through the night too, she has had only two accidents at night. She is truly getting so big.

She is so much fun too. Right now she is my little shadow when her sisters are at school and I am actually enjoying it. She has a lot to tell me, she helps me out around the house when she wants too :), she loves, loves her little brother. The nice thing is, Alex loves her too. She tells me all the time that he is her baby, not mommy's. So sweet. I have to celebrate Kelly too, she is pretty awesome.

Sometimes these two are the worst of enemies, then the best of friends. But, they do love each other.

She is just a sweetheart when she wants to be.

She has the best smile. I just can never seem to get it on camera. This one is the closest.

Kindergartner

It has finally arrived!!! Amy went to Kindergarten today. It is so hard to wait a whole week for it to start since her big sister has been to school all last week. We had a count down going and the day finally arrived. Amy woke up this morning asking when it would be time to leave for school, this continued almost every 10 minutes until it was time to get ready. I was so happy that she was so excited about going to school. The first days of preschool did not go smoothly for my sensitive little girl. There were big huge tears and screams when it was time for me to leave. Those are hard moments for moms, and I was really hoping that kindergarten did not start off this way. THANK HEAVENS IT DID NOT!! We really prepped Amy for this day starting a few weeks ago when I started to notice signs of her anxiety. We talked about what would happen, my mom talked to her about what would happen, and her sister told her all the cool things that you can do at school. The prep work paid off. No tears and lots of smiles. She even rode the bus for the first time today without a hitch. That was my anxiety. I was really nervous that she would miss the bus, or not even get on because she was too scared. Heidi met Amy at her classroom and took her right to the bus and she loved it. Yeah for big sister Heidi being there to help out.

We are so proud of Amy. She is so smart, sweet, fun, loves to laugh and giggle. Her art work is amazing. I do think we have an artistic child on our hands!! She loves colors. Hence her backpack. When she saw it at the store, I knew that was the backpack for her!! One funny thing I noticed when I dropped Amy off at school, she is one tall little girl. There was a girl there that was also being dropped off at the same time as Amy, and Amy had, no joke, at least 6 inches on the kid!! It was really funny to see. On one hand it is hard in some ways to see your kids grow up so quickly, but on the other hand, YIPPEE!!! We love you so much Amy. Congrats on starting school. You will be amazing.

My big kindergartener!!
Her amazing and colorful backpack. Perfect for Amy.

Beautiful!

Second Grader

We have a second grader!! Hard to believe this little girl is becoming so big!! She was really excited to start at a new school this year. She had already made new friends in the neighborhood and was looking forward to playing with them at school. She also said that she knew that she would do well at school because she received a fathers blessing from her Dad, and the blessing said so, so she was not scared at all. She has a great 2nd grade teacher that she loves. We are so proud of Heidi and all that she wants to do. She loves to read and learn new things. She is really starting to like math too!! I am always so impressed with how easy it is for her to make new friends. She has such a fun personality and loves to run, laugh and help others. I love this little (not!) girls so much. I couldn't be prouder of her.

The second grader ready to take on the new year.

All new clothes that she insisted on wear, of course.

Heidi is taking the bus this year to school. It is great because we walk out our back door and walk half a block to the bus stop. I love it!! This is Heidi, Amy and I walking to the bus stop for the first time. Eric took this picture from out deck. You can see the kids at the corner for the bus stop.