Jump start morning

Before I tell you of our holiday weekend, I figured I would tell of what happened last Friday morning. So, Geoff was leaving for work kind of early and the kids were not out yet. Sometimes that means that they are just playing still and sometimes they are still asleep (more likely the first). So, he comes in to wake me to tell me that he is leaving and that the kids are still in their rooms. I hear him quietly leave and I start to drift off to sleep again when I hear some ear piercing screaming coming from Kenton. I quickly jump out of bed and as I am heading for his room I hear him calling for daddy. Kinsley comes out as well and tells me he doesn't want me (duh!) he wants daddy. I tell her that is too bad since he is gone. The more I listen the more I hear, "DADDDYYYY!!! NOOOOO DADDDDYYYY!!!" I opened the door, and even though his voice was not muffled at all, I couldn't see him. It took me a minute to realize that he was sitting on top of his bookshelves and behind the blinds looking out of the window. He must have been sitting like that when Geoff left and seen him leave. He was just so heartbroken that daddy would leave without saying goodbye. So we called daddy and chastised him for leaving like that :). I still smile when I think about this. Kinsley and Kenton absolutely treasure their daddy and while they are ok when he leaves in the morning, it is obvious that he better say goodbye when he does it!

It's Summer!

So, here is a page that I created from a template I got off Shabby Princess Blog. They are having a template challenge and this is my end result.  I had a fun time making this page so I thought I would share it, plus it shows off how cute my kids are ;).

Preschool Graduation

Kinsley has officially graduated from preschool (this time for real) which means she starts Kindergarten in August. That is so weird! I will have a child in public school!!! I am not that old, or at least I don't feel that old. I didn't even graduate from High School 10 years ago. Where on earth did the time go?! Kinsley is having mixed emotions about the whole thing. At times she is so excited to go to Kindergarten because it means she gets a backpack. Other times she wants to be back in preschool and doesn't want to go to Kindergarten. She will love it when the time comes, but until then I have to figure out what I am going to do with these two kids all summer while getting bigger and bigger........you get the picture. We are definitely going to miss the preschool program and Mrs Zimmet who ran it. Hopefully I can get Kenton in there when he is 3.

first swimming of the year

Geoff's brother Alan and his wife Cami were in town for the Iron Girl that Cami participated in. They were staying at the Hyatt in town and invited the kids to come swimming before they drove home. They were kind enough to take them since I don't have a suit yet (I need a maternity one, blah). The kids had a blast swimming with those two and I got some good pictures of them swimming...and of their blue lips since it was still too cold for swimming, but the kids were determined to go. Kinsley kept asking when they were going to go swimming with uncle Alan and aunt Cami and then when we finally went, she asked me on the way home why I made her go swimming. Typical. What a strange child I have. They had fun anyways and it was great to be with Cami and Alan for a bit!

No ring

So, with Kinsley and Kenton's pregnancies I was allergic to metal - any metal - so I had to stop wearing my wedding ring pretty much from the beginning. I am 24 weeks now and have had no problem with my ring. I have also not swollen like I did before, at least not yet. I took off my ring this morning though because it is getting tighter and I don't want Geoff to have to cut it off with tin snips again ( that is a long story that I will NOT be telling here) so I took it off before it got too tight and I couldn't get it off. I am so sad about this because I absolutely love wearing my wedding ring. I just had to share this because I am depressed :(

We are alive......well, sort of

So, I can't remember the last time I posted (I forgot to look before I went to post) but I know it has been quite a while. Since I am the only one who posts on here it is up to me, but I have had a stupid bad sinus cold the last couple of weeks. In fact we all had it but everyone else's lasted less than a week. Mine I think is returning :( which is making me mad and frustrated. And I am pretty sure I had a small bought of a flu virus in there to mix things up a bit. Oh yeah, I am pregnant so yeah that always helps. Then you add in kids, callings, family stuff, more callings, work.....you get the picture. I am lucky to be alive right now. But really, we are ok, just had a rough bit with illness.

So, on a positive note, last night Geoff had an elders quorum party at our hourse (yipee, something else to add to the list of things to do - Geoff did quite a bit though) and while I was getting the house ready I was vacuuming down the hall towards Kenton's room and looked up to see my two kids looking like something out of a book I grew up reading. Think of the beginning of the Cat and the Hat with the two kids sitting on chairs staring listlessly out the window waiting for their mom to return. This was the image I got. Kenton had woke up a little earlier and Kinsley went in to play with him with his gate still up in the door way - which makes it easier for me to clean that way. Well, they were both sitting there - Kenton on one of the riding toys and Kinsley on a wagon of blocks - staring listlessly at me, waiting for me to finish. I got such a good laugh out of it. When I finished vacuuming, I went to get the camera. I tried to capture the moment the way I saw it, but Kinsley wouldn't stop pretending to yawn and Kenton wouldn't sit down. It was a great moment anyways. Just thought I would share :)
ps. I did do Kinsley's hair that morning, but somehow she always manages to look like this by lunch time. Whatever.

El Nino is coming!

Ok, so I am 18 weeks pregnant. Can you guess what that means?! That's right! We know the sex of the baby! (and no, there is no stinkin storm coming! I wish though, we could use some rain and much cooler weather). So, we are having.........
















......drumroll please..............


















.....and some more drums;)...............

















TA DA!




Can you tell? Of course the words on the actual picture give it away, but even I could tell by looking on the screen. With the other two, I just took the doctors word for it because I just really couldn't tell. This time she asked what we thought and there was no doubt: it was clear as day! We would ask that you send your condolensces to Kinsley though because she had her heart set on a girl. Her and Kenton came with us and when we found out it was a boy she got really upset and started to cry. The tech felt so bad, but hey it's daddy's fault anyways. He was definitely excited because now the boys with outnumber the girls (amongst other reasons). Kenton.....well, he was just excited to be out of the house. He doesn't quite understand. He is just figuring out the whole different sex thing with himself and his family, let alone understanding how his life is going to change very soon. Me, I just want a brunette child for once. I will be very happy if he is blond because the other two are so cute, but can't I get something out of this deal? I mean come on! I go through all the aches and pains and crap. Whatever, luckily they always turn out cute. Everything else was great. We counted all 10 toes and 10 fingers. We checked out his brain, his organs, his heart, his let bones, his spine, and everything else in between. She even got a good look at his nose and lips which she said were perfect so there is no cleft pallette. I never knew you could see that before. So, we are excited (and depressed on Kinsley's end) to announce #3 will be another monster, I mean boy!

Digital Scrapbooking

Ok, so I will be posting more interesting stuff later, but Vanessa asked about the digital scrapbooking. I use Photoshop CS3 (but you can use any CS program or Elements as well) as my program and I go to designerdigitals.com and shabbyprincess.com. Everything that you saw on that Easter page I got as freebies, including the layout template. Both sights have freebies, as well as kits and stuff you can purchase. About 95% of what I do have I got for free. Designer Digitals sends out a weekly newsletter with 3 new freebies. Shabby Princess has several kits that is out there for free download. This is how I do my backgrounds for the blog. If you ever want any help or assistance with learning digital scrapbooking, email me and I would love to help! If you have any other questions let me know. It really isn't as hard as it looks and it makes for a clean job as well (you should see my paper scrapbooking desk - it has extended out to the ping pong table and other areas).

Easter Egg Hunt

So, I am going to be doing digital scrapbooking for all of this years pictures. I told Geoff I would do this to see if it was cheaper than the paper route. I have dabbled a bit in the digital part, but haven't yet gone full time with it. I haven't even finished the past couple of years of pictures with paper scrapbooking and I told him I would finish the others off before I started on this years.

Well, right now my desk is a complete mess and I have had no energy to actually get to it to clean it off so I can scrapbook so this afternoon I decided to try one of the templates I have downloaded for free and put all of the easter egg hunting pictures on it. It turned out all right, but it gets the job done. I really do enjoy the digital world of scrapbooking and I am seeing a major plus to it: once I am done with a page I can just download it here so the 2 people who look here can enjoy them as well as my family.

So, this really was supposed to be a short post, but I had to explain what I was doing. If you didn't read this I won't be offended. If you did....well, I am sorry for wasting your time. Have a nice day and enjoy our easter pictures!

new changes

Umm, ok so a change to the blog was necessary and now that I have done it, I really don't like it. Geoff is going to laugh at me because he thinks I spend more time on the layouts than on actually posting (at times he is right though). Somehow my measurements are off, but whatever. It will have to do for now until I can fix it.

So, the other change in our lives most of you probably already know (all 3 of you who glance at our blog every once in a while). In september we will be adding another Bingham to the bunch. yipee. If I don't sound so excited it's because it hasn't been that great of a beginning. I have been sicker and sooooo tired that I can barely get one thing done during the day and then I end up out of commission. I am almost 17 weeks and am so sick and tired of feeling this way. Oh well, without pain there is no pleasure, or something like that.

Ok, so I will post again soon (hopefully) with Easter stuff, and other things that have been happening in our lives.

Catch up - again (boy I feel sheepish)

So, the holidays hit really hard and I had no time for anything, especially this blog. I promise, I will be changing the background on this soon so I am not looking at fall stuff anymore. So, here is everything that has happened since Kinsley's birthday.

In November we went to Disneyland with our friends and neighbors the Heatons. We had an absolute blast!! This was part of our Christmas to our family and it was a much needed break from life and a chance to have some fun as a family. Kinsley wasn't too thrilled when we told her about the rides and stuff, but when we told her that she would be meeting the princesses, her eyes became like saucers and she got soooo excited. She met as many as she could and even met some of the others like Mickey Mouse, Pluto, and Woody and Jessie. She actually liked most of the rides like Matterhorn and Space Mountain, but absolutely hated Splash Mountain. When we got to the bottom of that drop, Kristie and I (who were sitting behind her) asked what she thought and she started bawling. She really didn't like that experience so to get her on any other ride, we couldn't include the word "mountain" in the name or she wouldn't get on. Kenton loved all the sights, animals, rides, etc. The first ride we went on was Pirate's of the Carribean (my absolute fav!) just to see how the kids would fare with this. Geoff used his phone to see Kenton's facial expression when we first went in the dark tunnel before it dropped. His eyes were wide, and his hands were in fists and stuck to the front of his mouth. But he loved it! He kept getting excited at all the animals and moving people. He really loved it! Kinsley loved it too. She said that was her favorite ride. In the two days we were there, we went on that one 3 times. All in all it was a great vacation and one we hope to repeat again sooner than later.

Thanksgiving was next and we were pleased to have Amy and David come to join us at our house. Amy and I decided we wanted to make Thanksgiving dinner from scratch and have a fun time together with the experience. We made EVERYTHING from scratch, with the exception of the jello. Who knows how to make jello other than from a box? We even made our 3 pies from scratch - lemon meringue, apple, and chocolate mousse. Everything turned out perfect! It was fun spending time with them and just relaxing. They enjoyed getting away from school for a while and we enjoyed having guests! Sadly enough the only pictures we took were of us individually right before we ate pie :( oh well, but the memories are there.

The ward had its usual breakfast and meet santa event at the church. To be honest, it is sometimes more of a hassle because of the extra Saturday during a crazy month that we have to take time out of, but it is still worth while for the kids. This year Kinsley looked forward to meeting him and sat on his lap and told him everything she wanted. Kenton wanted nothing to do with him and had an absolute fit when we tried to put him on his lap. We got a picture with all of us in it so one of us could hold Kenton so we had a picture of him with Santa.

So, right before Christmas one of my cousins on my dad's side got married in Salt Lake the weekend before Christmas. Since my parents were coming out for this, they didn't want to just come for the wedding and turn right around again and go home so they came down to our house for Christmas with Zach and Jeremy in tow as well. Brittany and Kyle weren't going to be able to come down, but last minute were able to. We were so happy to have everyone there for Christmas. It was a very stressful holiday season, but it was fun with family and everything going on. We had fun putting up our "bush" of a tree and the day after Christmas were able to get the fake tree that we wanted for $40! Geoff also went hunting in our attic to see what was there. He found someones whole collection of Christmas decorations left in our attic. We now have a huge selection of lights and a train with tracks that goes around in a circle under our tree! Most of the stuff was more something you would find older people with (Geoff said the ornaments reminded him of what he grew up with), but there were a few good finds.


Since Christmas it has been just keeping up with our callings and just life in general. I think I am partially still in recoup mode from November and December when I couldn't stop. Now I can't seem to get going at all, but this too shall pass. I will include videos that we have later on and more pictures from Disneyland!

Blah!!

It is official! I have finally found Kenton playing in the toilet! Now don't get me wrong, this was not something I was looking forward to, but something I was expecting to happen in the future. I found him with his snack cup full of fruit loops leaning over the open-lid toilet. He had dunked the snack cup in the toilet water and some of the fruit loops had escaped into the bowl. He was proceeding to put them in his mouth. (I am getting disgusted as I write this). He was pretty mad when I took the cup away from him and wouldn't give it back. I locked the bathroom door which makes for a sticky situation for when Kinsley decides that she needs to go to the bathroom. I just thought I would share one of the pitfalls of parenthood and especially with boys! Blah!!

Silly Kids

Kenton was being silly at the dinner table. I just thought it was funny and cute!

ummm....

Ok, so the video came up, but for me it is having really bad delays. I am still new at the whole posting video thing. I would really appreciate some suggestions and help in this. Please tell me what I am doing wrong and what I can do right!

Thanks!

Bubble popping

I will be so excited if this works!!

So I have tried before to put on videos and had no success. I had a friend talking about putting it on youtube and then posting it so I decided to try it and here we are.

So, Grandma and Grandpa Connell had mailed out Kinsley's birthday present and inside was also packing bubbles. I don't know of one kid who doesn't like to pop these. We put them on the ground and let them at it. Kenton didn't like it as much because he wasn't getting the hang of it and couldn't really get it to pop. I just thought it was cute!

Kinsley turns 5!

Here is pictures from Kinsley's mermaid and pirate birthday party. Like the pinata? I made it myself! I would never recommend doing that because it took way too much time! Not worth the effort or savings. All the kids got little mermaid or pirate costumes. It was so cute! They got their little treasure bags and then went on a treasure hunt to find the treasure box (pinata) and then we had cupcakes and opened presents. The cupcakes were lovingly made by my friend Anne (thank you so much Anne!! They were super good and adorable!). I got to help frost them, but she did most of the hard labor. It went pretty well, it was just exhausting to plan and execute!

October and beyond

So, this is being written at this time because of my sister Amy. She got bored in one of her classes and proceeded to email me informing me I was falling behind on our blog. Well, life has been beyond crazy and I have literally had no time to do something so "time consuming" as posting on the blog. And I figured I didn't want to do it until I could change the background since it is past halloween now. So, now the background is changed, onto october and beginning of november happenings.

So we decided to have a little family excursion and we went to a pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. We really had a blast spending time together as a family.


The last day of preschool before halloween the kids got to go door to door at the high school and go trick or treating. The teacher of the preschool class had arranged with the teachers ahead of time and given them all candy to hand out. Kids both old and young loved it! Kinsley loved it because she got to dress in her costume more than once!

The night before halloween we carved our 2 large pumpkins that we got at the pumpkin patch. The Heatons joined us with their pumpkins as well. It was a night of frights and slime. They turned out rather cute though in the end!

For halloween Kinsley was Ariel and Kenton was a doctor. Kinsley is quite the little poser! You should see the other pictures that I took of her! It was like she was pretending to be on America's Next Top Model, and she has never even seen it! Kenton was upset for whatever reason when I was trying to take pictures so daddy had to hold him to get a decent shot. Even then, it was short lived and not that good of a picture.



So the following day after halloween is Kinsley's birthday. Even though we were having her birthday party the next Saturday we still had her open her gifts from us and grandma and grandpa Connell. We still celebrated that day and made it special. We pretty much didn't see her most of the morning though because she was gone in her room with all of her new toys, having fun! I can't believe she is now 5! Next fall she will be in Kindergarten. That is crazy to think about.

My neighbor and friend Kristi is the JV coach for volleyball at the High School and she asked me to come take pictures for her of JV and Varsity. I have gone to 3 games so far. JV has won and they are done. Varsity is going on to State this weekend so I will be there to take those pictures and hope to get some really good pictures. Everyone cross your fingers for me. I am still pretty ameteur and learning when it comes to sports pictures. I have definitely improved though in the last few weeks.

So far this is our life along with callings and getting ready for Christmas. Oh yeah, we are going to Disneyland next week!!!!! We are beyond excited and thrilled to have something exciting coming up in life and to have a break from the crazies of life! I will include pix of Kinsley's birthday party soon!

A Bloody Mess

Ok, so don't read the title wrong and think I am swearing the British way or anything, there really was blood involved. So, if any of you know me well enough I have suffered with bloody noses all my life. When I was little I had them pretty much every day, and especially during the summer. I freaked out Geoff's family one time because we had just returned from Puerto Rico (humid climate) to St. George (hot, dry climate) and I had 5 bloody noses in a matter of 24 hours (not at all surprising to me since that was my life) but it left them wondering if there was something wrong with me. Anyways, I don't have them that often now, but every once in a while they will come.

So, to get on with my story. I am checking my email on the computer when Kinsley comes up to me hysterical and sobbing something about blood. Well, she had been putting away the silverware and while I always take out the knives myself and put them away, I have missed some before so I thought there was a knife involved and am quickly parusing her body with my eyes to find the source of the so-called blood. I then understand her and she is sobbing about her nose has blood coming out of it and it is all red. Quickly relieved I take her to the kitchen, hand her a kleenex, turn on the tv to calm her down, and tell her that all is fine and that she is not hurt. I left the kitchen chuckling because she really was freaking out about nothing. I just thought it was funny and thought I would share it.

Breath of fresh air

So I have decided that the day to day bit of life was getting too monotonous so I decided to add some Halloween decorations to spruce life up a bit and give the kids something different to look at and hopefully pick everyone's spirits up for the holiday spirit. I had a small budget to work with, but with some creativity and some stuff around the house, I added some festive stuff. I also got some ideas off the internet and others blogs. I think my favorite would have to be my Happy Halloween wood board that I made this morning. I don't know how well the picture shows it off, but I absolutely love it! It is so rustic and halloweeny, while staying chic. I also glitterfied (is that a technical term?) some small pumpkins, but you can't really tell by looking at the pictures. Anyways, I wanted to show it off since I am so proud of my cheap, but adorable creations. Geoff puts it as tooting my own horn, but every once in a while we have to be proud of ourselves, right?

Change partII

Umm, yeah. Sorry I forgot to say our callings I guess. So Geoff is the Elders Quorum President and I am the 1st counselor in Young Womens. Since Geoff was going to be president we would have had to be at the same meetings, so I got released as well. I am having mixed feelings about it. I already miss Primary and loved being apart of it, but am excited about being in Young Womens. I know it was time for a change so I am ok with it, but it is still sad to leave.

So, I have learned that Kinsley really doesn't handle change well at all. She started preschool today and was so excited when she woke up! She changed clothes 3 times and chatted animatedly all morning.........until we got there. Then she suddenly burst into tears when we got in the room. She said she didn't know the teachers and didn't think she would like them. The only one that was still there is the actual teacher of the high school class, Miss Zimmet, and she came up and gave Kinsley a big hug. She was ok after that, but when I went to pick her up she said she didn't have fun and didn't want to go back. I think she did have fun, but the change of teachers she was not prepared for. She will have fun, it just might take a while before she is used to everyone.

Kenton and I went shopping while she was at preschool. He definitely didn't like to be the only one with me. He kept whining and was bored beyond belief. He usually has Kinsley to pick on (Yes, he does the picking on her most of the time) and she was not there. I guess change is good, but hard for all. I think Geoff is the only one handling the change the best.