Goodnight, y'all.

Where, oh where, has my [limited]creativity/gumption/love of writing/gone? Even though we had a WONDERFUL Christmas- (my entire family came into town, which was incredible/awesome/fun), I have hated blogging lately! No offense to the 2 of you that actually read this thing. I just haven't wanted to write about *anything* really. But for me, straight pics with no narration just bores me, so I don't want to do that either. I'll have to resort to emailing pics to grandmas :) So instead of writing these little posts every now and then, I've decided to take a blogging hiatus. I'm not checking blogs, I'm not thinking about blogging, and I'm not writing on Good Times for a while. Don't cry for me, Argentina. I'm not depressed. I'm not in a funk. My children are *still* THE most beautiful, talented, smart, sweet little people on the planet. (That's right...I said that. And meant it.) I'm just burnt out. Plain and simple. Love you, friends and family....I'll be back when my heart's in it. And now I'm off to more good times.

where does the time go??

1) Halloween- these were their costumes. The hair dye/black drawn eyebrows on the fair Bingham children isn't too obvious, is it? ;) And yes, it was warm enough for Brooklyn to be without socks. It has since grown very, very, very cold and now we wear socks.


2) Trip to Great Grandma's house- (Dallin calls her "Great-great-great-great Grandma" or "Grandmawiththepond". Doesn't she look great for someone who should be, by Dallin's account, about 150 years old? He thinks I'm nearing 50, and I look great for 50 as well.


3) This is a project I've been working on (not done, obviously). It was a dollhouse my grandpa made for me when I was little and I'm in the process of redoing it.


4) She likes to manhandle cuddle Her. Her doesn't always appreciate it, but tolerates it most days. I was going to photoshop this pic, and crop it--but the way lou's belly is unapologetically hanging out, just couldn't be done away with. Dang, that looks cute on a 3 year old.


5) Dallin's been playing chess- and took 3rd in his bracket at his first tournament last month- I was proud, but his big sister was even more so....


6)Natty's been singing in the choir at school- and she's really got a beautiful voice (doesn't get it from me). She had her first concert last week and can we just say, it was memorable. (And not in a good way...well- not bad now, but...just read.)

Picture this: I'm sitting on the front row in the chapel of some church/arts center place. Natty's up front with the choir. They sing about 4 songs and then break up for some duets. I look up and see Natalie looking very, very confused. (This is not normal- they had practiced, so she knew what to do). Then she raises her hand for her teacher. Looks around. Starts shaking her head. Sits down on the bleachers (everyone else is still standing), starts talking to herself, shaking her head again. Meanwhile, I'm looking at her like, "?????????" and next thing I know, Natalie completely slumps over. Passes. Out. Faints.
So I run up on stage, start to lift her up and carry her off stage down a tiny flight of stairs that leads down to the changing room. As we're walking- she says, "Mommy, I'm going to puke"... "Ok. Hang on, Natty, hang on." She disobeys, and proceeds to puke into my hands, all down the stairs, etc. Not 2 seconds go by and ANOTHER little girl runs to the stairwell and starts puking everywhere. I sat there just praying that it wouldn't trigger a chain reaction among the choir...
Anyway- she was mortified that night, but by the next morning she was excited to have a "Most Embarrassing Moment" for the rest of her life.

I tried to upload a video of her favorite song, but it wasn't working- have to try again later....

And tomorrow....

the post will be especially for Grandma B.....

I'll be writing about how fantastic she is:


How funny he is:


How sweet she is:


And how adorably perfect she is:


So you've been warned: if you can't handle positive, biased, unrestrained bragging about my kids...you may want to skip that one ....... then the NEXT post, I'll tell about all the *naughty* things they've been doing....

ok, ok, ok.....now I'm *really* going to get back in the grove of blogging.....

I've missed it, to be perfectly honest. Life circumstances, simply, have set the blogging-priority somewhere near picking lint out of my keyboard. But now, we're settled into our new groove and it's time to be normal again for once (is that just wishful thinking, or what???)

So- someone on a "popular" blog I read had written an article insinuating that blogs that didn't share the all the trials/challenges/crap in their lives were just fluff, insincere, delusional, etc. I didn't respond, because I was so torqued, I couldn't see straight...and now too much time has passed for me to say my piece. So I'll say it here. *stepping onto my heavy-duty soapbox*

*clearing throat* Ahem....

#1) A blog (if intended solely for the authors/family and friends benefit) can be whatever she/he? wants it to be. It can be one gripe-fest after another, it can be one tirade after another, it can be a trillion pictures of the same kid, it can be a minute by minute recount of each and every day, it can be one picture every five months, it can be all love and roses, it can be deeply personal, or shallow as you please.
#2) Just because it's not all of these or the one you don't care for, doesn't make it any less blog-worthy.
#3) Sometimes (as in MY case), I like to have a blog, where, after a difficult day, I can look at my blog, smile, and think: it doesn't matter if I've felt lower than a snake's belly- look what *good* I have to be thankful for. Period. Doesn't mean I'm in denial...just means I keep the ultra-personal stuff, just that....personal. As in, "if I want to share something with you, don't expect me to do it on the WWW....go on a treasure hunt for my diary, instead..." Ya dig?

Now I feel vindicated. I understand what the gal was getting at. She was just wrong. ;)
And now I can continue blogging in peace.
Amen. :)

wow.

just ran across this while I was procrastinating taking a break from Saturday morning chores and I've watched it twice already. I was amazed because of her impressive talent, obviously; but it also made me realize how ignorant I am of world events- some of her references were lost on me. So now I have to go research and then re-watch so I can have a truer understanding.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5771163/15113200

I'm a jerk.

So, when I blogged about our summer trip to Utah, even though I didn't tell about ALL we did (I'm sure because there was so much to tell, it would have crashed a server somewhere), I thought for sure I'd at least gotten pictures of everyone...Turns out, I *didn't*. Not only that, but I neglected to show one of my favorite people in the world: my niece Brinley! So...this post is dedicated to one of the cutest, sweetest, smartest, funnest girls west of the Mississippi...

Now...in my defense, probably part of the reason I didn't post a pic, was because I only had 4 pictures of her; and part of the reason I only had 4 pictures of her was because I didn't see her much on the trip; and part of the reason I didn't see her much on the trip was because from the second we arrived, THESE TWO were joined at the hip the *entire* time:
Two peas in a pod, I tell you! None of that "we-haven't-seen-each-other-in-over-a-year-let's-be-shy" stuff... just how it should be with cousins...

Brin comes from a whole family of good-lookin' people: Brin- if your mother comes after me for posting a picture of her without permission, I'm holding you responsible ;) And I am sorry, but that little Marissa (Rissy) is a doll--love the posing...work it, girl...


These girls played NON-stop. I'm not sure exactly what they were doing the whole time, but I'm pretty sure some of it included talking about boys...probably about how gross they are and how they don't even think they're cute AT ALL...and about how they're not even *thinking* about having a boyfriend until they're *at least* 21...but I'm just guessing.

I did get to take these three to this fantastic museum in Vernal. I'd seen it a thousand times, but honestly, from the outside it just doesn't look like much, so I'd never gone in. Big mistake. Some of the coolest artifacts and antiques from as early as the 1800s (maybe earlier...can't remember).

They have a scavenger hunt inside where you search for various items throughout the museum...but here was one of my favorite things:

An old apothecary cabinet. You'd think with all of those drugs they would have been able to keep people alive for longer in those days....maybe they were "recreational"?? That said, my lesson learned when touring through a building with fragile, century old displays....leave lou-lou at home with grandma. Need I say more?

My kids are so lucky to have such awesome cousins- and I'm so lucky to have such incredible Neices and nephew (and Ava- that includes you, Little Miss)!

Matt and Nate- I didn't have any pics of you on the post either....but I'm 99.99999999999999999999% sure you couldn't care less...love you anyway :)

Tag---you're it....

I'm a visual gal and had fun taking this personality quiz... So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take the quiz and post your results...