Lemonade Stand #1

Today was a good day for our first Lemonade stand for Project Bingham. It was 86 degrees here in Lafayette. Everyone wants lemonade when it's hot outside. The kids are great little marketers. They stand out on the corner of the street and hold up their lemonade sign and yell out to each and every car that goes by. How can you resist a cute kid calling out to you working hard in the hot sun. Our lemonade stand was right on the bike trail at a 4 way stop with a little parking lot so it was a perfect place. We sold one jar of lemonade and made $63. Good job kids.

We took our money jar home and learned about counting money. We operated all the quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies and then grouped them by dollars. The kids are learning how to work, count and manage money and achieve their goals and work towards helping the people in the Philippines. Our summer is off to a good start.

Camp Crew and Hot Wheels

This weekend we had our first Project Bingham "fun" raising project and it was pretty exciting for the kids. Crew turned 5 and hosted a Camp Crew birthday party with his friends. Instead of birthday gifts Crew asked his friends to donate new or used hot wheels towards our service project in the Philippines. The boys will be passing out all the hot wheels they collect over the next several month to the children in the Philippines who don't have toys. They are SO excited.

Here are some pictures from Camp Crew

The kids and I did several little hikes collecting pinecones for decorations for the party. It was a win win for all. Keeps them busy and excited for the party.

Rick pruned the trees so I saved some of the bigger branches and cut them into thin slices so the kids could make camp necklaces. They drew camping pictures and their names on it. They then added suede fringes and beads to the necklaces.

Our favorite lemonade stand that we made from our old fence when we first moved into the house. It has come in pretty useful.

Our favorite babysitter Andrew was there to help the kids stamp leather bracelets with their names on it.

Here Andrew helps the kids make their own trail mix. We were very thankful to have Andrew's help with the activities. He was great with the kids.

My dad manned the fire pit for us and made sure no one and nothing caught fire while we had 25 little kids running around the yard. He helped them safely roast marshmallows as they wanted.

We had a snipe hunt, because that is what you do when you go camping right? I hide about 50-60 Camp Crew snipe cards with a little picture of a snipe on it. They were hanging from trees and bushes all through out the yard. The kids that found the most got prizes. This was a huge hit, they liked it much more then I thought they would. 

Here are some of the kids coloring their wood necklaces.

The birthday cake was an "over the hill" birthday cake from Costco. We just had them write Camp Crew site 5 on it instead.

Our big 5 year old blowing out the candles.

This is my favorite picture of Sutton for the night. She was so into all the stuff. She has her "coon" hat on, her wood necklace and fringe, her leather stamped bracelet Andrew made for her and her bag of "Happy Trails" trail mix. Plus look at that big belly full of roasted hot dogs, chips, lemonade and fruit, could she be any cuter!

Of course Crew the sweet tooth (who takes after his mom) had to have a piñata. I like that a lot of the kids are still wearing their coon party hats.

The littles grabbing for the goods.

I love this picture. We had 1500 ladybugs for the kids to release into the flowers. At first some of the girls were a little hesitant but by the end they all had ladybugs and loved letting them go in the flowers. It was hit, plus it's great for our flowers so win win!

Crew's camp sign.

I made some cute party bags and added suede fringe to the bottom of the bags. The suede was Rick's when he was a little boy, he would practice sewing and making little wallets out of it. I thought it would be fun to use for Crew's birthday party. We also made little suede fringe pieces for the wood necklaces. In the party bags we made camp crew bug buttons (of course, love our button maker), leather name tags, tic tac toe game (made from slices of our branches and a wood burning tool to make the #). We also made smore kits, glow in the dark bracelets, bug tatoos, and piñata treats.

This is my favorite. These are all the hot wheel cars that Crew collected from his party. He collected 255 cars for the kids in the Philippines. He is the first one in the family to do a hot wheel drive and it was a success. 

I asked the boys what their favorite part about the birthday party was and Crew of course said the piñata. Who could blame him when you have a sweet tooth like him. Athen said "collecting all the hot wheels for the kids in the Philippines". This warmed my heart. They are learning the things that we are trying to teach them. This morning he said "mom, I just can't wait to go to the Philippines, I can't stop thinking about it". I am one proud mama. 

Project Bingham

Well, well, well friends. It has been a long time. I decided to start the blog up again because we are excited to announce Project Bingham. Project Bingham is a project that our family has decided to work on this year to teach our kids how to serve, work, set and achieve goals, and save and manage money.

Please check out our website www.projectbingham.wix.com/projectbingham You can follow along our journey through this blog and our website. We will spend the next several months in preparation for our upcoming family service project in the Philippines. We will be heading to Manila to visit some orphanages to spend time with the children as well as bring toys, hygiene products, and school backpacks and supplies. We will then head up north to several towns I served my mission in to pass out toys and supplies.

This summer the kids and I will be working on several "fun" raising and service projects in preparation for our trip. If you are interested in helping with our project by doing any of the following, please leave me a comment:

- Doing a hot wheel drive with your friends and family
- Collecting hotel soaps, toothbrushes and or small tubes of toothpaste
- Donating backpacks and school supplies
- Sponsoring a lemonade stand with your kids to earn money for the project
- Donating - if you don't want to do an activity you could always donate some of your own used hot wheels, miniature princess or ponies that your children no longer use, donate any hotel soaps you may have laying around or donate money towards the project (money will be used for shipping expenses, mosquito nets, toys and hygiene products.)

We are excited to start this project off with our children and hope you follow along.

The Binghams

Memorial Weekend

We decided at the last minute to go camping with some friends for the long weekend. There weren't many options at the last minute so we ended up going to Grant Ranch in San Jose. My friend Jennie and I headed down on Friday morning with the kids and the husbands were going to meet up with us in the evening. Things came up and our friends were only able to spend the day with us.

We rode bikes, and took a trip up to Lick Observatory and look at the telescope (the second largest of its kind in the world). Rick met up with us in the evening and we enjoyed a family campfire with some marshmallows and smores.


Playing in the parking lot and riding bikes.





The Lick Observatory, seeing this big telescope.

 The boys favorite part of camping, the marshmallows and smores.

This was Sutton's first camp trip and she did pretty good. We all got up pretty early in the morning and Rick and the boys started the pancakes and sausage. We took a hike around the lake and then packed up camp. We were planning to stay until Monday but then at the last minute decided to stay one night so we could go to the beach and then get some stuff at home done.




 The boys second favorite part of camping, climbing trees.

 Helping papa make some pancakes and sausage.

 Bikes around camp.

 Starting our hike around the lake.

We headed to Santa Cruz for the day. If we are in town over Memorial weekend this is where we always go. We stopped by the Rip Curl sale and Rick got a new wetsuit and I got a new bag. We headed over to Steamers Lane for the surf competition. The boys enjoyed watching the surfers. We played on the beach and of course ended our day at Marianne's for some ice cream.

Watching the surfer competition at Steamers.

 
My sweet little button who finally got her first few teeth in.

Marianne's our family favorite. Crew ate the bottom of the cone first.

We spent some time in the morning around the house getting a few things done here and there and then met up with our friends from the 9th ward for a BBQ here in Lafayette. It was fun to see all of our friends. It was a nice fun weekend!

Holiday

We decided to pack up the car after church on Sunday for a quick Holiday down the coast. We drove straight to the beach in Carmel to enjoy the afternoon sun and beach. The kids LOVE the beach so they were so excited to be there. We played around for a bit, had some dinner and then checked into the Marriott Hotel in downtown Monterey.

These boys are best friends and love to play together. I hope this lasts forever.

The kids loved running down the sand hill.

This picture makes me laugh. Athen hopped in the stroller and was just kicking back and relaxing with his hands behind his head.

We woke up Monday morning and headed straight to the donut shop. On Mondays the donuts are five dollars for a dozen. After buying five donuts we realized that if we paid another fifty cents we could get a dozen so that is what we did. Although, there may have been a little regret after the kids ate several donuts and were a little wired.

We spent the day walking around cannery row, eating fresh fruit (a favorite by the kids) from the Market Place, playing on the beach, watching the sea otters and swimming in the pool.

This is the only picture of me the whole trip. At least there is some evidence of me being on the family holiday.

Tuesday we woke up and headed out to cannery row for some food. Over course we had to head to the candy store. You can't go to the sea with out getting some salt water taffy. The boys wanted a lollipop and some taffy. I let them each pick out two pieces of taffy and a lollipop. They were pretty happy with that. We drove the 17 mile drive and the kids all fell asleep. It was nice and relaxing. We then grabbed some happy meals and headed to the beach. We ate our lunch and collected treasures on the beach. We tried going to the park but it was closed so we headed back to the hotel to relax and eat our treats.

This boy takes after his mother in so many ways, one being, he loves sweets just as much as I do. I found a rainbow of evidence of his lollipop all over the white bed spread and sheets.

In the afternoon we loaded up the surf boards and headed back to the beach in Carmel. Rick did a little surfing while the kids climbed in the trees and played on the beach. Sutton and I then headed to the bakery while Rick chased the boys around in the water. We ended our evening watching cartoons in bed until the boys fell asleep.

The boys loved the trees and rocks, such boys they are.

Wednesday morning we headed to the Market Place for some breakfast sandwiches and fresh fruit. We then headed down south to Point Lobos. The boys loved climbing on all the rocks and looking for crabs in the water. We hiked around a bit and ate some lunch on the rocks. We went to Whaler's Cove and watched the seals and scuba divers. The kids were fascinated by the divers and all their gear. We went to the Whaler's Cabin museum and saw all the whale bones. On our way home we stopped at the fruit stand and got some french fried artichoke hearts from the choke coach.

I am not sure if the boys like the fresh fruit stand at the Market Place or the candy store better.

It was nice to get away for a few days. We needed a little holiday from all the work we have been doing as home owners.