Easter 2011

Here is a recap of Easter 2011. It was much like Easter 2010 and 2009, with the exception of the weather being gorgeous and our eggs looking the most lackluster of any I can remember.

The Saturday before Easter was so sunny and warm, we actually believed that spring would finally appear in Oregon. Don't worry, folks! It's been overcast and rainy since, so you needn't worry that we're enjoying the sunny weather. We were grateful for the sun, since we had decided to take over the post of Easter Egg Hunt chairmen since our neighbors had moved out of the area and relinquished it. The Easter Egg Hunt is one of our favorite events of the year, especially for Noel, who has a quasi-unhealthy obsession with all things hunt-related. We could not conceive of an Easter without our neighborhood hunt.

First we gather as a group, then walk over to the beautiful park across the street (convenient, right?), where Josh had been busily hiding eggs and transporting cupcakes he had spent the last 24 hours making. He was busy, but it's hard to guess who had the raw end of the deal, since my job was to take the three kids to go get baseball pictures. What am I saying? It was not hard to guess. It was me. But anyway, thanks for the hard work, honey!

Here are Jonah and Lila heading to the park. Why is she not wearing shoes? Because she's two, that's why.

The hunt begins. The boys run to the wooded area and start searching high and low. Lila looks down on the ground, and begins the difficult task of picking up scads of eggs within her arms reach. But she did it beautifully!

I think Noel's heaven most definitely involves a 24 hour a day egg hunt.

Here are the cupcakes that Josh spent so much time making. And they were delicious. And when we had 3 dozen leftovers at our house and I'd eaten four by noon, I cursed his name repeatedly.

The ceremonial opening of the eggs.

Sometime on Friday evening, the Easter Bunny decided that, while it could be charming to wake at 6 AM to excited children ready to hunt for eggs, perhaps he wanted to sleep in that day, so he visited on Saturday afternoon instead! If you were thinking that we were hoping to reserve Easter Sunday for a spiritual reminder of the season, you'd be wrong. (Though we did attempt an Easter FHE on Monday that was 85% successful, which is 84.2% more successful than it has been in the past two years. No mumbling about ingrate children or anything!)

The Easter Bunny left a note on the front porch with instructions to a short treasure hunt.

Treasure Trove #1: Various stuffed animals for the kids! Jonah got Bowser, Noel got Donkey Kong Jr. and Lila got Ruby. Lila likes it when I make that super obnoxious, middle-aged Ruby voice and boss Max around.

Treasure Trove #2: Shirts! Do I note a sense of disappointment? That Easter Bunny sure is dumb! Doesn't he know that shirts don't count? (Except for Lila, who promptly stripped off her shirt and pants and put it on, pantsless -- p.s. I love her.)

Then the hunt began. It was further proven that my boys have inherited a little trait from their dad called "the inability to find things". As you can see, there are many, many places the eggs could be hidden. Like on the grass. Or on the chair. Or on the bush.

Noel, sad that the hunt has come to an end.

This photo demonstrates a few things, 1) Jonah opening the loot from his hunt 2) Our kids are spoiled and 3) Wow, our kitchen is messy. Oh, and 4) Maybe that Ikea table has seen better days (see egg picture at top of blog).

This is kind of adorable. They're watching the video that was just taken 7 minutes previously. Which they will now watch 452 times before the end of the month.

And finally, a picnic dinner.

Sunday was not impressive. Here is our half-hearted attempt at egg dyeing. I could not look more bored if you paid me. And Jonah is drawing.

I hope they publish our egg photos in the next issue of Martha Stewart Living! Look at that sticker, so jauntily placed on that egg. It's art. It's ironic, I think.

And finally, our Easter photo shoot. Here are some things that we failed at this Easter: 1) We forgot that Lila would not be the only one alive on Easter Sunday, and pulled out some old, ill-fitting, un-ironed clothes for the boys. 2) We took these photos as we were literally rushing out the door, late for our 1:00 church. 3) I expected the kids to look decent in them.

You guys, seriously! We are NOT going to let these photos appear in your children's catalog! Stop asking!

Happy Easter from The Binghams

We've launched

In case you have missed my announcements elsewhere, I am writing for a new blog. I don't think clicking on that picture will actually do anything, but you can find the blog here. Click on my name in the sidebar and you can find my post. (It's quite controversial.) Come to my defense!

And please tell your friends about this blog. Maybe someday they'll decide to pay me for contributing and then I can be a paid writer. How cool would that be?

7

Jonah just turned 7. (Side note: When did I get old enough to have a 7-year old?) Jonah approaches his birthdays with the enthusiasm and joy of an Oprah Winfrey show audience getting a new gold-plated cashmere rice cooker. We have been talking about it for months. He has written lists of all the gifts he wants and told us months ago that his birthday would be at Chuck E. Cheese. So needless to say, it's been a week of celebration.

I do want to say this about Jonah. We make jokes about him on this blog about how tough he can be and how exhausting. But he truly is amazing. I am proud to have him as my oldest son. He is smart, creative and ambitious. He is loving and affectionate. He is driven (see above: exhausting) but I think he will be successful in whatever he tries. He is a good sport. We have him in piano, violin, baseball and karate and he (rarely) complains. He is amazing with Noel and Lila. Noel and he are think as thieves and Lila thinks  that Jonah is the greatest thing that ever happened. He is musical and artistic and athletic and creative and a genius.

Jonah's latest obsession is Mario, so there was a definitely a theme at the birthday. We had a Mario cake:

And many Mario themed gifts. Like...a Mario game!

Side note: This game is AWESOME! It is like the old school Mario. I am quite good at it, too.

And a Mario bag. Evidently the messenger bag is the way to go. Jonah has been insisting for months that he needs a messenger bag. I guess it is what the cool kids do.

Not pictured: a Mario T-Shirt and a Mario poster. And a Mario curling iron and Mario gold-plate cashmere rice cooker. I think every single gift had Mario on it. 

Amy made his favorite dinner: chicken and rice. Thanks for smiling nice, Jonah. Thanks. 

And we did indeed go to Chuck E. Cheese. We were understandable scared. But here's the thing about Chuck E. Cheese: it kind of rules. When you show up, they have your table all set up for you. They give you a party host who takes your food order, hands out the tokens and tells the kids how much time they have to play games. Then when it is time for the birthday celebration they gather your kids up. They cut the cake and serve it. And at the end, they clean everything up!! The only thing that could make that better would be if someone did all that for me and I WASN'T at Chuck E. Cheese!

Jonah played lots of games with his friends and won lots of tickets and traded those tickets for lots of junky trinkets.

Jonah even got an awesome crown that had tokens inside. Also, now Chuck E. just comes out and dances around. There is no longer that whole creepy band thing. Remember these guys? With that creepy space dog? And cheerleader monkey? And evil gorilla? WHO THOUGHT KIDS WOULD LIKE THEM? Are they bears? Are they gophers? WHAT ARE THEY?!?!

Jonah also got stuck in a booth full of tickets that flew around and he could grab as many as he could catch in 30 seconds. It was like one of those booth's full of dollar bills, except instead of getting to trade those dollar bills for exciting goods and services, you get to trade them for plastic snakes and Chinese finger traps. (Is that offensive? Do we call them Asian Finger Traps?)

The picture doesn't do it justice. It was super awesome. 

So happy birthday, Jonah. May you have many more years of tokens, singing mice and ticket-whirlwinds.

Josh's Book Corner: March!!!

Part three of my monthly reading log. Read past entries here or here. Or follow me on Goodreads here. 


I know you have been dying to know what I read in March. I can hear your over-dinner conversations now. "Honey - I am DYING to know what Josh read in March! He only read two books last month! Is he going to make his 2011 goal of 40 books?"

Well, rest assured, I am back on track. 5 book in January, 2 books in February and 6 books (!!) in March.
Here we go.
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
5 out of 5 stars. Usually when I say a book is 5 stars, it means I loved it, I would read it again and that I would recommend it to everyone. I did love this book, but I don't know that I could recommend it to many people. It is the story of two brothers who were born in Ethiopia to a Nun and...to someone else. The mom dies in childbirth and the dad disappears. It is told from the point of view of Marion. It is one of those sweeping, epic tales that takes you all over the world and across time, through the civil wars in Ethiopia to a hospital in New York City. Fantastic.

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn
4 out of 5 stars. What makes this book super awesome is that I won it on Goodreads and that I got an ARC. (That's what those of us in the industry call and "Advanced Reader Copy." This book is yet to be published!) It made me feel exclusive and sheeshy. And it made me feel like the publisher cared about my informed opinion of this book to start the buzz. I am sure that is not the case, but it is easy to buy my affection. It is the story a girl, Celia, who is the estranged adult daughter of the Metrocity's two greatest superheros, Captain Olympus and the Spark. She is part of the legal team that is persecuting their arch-nemesis, the Destructor, who is on trial for tax-evasion. It is an interesting modern take on a classic super hero story.

13 Treasures by Michelle Harrison
3.5 out of 5 stars. Just in case you were starting to think I was too manly, this is a book that is clearly targeted to 12 year old girls. Tanya, can see fairies (I know, I know.) She gets sent to her Grandma's secluded country-side manor because her family is tired of dealing with her fairy seeing nonsense. While there she gets wrapped up in a cold-case about a young girl who went missing 50 years before. And then there are fairies. It is sort of like a slightly darker, slightly edgier, more British version of the Fablehaven series.

The Great Hunt: Book Two of 'The Wheel of Time' by Robert Jordan
3.5 out of 5 stars. Here is the story of "The Wheel of Time" series. When I was in high school and my early 20s, I loved these books! There are a lot of them (I think there were 7 when I first started reading them.) and they were all LONG (600-1000 pages each) and the new ones would only come out every couple of years. I would read them and wait patiently and then the new one would come out but I would have to reread a few so that I knew what was going on (they got more complicated and more epic as they went on) eagerly awaiting the final book, which rumor had it would be around book 12 or 13. And then after book 11, Robert Jordan died. For real. So those of us who had been strung along by this series thought we would never get to see how it ended. But then Jordan's widow hired another author (Brandon Sanderson, who I happen to love and think is a great writer) to finish the series. And he is currently writing the 14th (and last) book. So I have decided to reread one final time so I can finally see how it ends. That being said, book 2 was always one of my least favorites. It lays the groundwork for some great stuff it later books, but in and of itself, it is a little boring.

A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein
3.5 out of 5 stars. This was our March NWBC book, chosen by my lovely wife Amy. It is the story of a doctor who's grown son (he's 20) starts dating the messed up daughter (she's 30!) of a friend of the family. The doctor, who's name I forget, doesn't want them dating, but is sort of powerless to stop it. It was an easy enough read, with compelling (if somewhat unlikeable) characters. But nothing about the book made me anxious to see what would happen next. The interesting this was I was pretty ho-hum about the book overall and then we had our book club and after our discussion I bumped its rating up half-a-star. There were observations made at book club that I hadn't noticed on my own that made this book much more interesting. I would recommend it for your next book club.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
5 out of 5 stars. This was a great read. It is sort of like The Road for the pre-teen set. The story of a girl who is sent to live with family in England because of her eating disorder and her new step-mom being kind of a skanky ho. Whilst there, there is an invasion and her and the other kids are cut off from civilization. It has a great voice and feels very real. I am definitely curious to see what else Ms. Rosoff has written. I recommend it to anyone.

See you next month!