Ella's Birthday Party

Ella will be celebrating her 7th birthday this week.  She had a birthday party on Friday, November 2nd.  She wanted to do crafts with her friends.  We looked on pinterest together and came up with the idea of making wooden peg dolls.  All was well and good until we had a stomach flu run through the family the week before her birthday party and I realized that I had underestimated how much time it would take to get things ready.  Anyway, with Chris helping out with the kids and less that 48hours to get things ready, the party ended up being a lot of fun.  I enjoyed hearing some of the girls declaring it was the best party ever.  Each of the girls got to take home a matching pair of peg dolls.  There were different dresses to choose from, all made with left over fabric from skirts or dresses that I've made for Ella.

The best part for Ella - opening her presents!

The pic below is of the kids playing pass-the-parcel.  This is a favorite party game in the Bingham household.  One that I remember playing at parties growing up in Australia.  Basically a present is wrapped in layers of paper (we had 15) and then music is played and the kids pass-the-parcel around the circle.  Every time the music stops, a layer of paper is removed.  There is a big prize at the end and I add a candy in between each layer.  I only just realized at Ella's party that no one here in uses the word "parcel" and so I should probably be calling the game "Pass-the-package" so the kids understand!

Getting ready for Halloween

So, it's been a while... what can I say, life got busy,  In June we moved from Augusta, GA to Alpharetta, GA.  Alpharetta is 30 minutes north of downtown Atlanta (that's if traffic is good!) and we are enjoying living in a big metropolis again.  After four years in school, Chris started working again (yeah!) and I am loving having him more often.  His practice is just 3 miles away and he only works four days a week.  We hope to be here for a very long time.  In July/August my parents came from Australia to stay with us for a month.  And now we are looking forward to baby Zack joining us in a few weeks.  I'm 37 weeks and counting down the days until his arrival! There's too much to try and catch-up on, so I'll just start again with what we've been up to this week...

One of the things I love about the US are the holidays.  From now through to Christmas, it's one party after another.  I also love the autumn colors and the weather cooling down.  Owen, who is 5 and loves dress-ups, has been counting down to Halloween for at least 3-months.This week we had a trunk-or-treat party with church and a Halloween party for our neighborhood. A couple of pictures of my 4 spiders and one Thomas below......

Toddler Heaven

Will is a busy little man and keeping me on my toes! Here he is "helping" me clean out some cupboards today.