Time for a new post?!?

I think a 2+ month vacation from blogging is long enough. I will give you a quick run down of our recent happenings.

What happens when you turn your head for two seconds?

First of all, your 20 month old gets into the cupboards and finds a new favorite snack. Anybody for marshmallow fluff?

Second of all, a collar bone is a reasonably easy bone to break. Jackson and Zach was playing around and fell onto the couch. Jackson's collar bone landed just the right way in order to fracture. Luckily it was just a hairline fracture and not displaced. There isn't much you can do for a collar bone, so the treatment was a simple wrap around his arm.

BTW this is what an accident waiting to happen looks like.

Picture taken moments before dismount on couch.

How do these lips...

Turn into these lips?

The weekend before Christmas, Dylan was riding his scooter and fell. It was a bloody mess, we decided he needed stitches. This picture doesn't actually do the injury any justice. Dylan needed 17 stitches.

This is Zach's homemade Santa suit. He took our puppy for a walk looking like this, saying HO, HO, HO. Austin was embarrassed. He got some laughs from neighbors.

The last thing keeping us busy is a leaky bathtub that resulted in some water damage. I repaired the leak and Casey and Blaine are in charge of repairing the water damage. Household repairs aren't really our speciality.

We were unable to get Christmas cards out this year but wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful Happy New Year!!!

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise...NOT

Since Jackson was born, Blaine and I have been very open about the fact that our family is not complete. We are now announcing that we are expecting NUMBER 6. Now let me answer a few questions. . .

1. This IS a planned pregnancy.

2. We are NOT trying for a girl.

3. We will be very pleased with either a boy or a girl. We are looking for healthy.

4. My amazing kids have kept this a secret for a month.

5. We are about 9 weeks along, which puts us at late May for delivery.

Feel free to answer the poll to the right, we would enjoy your input. Our favorite boy name we are considering is Pubert, I got that name from a good friend, what do you think?

Some of you may have been wondering where the Bringhursts have been over the last five weeks, we are still here, not much has changed. In the last few weeks we have celebrated Blaine and Dylan's birthday. They share a birthday, it is always a lot of fun. This year we decided to head to NYC for a double header. Yankee game in the day and Broadway show at night. That was a very fun and very long day. For dinner we went to Bubba Gumps in Times Square. Bubba Gumps likes to celebrate special occasions with their patrons, the video below is Blaine and Dylan celebrating with our waiter, it was just a little embarrassing but they were both good sports.

Zach loves to get Jackson up in the morning, he loves to ride the horse with Jackson and sing to him. Luckily he let me record him, I think they are adorable.

Family Bike Ride

Yesterday we decided to head out for a family bike ride. Last year we bought a five bike bike rack. There was a clerk at the bike shop that chuckled at it when he saw it. I told him I would have bought a seven bike bike rack if it existed. I'm not sure he knew another family as big as ours.


Back to yesterday, I loaded up the trailer and the tandem inside the truck and then loaded the other five bikes on the rack. Now we are ready to leave. As I was walking to the truck with our new adorable puppy, Moose, Blaine asked "What are we going to do with Him. I so casually said, "He's coming with us!" You could kind of tell that Blaine has never been in a car with a pup before, because he wasn't sure what to expect. Moose travels well, he likes to snuggle into your leg while laying on the seat.

We ended up biking seven miles. We took these pictures before and during our ride.
We took this picture on the trail. It was such a cute picture when I looked back to check on Jackson and Moose. Moose was asleep and Jackson was petting him.
We ususlly can't go anywhere without a little competition. This time we were riding for gold. There was two "races" the first was the tandem teams and Casey and Dylan won the gold medal Mom, "J", and Moose won the silver. For the solo riders, Blaine won gold, Austin won silver and Zach won the bronze. We had a great time and biking is a great way to build a strong family bond.

We added to our Family today!

After four or more years of telling the boys they cannot have a puppy, Daddy finally gave the OK. I found out about Moose last week from a neighbor who's co-worker rescued Moose's mom a couple months ago. Moose's mom, Phoebe, is a Shiba Inu. When she was rescued she was due to have these five adorable pups. We aren't sure what the dad is but suspect Moose may have some Lab in him. I went last week to meet Moose and new he was meant for our family. Here are some pictures of Moose getting acclimated to our family and home.

Here is our first experience of home. We had just arrived home and it was pouring rain. We wanted Moose to potty outside before we took him inside.

Moose loves to lay on the cold tile.

Here is Casey just after he got home from school.

At the bus stop.

I kept the boys out of the loop so that I could surprise them at the bus stop. I captured Austin's reaction on video and a little of Zach's reaction.

Moose did really well last night. He cried for about 10 minutes before he settled in to sleep. I got up at 2am and took him out and then again at 5am. Luckily we haven't had an accident yet. Moose is well loved and we are thrilled to have him in our family.

Labor Day Weekend

Last weekend we took the opportunity to enjoy nature and the beautiful scenery at Ricketts Glen. For those of you who have highly recommended it to us... Thank You. Jennifer and I always go to the campsite at check in and then the husbands come after they get off work. This time we got a little bit of a late start and then the rain came. Our planning didn't work out so well this time, we set camp in the dark and the rain. It rained all night which was actually kind of romantic. By morning the rain was gone and scenery was beautiful. We had a great time and Blaine spent his first consecutive three days in the woods. He is always a good sport. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Before we left Dylan helped me make some cookies for our trip. He is always a very big helper.

This is everyone at the beginning of our hike. We figure it was about a five mile hike.

Zach and Casey

Jackson and Blaine

On the hike there were about 15 to 20 waterfalls. Here is a picture of one of them. All the kids and Dads had a good time climbing some of the waterfalls.

Blaine and Jackson

This next picture was taken on the trail. The tree's roots are coming out of the ground and are all intertwined with each other. I thought it was quite a spectacular view.

Jennifer and Randy

Casey braving the tree bridge.

This is me attempting a group picture on a 2 second timer.

Take One Take Two ( didn't even make the picture at all on this one)
Take Three

All the natives were very patient in my attempts to get a group picture.

Take Four

We plum wore out the kids, this is Dylan at the evening campfire. And even Zach couldn't make it to bed...
On Saturday evening we had a spiritual visitor. You may think it is the Madonna, or some say it could be the face of Jesus. Look closely He/She is looking to the left and downward. The forehead is pronounced with eyes, nose, mouth, and chin.
On Monday we rented a petal boat, row boat, kayak, and canoe. It really was a ton of fun. This is all of us switching around out on the lake.

I love this picture of Jennifer rowing my husband.

Well this is our weekend, I would highly recommend Ricketts Glen. It is a great place for family bonding.

We recently were able to go out west to visit family. The trip out there was a nightmare. We left Philly late after sitting on the plane for two hours. Finally got in the air and was still hoping to make our connection in Denver, we arrived about 20 minutes after our plane took off. It was already pushing 10pm and no more flights were leaving that night. Blaine got in line to get us scheduled for the next available flight by the time he was done it was LATE. We finally found a hotel that wasn't filled to capacity and laid our weary heads. The time was after 2am but coming from Philly it was after 4am. We were beat and our experience on Frontier airlines was not pleasant. We finally made it to Boise the next evening and our two day stay in Boise was reduced to 18 hours. When we arrived there luckily our luggage made it, but after 19 days we still are waiting for our three car seats to arrive.

While in Utah, I vaguely remember a wedding, Oh yes, I remember it was my brothers wedding. I was graced with his presence for all of about 45 min. and my kids barely got to see their uncle and new aunt for maybe 5 min. I have no evidence of this blessed event.

We then spent the next few days with Blaine's side of the family. I have great evidence of that.

Here is Casey and Jackson palling around.

I love this picture of the boys and two of their cousins

Here are most of the grand kids, we were still missing a few.

What is wrong with this picture, Sister hosts family gathering, Brothers torment Sister.

Actually it was very funny watching Blaine and his brothers bounce their sister.

Here is Blaine and I, his brother Barry and his wife Dani, next is his sister Janet and her husband Mark, and last but not least we have Bruce (this is where the name Jackson Bruce comes from) and his wife Sue.

Jackson Bruce

Very cute picture of Amy, Bruce and Sue's daughter

The family

Here is a cute pic of my niece and I.

Here is a pic of the girls, Blaine's sister Janet and the sisters-in-law.

While we were in Utah we were also able to see some wonderful friends. We always look forward to seeing our friends and family every year. I can hardly wait for next time.