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