Dynamicly created elements have events firing multiple times

Dynamicly created elements have events firing multiple times

Hi, sorry if this has been posted before but my brain is on the verge of exploding.
I have a group of elements in a div. the group has an add and a remove button.  on clicking the add it duplicates the whole div and adds it to the parent div.  this works fine. I save it then I go and reload the page the data comes back from the db and populates two copies of the div now, since I hit the add button.  so now I hit the add button again to add a third item.  but instead of one I get two.  lets say I save 5 of them I come back and hit add and I get five new ones instead of just one.
So obviously the event is getting bound to the add button of each item and they are all firing.  I just don't know how to get it to only fire once.  per click. 
this is actually very much simplified.  It's much more complex.  it practice I have a group with items, I can add additional items.  or I can add an additonal group. and add items to either group and so on recursively.  sometimes it works and sometimes I get some crazy behavior.  to make matters worse I use this little control in a number of places on the screen so it was duplicating every version not just the one that were created in a particular instance.  I added some dynamic naming and now I think it's isolated to just the instance I'm displaying.
Anyway, if this makes any sense and you have any idea how to help me please let me know.
thanks,
Raif