Life At The Circus

Over the past few weeks, I have really noticed the bond between my girls growing and it has been so sweet to watch.  They seem to be off playing together quite often now and even started sleeping in the same bed at night.  As I look at these pictures of them together, I can’t help but cue up the song from “White Christmas.” Sisters Sisters There were never such devoted sisters.. All kinds of weather, We stick together The same in the rain or sun Two diff’rent faces But in tight places We think and we act as one For more fun with pictures, visit here or here .   And if you haven’t entered my give away to help Sudan, click here .

I got a funny e-mail from my mom this morning.  She told me to set the DVR to record Rudolph tonight b/c apparently my 3 yr old needed a refresher in holiday pop culture.  According to my mom… “We were walking in the mall on Black Friday.  We went to the Build a Bear shop which had been transformed into Santa's Workshop for Christmas.  They had stuffed snowmen and deer and Santa bears. I said to her,  "Look it's Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer!!" To which she looked at me like I just grew 3 heads and said " A red nose reindeer???"  Really Grandma??” The DVR has been set… wait till she finds out he can fly too!! This post is being included in Mary’s Tiny Talk Tuesday .

For those of you taking advantage of the sales found online today, I thought I’d remind you about my Shopping for Sudan opportunity.   If you shop from Amazon.com, please bookmark my site and click on the (shop now) link on my top left side bar.  It will take you directly to amazon.com Help me get the word out about Shopping for Sudan!    Tweet and or post a link on face book to my Shopping for Sudan post (Here is the link if you want to copy & paste it: http://lifeatthecircus.com/shopping-for-sudan/ ).  Then leave me a comment each time you do so, telling me you did and you will gain another entry into a give away for Go Fish’s Christmas CD Snow .  (a favorite here at the Circus Casa) Feel free to tweet and post on face book as many times as you like for more entries.  Give away will end Wednesday Dec 1 at 12:00pm EST.  (but feel free to keep spreading the word long after that)

I have had a fabulous week.  We took the week off of school, and aren’t going anywhere but here.   This weekend we did some much needed, long overdue DEEP CLEANING.  I literally stayed in my PJs till 5:00 on Saturday and started in my bedroom cleaning and organizing till the dust bunnies under my bed were all sucked up by the Dyson!  (in the middle of this day when my house looked like a tornado hit, the breakfast dishes were still on the table and I was still in my pjs  my MIL showed up to take the kids for a few hours… a blessing so valuable and appreciated I swallowed my pride and opened the door so she could pick up the kiddos) Sunday we watched the game snacking on BOGO free burritos from Chipotle and mini heath bars (in honor of our favorite TE Heath Miller).    Then we did a little more tidying, had a leisurely dinner and Scott even got some raking in.  Monday and Tuesday were spent with the kids playing outside (it has been i...

It became quite clear to us that our little man was ready to try solid foods when he started opening his mouth like a baby bird anytime we were eating with him on our lap.  We couldn’t help but laugh when he started reaching out for Daddy’s fork, mouth wide open, just begging for a taste. Here he is holding our Smores ingredients while on vacation… his poor pathetic face seems to be saying, “They aren’t even nice about it!” Finally, this weekend we gave him his first taste of rice cereal.  He kept reaching out to grab onto the spoon  and try and get more.  I have to tell you that never, NEVER have I seen a baby so excited about solid food.  He literally waved his arms in the air and kicked his feet with glee. I can honestly say that of all my babies, he truly enjoys food the most.  When I nurse him, he will actually pause and look up to flash me this big ol smile… it’s almost as if he is saying, “Thanks Mom!”  And this...

Every year I have high hopes for being on top of things in the Christmas season.  Last year, as hard as I tried, I was no where near on top of things.  In fact, my Christmas cards became New Years cards and weren’t even mailed till the middle of January. This year, however, I have high hopes.  Thanks to a special promotion from Shutterfly , I have already designed my Christmas cards!  That’s right it is 3 days before Thanksgiving and my Christmas cards have been designed and ordered!!! I can’t believe it either folks.  ( But have no fear, we are not putting up any decorations or playing Christmas music till Friday ) Check out these super specials that they have going on right now. ( Bloggers can get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly: http://bit.ly/sfly2010 ) and for those of you without blogs , you can still save 20% off of your photo cards and 30% off of other cards) I really like Shutterfly for Christmas cards because they have so many design choic...

Notice anything different about his smile? Take a closer look… See it on the bottom right?  Say goodbye to his cute toothless smile. My baby got his first tooth!!

We decided to add a little pizazz to our normal morning chaos as we got ready to leave for our tutorial today.  Since it’s the last day the tutorial is meeting before Thanksgiving, they had a Harvest Party at the end of the day and the children were encouraged to come in costume. My son went as an Indian and his little sister went as a Pilgrim.  (costumes courtesy of Mommy’s costume bin from her school days… I was Pocahontas one year for Halloween and the “Pilgrim” dress  was actually a costume from a church play). My 3 year old wanted to join in the fun, and as is often the case with this independent child, she wanted to add her own flare to the celebration. “I want to dress up too, Mom”  “Ok, what do you want to be, a Pilgrim or an Indian?” “Neither, a kangaroo.” Well of course, we all remember the kangaroo at the first Thanksgiving, right?  With no time to argue and no costume to offer as an alternative (a kangaroo some how seemed more appropriate...

When a tour company approaches you as you board their boat offering the chance to back out with a full refund, a normal person would heed the warning, take the money and run. But we aren’t normal.  Because we have a quest to visit every national park during our married life together.  And this quest brought us all the way down to Key West.  And we didn’t drive all the way down to Key West only to turn around and head 100 miles north without first taking a boat 70 nautical miles further west to Dry Tortugas National Park. So, we boarded the boat with our crew of lil ones,  quickly bought some Dramamine and off we set for the Dry Tortugas! The first hour was nice.  We ate breakfast, the kids met the Captain, did a little coloring… then, our 3 yr complained of her belly hurting.  We quickly got our supply of “bags” ready and spent the next hour losing our breakfasts.  The girls fell first.  With the 4 yr old having it the worst, followed clos...

Our time at Biscayne National Park was fun , but way too short.  We took a 3 hour tour (which thankfully turned out much better than the infamous 3 hr tour).   I think the kids favorite part was the 45 minute ride out to Boca Chita Island.   They described their ride out their as “the best rollar coaster ride ever!”  The wind was really blowing.  I thought it felt much like those super sonic hand dryers that look like they are ripping your skin off. Once we arrived at the island, the first thing we did was climb the lighthouse.   The top of the light house provided you with a panoramic view of Biscayne National Park (most of which is the underwater coral reefs) and a view of the Miami skyline. I love our lil man’s expression… you can see it was VERY WINDY up there!       Once we finished with the light house, we spent some time exploring and playing on the island.  It was beautiful and Scott and I were qui...

When we arrived at Everglades NP it was shortly before midnight and raining quite hard.  Scott got out of the van to attempt to put up the tent, but when he remembered the top of our tent is open screen (which we then put a cover over after set up) he realized it would be futile as the entire inside of the tent would be  soaked before we even set it up.       So, we opted to spend the night in the van. Both of us can honestly say we were surprised that it wasn’t as horrible as we thought it would be.  We were quite crammed in there, but we made it work.  My oldest son slept in his car seat, our oldest daughter crammed in on the floor behind the suitcase, the next daughter slept on the back seat, Scott and I slept up front and the baby stayed in his car seat within reach of us incase he should need to eat in the middle of the night. The next morning we woke to a break in the rain and decided to hit the Anhinga trail as soon as possible bef...