For all those wondering if there is truly hope for the hopeless… those who’ve made their resolutions and long since broken them… for those that thought, perhaps your just destined for failure…. to those… I offer this little glimmer of hope…. Our last visit to the library—if that trip didn’t redeem us, I don’t know what will! Those who have been long time readers here at the circus… might recall I have a bit of a bad history with the library… first, we have the whole circus family wing of the library thanks to the $18 fine visit and the $42 fine visit.

Truthfully, the circus family doesn’t spend much time on bikes. We do a lot of fun things here, don’t get me wrong, but there are only so many hours in a day, and teaching our kids to ride bikes has not been where we’ve spent ours. But, today the sun was shining, the weather was unseasonably warm here in MD again, and as the kids played in the backyard while Scott did yard work, our oldest daughter decided that today she wanted to ride her bike without training wheels.

Nothing like a surprise package of clothes in the mail to bring smiles to the girls faces and provide an impromptu photo opp. (the boys appreciated it too, but not to the same extent) Thanks cousins Ben and Eli!

I think 4 is a great age for a lot of reasons… one of which is the funny little things 4 year olds say… Today we were walking to the van and she was carrying her coat, Kit, and her baby. I said, “If you wear your coat you’ll have more hands.” to which she said, “No, Mom, I’ll still only have 2 hands.” Last week before she went into her gymnastics class I told her to work hard and have fun.

This afternoon my smiley, mild mannered, easy going baby suddenly channeled his inner Dennis the Menace and went all toddler boy on me for 30 minutes. First I looked over and found him standing on his tool bench (oops look who forgot to put away the advent calendar with her Christmas decorations) I got him down and shortly after realized things had been mighty quiet for awhile and went searching for him.

Every now and then, when I peek in on my oldest daughter before going to sleep, I’ll see something which instantly takes me back to her infancy. And even though she’ll be 6 in a few short weeks, I see her as this sweet little 8 month old in her crib, sleeping folded in half. I’ll remember how she used to sleep like this every.single night… and suddenly all these pictures of her sleeping like this pass through my mind like a slide show.

We had some trees and branches cut down in our yard yesterday. Thus far I think it was worth every penny as I love the new look of our yard, the feeling of safety knowing those dead branches aren’t going to come down in the next storm, AND the free babysitting it provided yesterday afternoon. The tree in front of our living room window provided the most excitement. Even my 18 mth old was so intrigued, he kept looking out the window and then he’d yell, “Hey Mama” and a whole bunch of gibberish followed by “Hey Mama”… I swear with that gibberish, he was telling me “there’s a man flying outside our window!

We were delightfully surprised with some big puffy flakes of snow on Monday afternoon which accumulated to a whopping 1/2 inch of fun for the big 3.  This was the first “real snow” we’ve had here all winter. The pure, unadulterated glee which this brought to my children caused me to pause and give thanks that we live in MD. Because it doesn’t snow here all the time (a fact that I am truly, truly grateful for) when it does it is cause for excitement and celebration.

When talking to my oldest daughter about things to look forward to in 2012, I mentioned to her that the Summer Olympics were going to happen in 2012. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “I’ll be 6, can I be in the Olympics?” I told her that when she was 6 she can try out for the gymnastics team at her gym, but she has to be 16 to try out for the Olympics.