I have found that by planning my meals for the month, I can drastically reduce our families grocery spending. It takes time and a whole lot of effort though. And to be honest the past several months I wasn’t so good about it. But, then Scott and I sat down and took a look at our spending. And we realized that we needed to be a whole lot better about sticking to our budget.

Sometimes the music in my car radio really serves as nothing more than background noise to the chattering or squabbling going on in the back seat and the to do lists and other random thoughts going on in my brain. One day though something about the lyrics caused me to take pause and listen. I turned the radio up and even though I’ve heard the song countless times before, I listened to it for the first time.

Didn’t take many pics around the circus this week, but when I downloaded pics off of my camera this afternoon, I stumbled across this gem from last week.  Please help me pick a title. My brain is a bit mushy this Friday afternoon. Winning caption gets put at the top of my post! I know that’s an honor your all scrambling to achieve, so please… tell me your thoughts and brighten this circus mom’s day with some comment love!

This morning I woke to sounds of my daughter coughing…I stumbled into her room to comfort her and set up her nebulizer, thinking to myself that at least I had gotten 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Then my eyes focused a bit more and I took a second look at the clock. It was 6:15, not 1:15! We slept through the night! I felt much like a new mom the morning after her baby makes it all night without a feeling!

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Our little girl really is super girl and she proved it last night. She is crazy tough. So let me cut to the chase and say that her injury was pretty bad. The need for stitches was obvious but even the doctor had not realized at first that it was so deep it would require both internal and external stitches. My girl had been cut deep. The coffee table/toy box had cut all the way to the bone.

Tonight is one of those nights when I am extra thankful that God has given me a helpmate in life. And not just any helpmate, but one of the best. My three year old was getting on the couch this evening, and if you know my girls, you know that they do this with much exuberance, so somewhere during the twirl she slipped and fell back, hitting her head on our toy box/coffee table.

Last night I finally got around to updating my circus cast page….it was LONG overdue and quite outdated, not to mention incorrectly formatted! Take a minute and let me know what you think of the changes! I had my youngest as the mime b/c when I first created the page, she wasn’t yet speaking. I am considering making number 4 my mime instead, but don’t know what circus role to give to my third child.

BABY!!!!! This morning we had our sonogram appointment. While it is our fourth pregnancy, I try as hard as I can to not take anything for granted. I don’t think I realized how much I was “holding my breath” so to speak before the appointment. Words can’t adequately express the feelings of thanksgiving that overwhelmed me when the tech and then the doctor told us that everything looked healthy and normal.

This year we celebrated New Years in two parts. We did a family fun night with the kids concluding at 8 with followed by a date night with the two of us to officially ring in the new year.  Here are some pictures of my son cutting it up on the impromptu dance floor in our living room. He was having a blast, as I am sure you can tell.