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. 

And I just had a feeling that she was going to do it.  You know, how sometimes you just know? 

They set off around 4:15pm.  At 4:20, Scott sent me this text.

“Great strategy.  Let’s not ride for 6 mths then go for it.”

I began to doubt that feeling I had earlier,  But…

at 4:39pm he texted me a picture of her riding off into the distance.

That’s right!!  She did it!!!  My girl’s on two wheels!!!

My Happy 2 Wheeler!

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!

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.  Found him in the master bathroom STANDING on the toilet. 

After shutting all the doors in the hallway we headed back out to the kitchen/living room.  He attempted to get water from the fridge dispenser but thankfully it was locked.   So, instead he opted for emptying my clean dishes from the dish washer into the dog bowl. 

I didn’t get them out right away b/c I figured the harm had already been done, and I would go ahead and finish emptying the dishwasher before he got into more mischief. 

But, that plan was thwarted when he then decided to DRINK FROM THE DOG BOWL!    While I moved the bowl onto the counter and the dirty cups into the sink, I turn around to find him standing in the dishwasher reaching for my leftover pizza from lunch.

At this point, I decide that this has TRULY BEEN THE CRAZIEST HALF HOUR OF HIS LIFE and strap him into his booster seat with my pizza in hopes of keeping him safe and me sane! 

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!”

I didn’t get quite as much done as I would have liked b/c the kids kept calling me into the room, “Mom… quick, you gotta see this, Mom look, take a picture for Dad.”

After cutting off all the branches, he then cut the trunk into four chunks and pushed them over.   The kids were concerned that Dad would be upset about the holes they left in the yard when they hit the ground, but they went back and filled them in with dirt. 

The kids wondered if perhaps Brett Keisel cut down trees when he wasn’t playing football.  Notice the resemblance?

While watching them climb around in the trees using ropes and pulleys, my son remarked, “This is like the original Cut the Rope.”

He also told me, “You’d never let Dad up that high!”  Followed by, “Are you holding the phone dialing the 9 and the 1?”  (Ahem..This MIGHT be b/c whenever Scott goes on the roof to hang or take down Christmas lights, I am always out side holding the phone ready to dial 911 in case he falls).  When I explained that I wasn’t holding the phone b/c these guys know what they are doing he responded with, “Well Dad knows what he’s doing and you still do it for him.”    

We really did have a great time watching the men work in our yard.  There was a never ending amount of excitement to watch, between the bucket truck, men swinging from trees, branches the size of trees swinging out the kitchen window, fork lifts carrying trunks from the back to the front, stump grinders and wood chippers…. we most definitely did not get through all of our homeschool assignments and are pulling double duty today. 

The most favorite Christmas cookie for the circus fam to make is sugar cookies.    Messiness + sugar = pure bliss for the circus crew!!

This year we enjoyed rolling and cutting the cookies with our cousin Eli. 

It was also the first year that the youngest circus crew member got to participate in the cooking making fun.  And by participate, I of course mean, eating. 

Since it took most of the morning to roll out and cut our our cookies, we saved the decorating for later that day.  Eli wasn’t with us for this part.  But, we still managed to make quite a mess with just 5 of us…

want a little cookie with your sprinkles?

I think this last one sums up the resulting sugar coma quite well.

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Our oldest daughter had a little fun getting into her character for Halloween.  When posing for pictures in their costumes, she decided to  fully act out the part of Snow White.

I think my favorite part of the reenactment was when she asked us to take her picture sleeping with the apple. "Skip the ol posing by the door with the trick or treat basket, we’ll go for playing dead on the floor with an apple.”

Then she was awakened with a kiss from her prince.

“Thanks Dad for being my prince,” she exclaimed.

Oh sweet girl, there’s nothing he’d like more than to be your prince forever.

Excuse me while I go blubber in the corner as I think about this picture one day popping up on the screen during a video montage at her rehearsal dinner… can’t you just stay our little girl forever? 

As my 4 yr old sat coloring in the waiting room this afternoon the mom beside me commented on her neat job of staying in the lines. 

Then we both did a double take and looked over at each other. 

Don’t mind the fact that the dress is green and should “really” be yellow… I love the fact that my girl goes against the flow and colors it how she wants… sure give Belle purple hair and a green dress.  Why not?

But, what is up with that neck line?  Seems a bit low cut don’t ya think?  I am hoping that somehow the coloring book missed a line or something.  But it sure looks to me like she was coloring it in correctly…

Never expected that from Belle… Ariel maybe, but Belle… with her nose stuck in a book… ya gotta watch those good girls I suppose!

Of the 32 years I’ve been a Steelers fan, I only had the joy of being a hometown fan for only 8 of those years (5 of which I was 5 and under so it doesn’t really count in my book).  My sophomore year of college, I moved to PA for 3 years.  I was thrilled to get to watch the Steelers on a weekly basis.  Unfortunately, this was during the Kordell Stewart, Tommy Maddox era, which wasn’t exactly the Steelers golden era of football.  I truly enjoyed watching The Bus in action each and every week.  Those were his glory days for sure!

Now, thanks to Direct TV’s NFL season ticket we get to watch our boys in black and gold every.single. week!! But, we still don’t really get that hometown feel.. especially living in the Baltimore area …When I step onto my back deck I am greeted with the icky colors of purple and black ALL OVER my neighbors yard.  

So,  we’ve begun making the trek to Latrobe, PA in August to watch the Steelers training camp at St Vincent’s College.  It’s our little taste of life as a hometown fan.  Since it is part way between my parents house and our place, we ended up finding a campground truly in the middle, making a weekend out of it and spending Saturday in Latrobe watching practice.   I always feel like Adam Sandler in “Fever Pitch” as we pack up to go and “check out the team.”  As if they needed us to scope out the new players.    This year Scott was especially excited to check out Baron Batch… a rookie RB he had read about that week who was apparently getting noticed on the practice field. 

Scott and I have now been 4 times… we’ve taken the kids 3 times… and even still, I get this rush of excitement as I look out and see the players in person.  It’s so different than on TV, they are so much bigger and it’s fun to watch them interact with each other. 

This year was especially fun b/c my oldest daughter was SO EXCITED about going.  She’s been asking all summer if we were going to go.. and since there was so much up in the air with the lock out, we honestly didn’t know if there’d even be a training camp to go to.  When we told her we were going, she packed her bag literally a week ahead of time.  She had her camera, Steelers pants, tee shirt, sweatshirt, hat, jersey, and her sign to hold up for the players, all packed into her Steelers drawstring bag.  I had to remind her to throw in a few pairs of underwear and socks too.  She couldn’t wait to see “the real Steelers players” play a game.    Yes, it warmed this Steelers lovin’ Momma’s heart! 

As we were walking back to our car I spotted Heath Miller sitting in a cart while Mike Wallace was signing autographs.  My parents had just given the youngest circus member his official Steelers jersey that morning… it was none other than 83 Heath Miller… so in true paparazzi style, I grabbed my baby and ran over to the now growing group of people surrounding his golf cart.  And then I froze.  He was literally right in front of me (just a few teenage boys begging for autographs between Heath and I) and instead of saying, “Hey Heath can you pose for a picture with my baby, he’s wearing your jersey!”  Instead, I said absolutely nothing.  As if I was waiting for Mr. Miller to look over and say, “Look, he’s wearing my jersey, want to pose for a picture?”    And so instead of getting a nice posed picture with this starting TE (who by the way is SUPER TALL in real life)… instead I stood there until the driver started the cart and then I rushed over and stuck my baby by his side while Scott snapped a picture.  Classy, huh?  I then kicked myself the whole way back for not opening my mouth and at least asking. 

Oh well… we got to see the Steelers play, we got to see 2 of them up close, and we all had a good time!!  The circus house is abuzz with talks of football season.  The first preseason game is tomorrow night against the Redskins!