My youngest daughter turns 4 this week. I often joke that she was born trying to keep up with her sister and brother. It’s true though. She is always ahead of where she should be b/c she has never wanted to be left behind. As such, whenever her birthday rolls around I don’t have that typical, “How can it have been 4 yrs already?” feeling, more often we’re like, “Really, your just now 4… seems like you’ve been 4 for awhile now.”
One thing is true… she’s growing up too fast for my liking. I have one more year left before she goes to school… and since we homeschool, going to school is thankfully only 2 days a week at the tutorial, but even still it marks a new stage of life. 
I want to be intentional with this last year… with our 2 mornings a week of time together when she is the big kid setting the pace for the household. I learned so much about my older daughter when her brother went off to school. I got to see new traits come out and her relationship with her sister truly blossomed. I am eager to see the changes that develop when the dynamics change again this year.
And I want to savor her sweet voice… I think that is what I will miss most when she grows up… the sweet sing songy voice and the cute way she mispronounces things…
I am excited to celebrate my sweet 4 year old this weekend….tomorrow we’re having a few of her close friends over to pamper them like princesses and next week Scott and I are taking her on a birthday date for dinner and a visit to Build a Bear. I can’t wait to spend that special time with just us and her!
While looking through pictures recently, I stumbled across a few which truly captured life at the circus in its essence.
Exhibit A: taken in December of 2010
Here they are working on the pine wood derby car for Cub Scouts. Notice how everyone, even the baby, is in on the action? Noticed the leotard? My girls wear leotards every.single.day…. even though gymnastics is only twice a week, I can guarantee you those leotards are on more often than that. Also, noticed my baby ripping his sisters glasses off? He still loves to go for those glasses. I love how he isn’t even looking at her, just out of the corner of his eye, he spots them and goes in for the grab…
Exhibit B: Taken in September of 2010
Here we are keeping the baby occupied. My oldest son was reading to his little brother and then his sister had to follow suit. It’s September and yet my daughter is wearing her bathing suit (even though I can pretty much guarantee you we didn’t go swimming that day) and my oldest son is wearing an astronaut suit that is WAAAAY too small for him. I believe his 3 yr old sister could fit into that more appropriately.
Exhibit C: Also taken in September of 2010
I call this one tolerating tummy time. And it really shows a lot about my son’s personality. He was not a big fan of tummy time. And even though his sisters are doing their best to entertain him… love how my 5 yr old is going to town on the baby piano for him, he really is not at all thrilled with this whole tummy time thing. But he doesn’t cry… doesn’t complain… just lays there on his belly with a look that says, “How long Mom?” “How long do I have to endure this?”
Something tells me that these pictures, not the posed group shots of them all smiling sweetly, these little glimpses of everyday life at the circus, are the ones I will treasure 20 years from now. I’ll look at them and remember this crazy stage of life when the days were loooong and the years flew by way to fast. Oh, how I love the chaos and costumes that makes up the circus life.
Ya know that feeling you get when you look at your kids and you just wanna freeze time? You don’t want them to grow up, not one bit, so you just try your best to hold on to the moments while you can.
Well, we figured out a way to freeze time here at the circus…just a little…
Our littlest crew member turned one earlier this month. Not sure how that year flew by so fast.
However, we didn’t celebrate his birthday until this past weekend. So, in a way… we froze time for a little longer. 
But, now that his scrapbook and video are both finished (circus family 1st birthday traditions), and he’s had that first bite of cake, there really is no denying it…
The Circus Baby is one.
I have a little header on my right side bar that says “One Year Ago” though it will actually list posts from this date either 1, 2, or 3 yrs ago. (Can you believe Life At The Circus is over 3 yrs old?)
Every now and then I will see blog title under One Year Ago and it will catch my eye. I think that tab alone is the motivation for me to keep blogging lately. I hit a blogging rut this spring where I wasn’t posting or commenting much. As I read these posts from the past, they provide little snippets into our life then… things I had forgotten and it encourages me to keep posting b/c I don’t want to forgot those precious snippets from today either. It’s a reminder that even if no one is reading or commenting (besides the ever faithful grandmothers and Happy) (Happy you seriously deserve the commenter of the year award… you are so faithful at commenting and your comments are often like mini blog posts themselves… they totally brighten my day and often make me laugh out loud) I am blogging to preserve a piece of this circus life for later. Because after watching this post from 3 yrs ago I remembered things I had forgotten, such as…
1. The fact that my son used to speak in a cute lil cartoon character voice too. I LOVE when he says, “focusing on the ball” I had totally forgotten that!
2. How much his Uncle Jim Army uniform is truly a part of his childhood. Seriously, that uniform is getting tucked in a box when he outgrows it. (funny thing is the very same day I clicked on this post and watched the video, he was wearing the same Army uniform while playing in the backyard with his sister)
3. The baby you hear saying dada that I am holding in my arms while videoing is me now almost 4 yr old…3 years later and here I am holding another sweet baby in my arm saying Dada
4. The baby in Scott’s arms is now our 5 yr old. (wow was that a crazy stage of life with a 4, 2, and 11mth old)
5. My son has always been very, very literal. (I am convinced this kid has a future in either law or the military… hmmm JAG perhaps?)
6. Scott still watches the US Open on Fathers Day… took me till this year to realize it is on EVERY Father’s Day. He doesn’t watch it all, but guarantee you he will turn it on at some point on Fathers Day and sit down with the kids and explain it to them. And I still couldn’t care less about golf… seriously other than perhaps tennis and Nascar… I can’t think of anything more boring to watch.
Click here and take a stroll with me down memory lane, to June 2008… I had a 4, 2 and 11 mth old. Life At The Circus was still in its honeymoon phase. Funny how much has changed and how much hasn’t.
While we’re making him wait till the end of the month to savor his first taste of cake (at his party when his grandparents can be there to ooh and aah), we couldn’t let his day go by without some sort of yummy mess.
Enter baby’s first donut for breakfast.
First, he ate each individual sprinkle off of the donut. 
Then, it was time to ditch the hat, and tack a dab at the icing… again using his fingers to scrape it clean.
Next, it was time to dig into the donut itself.
Hey Mom, do ya have any more?
No? Ok, no problem…
The circus baby says, “Hooray for donuts!”
