Young Party of Four

We did it again! For my third time and Mom and Danielle's second, we tackled the Clearwater Memorial Causeway. And it was no less foreboding this time staring up to it's peak as you round the corner at about .5 miles into the Iron Girl 5k. Saturday we were supposed to go to a friend's kiddo's bday party, but unfortunately there was a time change and we were unable to make it as the time the party was changed to was the same time we had to meet Mom and Danielle in Clearwater for packet pick-up. So, since we had to go to Clearwater anyway, we figured we would go ahead and go to Honeymoon Island State Park. HI is one of our favorite beaches in all of Florida. It is gorgeous and being a state park, is not as crowded as some public beaches. We knew the weather may not cooperate with us and as we got near Tampa, we saw some serious rain clouds. Luckily, the skies cleared as we went closer to the water and when we got to the beach, it was a gorgeous day... with a crazy st...

So here's the deal... some evenings I put the kids to bed and feel like I should be nominated to win some sort of awesome mom award. Some evenings I run out of their rooms so fast it is like the rooms are on fire. I just need that moment alone so that I can take a breath and have a minute to myself (before I get called back into one room or another for another sip of water, help with covers, another bedtime song, to be told they can't sleep despite counting 100 sheep, or whatever other issue there is at the moment). Some days I feel like I can accomplish anything as a mom. Some days I do everything I can to make it through: dinner in front of the TV, going outside and praying that our neighbors come out as well so their kids can keep mine busy and give me a minute of peace, skipping bath time and promising that we will take 10 extra minutes in the morning to get one (then forgetting come the next day), fixing arguments by using the old standby "just ignore her/him"...

I just realized that it has been almost a month since our last blog. We have been so busy in the last couple of weeks, that blogging definitely took a backseat to everything else we have going on. I can't believe we are almost to Christmas. Christmas!! Eek! Ever have one of those weeks when it seems like the week was so very long and yet flew by in the blink of an eye all at once? That was this last week for us. Monday of this week seems like it was forever ago when we think about the fact that Kenzie was in school, yet when we think that my parents were in town for 5 days, it seems like they weren't here for more than a few hours. Crazy. This last week we celebrated Thanksgiving. This is always one of my favorite holidays. I like it for many reasons. One of which is the time we get to spend together as a family. Steven usually takes off for the week of Thanksgiving. We have our families over for dinner on Thanksgiving Day. My parents usually get a timeshare for the long week...