These days...

So I haven't written in a little while because I was seriously waiting for someone to comment on my last post and give me all the secrets to balancing life.

Ok, not really.

I have just been busy...balancing.

After the insaneness that is November and December and concludes with Cortlan's birthday in January, things are finally calming down.  Well, sort of.  I mean, right now, I am typing this while chaperoning an event with the Actors' Society for which I had to spend the night at the school.  Yes.  I slept on the floor of the auditorium last night with fifteen teenagers.  Well, maybe that is an exaggeration.  I slept on an air mattress on the floor of the auditorium with fifteen teenagers.  I will eventually make it home at about 11pm tonight.  (A quick shout out to my wonderful and supportive husband who is home taking care of the kids and will bring them here to visit me after their nap today.)

But just to catch upp a little bit, here is what has been going on these days:

• I got a student teacher, which is giving me a new and refreshing perspective exactly when I needed it most.
• We booked our summer vacation to the beach, which I have found is the very best thing to do when there is snow falling down outside, adding to the inches that have been on the ground for weeks now.
• I got my motivation to run back just in time for our treadmill to go out of commission.
• We are enjoying another amazing run as Steelers fans and are planning to cook the "Christmas turkey that never thawed" on Super Bowl Sunday.  (If it isn't going to be a Christmas turkey, it might as well be a Super Bowl turkey, right?) 
• Everly is growing up at a suddenly alarming rate.  She is peeing on the potty a couple of times a day, at least.  She is taking off her own clothes (something that Cortlan was always weirdly resistant to doing) and picking out the ones that she wants to wear.  She is playing with her Snap 'n Style dolls like a big girl, dressing them and undressing them, brushing their hair.  She is playing with her blocks, building towers that are totally unstructurally sound and then transforming into Ev-zilla as she knocks them down with a belly laugh.  She is playing with anything that Cortlan plays with because she adores him like no other.  And she is saying the cutest things, like, "Daddy's home!" and "Here you go, Mommy! (Hee doh, Mommy)" and "Tah-dah!!"  Oh, and she blames all her "toots" on Cortlan.

• Cortlan is finding his groove as a four-year-old.  He has moved on to the big boy sized Legos, but still enjoys building garages for his cars with the Mega Blocks in his sister's room. He posed like a GQ model at his latest photo session.  I couldn't help but to laugh as he happily moved into whatever position he was instructed and smiled a surprisingly natural smile.  He is talking "bad guys" and "good guys" and superheroes, like the boys with big brothers that are in his class.  But his favorite color is still pink.  And he said he wants to get his sister flowers for her birthday. 

Onward to February, I suppose.  Time is passing by so quickly.