Mother's Day Weekend

The main event of the weekend was the Race for the Cure 5k, WHICH I RAN IN ITS ENTIRETY.

 Holly and myself, post-race. 

 But let's start at the beginning.  Friday afternoon Clyde and Will headed over to Grandma Pam's for a sleepover, which both my mom and I considered a special gift.  The next morning Chuck and Jack and I piled in the minivan and picked up Creed, Holly, and baby Ella.

 The boys served as driver and navigator, the babies were darling in the middle row, and Holly and I attempted to calm our pre-race nerves in the very back.  It didn't really work.

 We parked a ways away from the starting line and walked there instead of trying to wrangle two strollers onto the shuttle.  I asked Chuck to take this picture of us marching towards our destiny... poetic, right?

Here we are laughing at Chuck and Creed, who complained the ENTIRE walk to the starting line, which was maybe a mile.  Especially helpful were their comments along the line of "Oh my gosh, you're going to run this whole way?  Oh, further??  Man, I thought you were overreacting but I now I totally get why you're so nervous!"

But eventually we made it.  Here we are next to the motorcycle group that leads the race.

And then we were off! Much thanks to the Statesman for getting this picture of me - Holly is on my right side behind the lady in blue.

While Holly and I running (Holly gracefully, me not so much) the boys made the acquaintance of McGruff the Crime Dog and got pictures of the babies with him.

 And then we finished the 5k, yaaay!  Holly was a superstar and did it in 28:25.  I opted to cut it a little closer to our goal of under 30 minutes and finished in 29:15.  Here's Holly crossing the finish line, courtesy of the Statesman.

Lookin' goooood after all that runnin'! [Sidenote: feel free to speculate on where Holly's other hand is. I know I was surprised...]

My awesome half of our cheering section!  I loved that Chuck and Jack were there to support me.

Our running buddy Tami ran with her husband but we met up afterwards for a photo op :).

Haha, so beforehand we saw Carolyn Holly and she said hi to us and I'm not gonna lie, it made me feel pretty special.  So when we saw her afterwards and she said hi again, I took it as a pretty clear sign that we needed to get a picture with her.

After the race we decided to cancel out any health benefit of running with some delicious French toast. So, so good. And as an unexpected bonus, the restaurant was having a Mother's Day special so Holly and I both ate for free, yay!

 And all too soon it was time to pile back in the van and head home. I love how the babies both crashed - you know, because being pushed around in a stroller all morning is pretty exhausting :).

I managed to get a quick nap in before Grandma Pam returned the little boys and it was time for Clyde's soccer game.

Here I am coaching my little kiddos. Do you see my gesturing? That's me saying, "Run! Run! Go!"  My coaching skills are pretty legit.  But I guess they're legit enough because Clyde scored a goal this game, wahoo!

Here he is memorializing that goal by holding up one little finger.  Interesting tidbit about this picture: it was taken about three seconds after a wasp stung me on my foot.  I said a very, very bad word, snapped the picture and then hobbled inside to be cared for by Chuck.  Turns out wasp stings are pretty serious business, I iced the spot and cortizone-d the heck out of it and it still was SO flipping, painfully itchy for like three days.  And even now the whole area remains a lovely reddish/purple-ish hue. 

Saturday night Jack and I headed out to a graduation party for my cute cousin Kellie.

Here's my dad with his brother Randy; they're just thirteen months apart, bless my Grandma!

It was really fun to see my cousins and aunt and uncle and catch up. We had a hard time deciding who was more popular with all of Kellie's friends - my grandpa or Jack!

I love this shot of my dad with baby Jack.  And I love that I was eating my hamburger uninterruptedly at this point :).

And then Sunday, of course, was Mother's Day.

Lovely handmade gifts from Clyde and Will, courtesy of play school and preschool! 

Jack dressed himself.  Well, that's a lie, but I'm pretty sure this is what he wanted to wear.

I sure do love being a mom.  And unless you measure parenting prowess on the ability to get your kids to look at a camera and smile on cue, I think I'm a pretty good one!

Speaking of pretty good moms (aka amazing ones!!) here's MY mom!  We went over to Grandma Pam's after church for some yummy dinner and a couple rounds of Monopoly Deal.  Which I won.

This made me laugh so hard - my mom has a picture of each of her grandchildren in silver frames on a bookcase in the hallway.  Will was so hilarious as he carefully carried them around and lined them up and (accurately!) recited who was who.

Chuck and I sure love our moms, especially now that we're parents and we understand how much dang work and worry and and tears and prayer and such goes into raising kids! Thanks so much Pam and Terri!!