Mother's Day request...

Today, for Mother's Day, I didn't ask for the traditional breakfast in bed, massage, bubble bath, or flowers......No, I asked for this!

We woke up to an alarm clock this morning, and pulled three peacefully sleeping little girls out of their beds. Breakfast bars, sippy cups, and a bottle were already packed up, and we piled into the van to head to the starting line of the Kirkland 5K. Joe and I used to really enjoy running together before our 3 wonderful little girls were born. The past four years, since Clara's birth, have been an incredible journey into parenthood, but today I wanted to see if we could incorporate a little bit of what we enjoyed before the kids into our new life with them! It wasn't as easy as I remembered it.....and the actual running was probably the easiest part of the adventure. After circling forever to find a parking spot, unloading 2 jogging strollers and 3 kids, making sure the snacks were distributed, finding the special stuffed animals that absolutely had to come along, finding blankets to keep them warm, more blankets to block the sun from little eyes, going back to the car because we forgot the pacifier, we finally were headed for the starting line as the announcer was counting down the start!

We let the girls get out to run the end of the race, and they had a blast! Hannah was chanting "go Tiger, go!" to her stuffed animal tiger in her hand.

Our pace slowed considerably, as they stopped to look for ducks in the pond...

and read about the beaver habitat!

I realized that I have lost all of my previous competitive drive when it comes to running and racing, and just thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, crisp morning breeze, and the joy on the faces of my children as they ran their first race! Joe, on the other hand, did pull off a few fast moves, dodging between slower joggers or walkers with his double jogging stroller, but he had Clara cheering him on to win the race!