Mommas and Miles

 Whew! Now that I spent a few minutes on the title, I can get into the meat of the post...and now I'm too tired to think of anything I want to say. Honestly, I read through all of these blogs that I follow and I can't seem to get those creative juices flowing! Maybe because I spent most of the day with about 60 3rd graders at the aquarium today (that post will come soon...although I'm not promising anything), or maybe it's just because I have a fear of the blank page.

With that said, I do have to acknowledge Mother's Day this past weekend. What would we do without our moms? I absolutely adore mine, she's one of my best friends and I'd spend every moment with her if I could. My heart is always with my mom on Mother's Day, so much so that I really do almost forget about the fact that I'm a mom as well. That morning I did remember that I, indeed, had birthed 3 children, and I was anxious to have a perfect "make mommy happy" day. Unfortunately, things don't always happen according to plans. Here's a little recap of my morning.

I awoke to a house full of noise on Mother's Day. The ever-present, "stop it, Tyler," from Mikayla, "they're being mean to me," from Lynnea and, "I don't want to eat that for breakfast," from Tyler started the day off right. There were just barrel-fulls of happiness that morning. I traipsed down the hallway and saw my husband feverishly cooking up a casserole for that morning's adult fellowship at church (the guys are always in charge of creating a fantastic potluck on that day) and I noticed 2 cards and a package on the table in front of me.

Eyes were large as I opened the first envelope. Mikayla whispered secrets into Will's ear which quickly turned into tears of sadness...large tears. I, of course, smiled as I said, "oh, no tears on Mother's Day!" "But I wanted to make you a card that was all my own (sob, sob)." I quickly stated that the one I had received was perfect but the crying continued. I read through the sentiments and started giggling at the photo that Will had placed inside of Lynnea holding up a sign with her infamous,"you know? I love you mommy." She used to say, "you know" in front of every sentence so it was Will's way of personalizing my card with her message. All of a sudden, there were more tears...this time from Lynnea. "I don't like that picture daddy put in the card of me!" she cried hysterically. By now, my Mother's day was turning into the day of tears!

Then I looked on the table at my present. Aerobic exercise bands...size Large. "Wow," I said to my smiling hubby,"they're big! I'm sure I can use them when I actually start to work off these extra 15 pounds I've had for a while but they may be a little hard to manage. With a smile that went from ear to ear, he pulled out my real gift, a little wrapped box that contained a Kindle. He knew that I had wanted one so he tried to fool me with a "fake" gift. So Will.

The rest of the day went well. We went to my parent's house to have dinner and I actually got a picture of my kids with me (I'm usually behind the camera).

 I also have to tell you about the time we spent serving in our church's Graceworks weekend. One or 2 Saturdays a year, our church goes out into the neighborhood and helps out with various projects, volunteering our time for a few hours. We chose to help out with a 5K for underprivileged kids, cheering them as they ran and passing out water along the route. It was so much fun to see these kids who got to experience success and a race well run!

 Mikayla chose to run the 5K with the other runners. She had never run that far in a race before and she ended up running all 3 miles in 25 minutes. That's a little over 8 minutes a mile. She was amazing and I was so proud of her.

 She did have a few side cramps along the way but she still kept that smile!

 Lynnea watched and played.

 Tyler cheered on the runners as well. He joined me in one of the track corners and gave a high 5 to everyone who passed. He was such a trooper!

 Mikayla and her friend, Megan, after the race. She was so disappointed because she came in 4th in her age group and JUST missed getting a medal. I think she's got the running bug and wants to run another one soon.