Happy Mother Runner's Day!

You know you're a running mom when every single card you get from your kids on Mother's Day mentions running.

If a kid says you're good, you're good. Right? This is coming from the same kid who when I tell her I won first place, she asks follow-up questions like, "How many people were at the race?" And, "Does that include the boys?" She doesn't hand out a "so good" every time she turns around, so it's kind of special.

I'm pretty positive my son was hungry when he filled this survey out. Not only am I best at running, but I'm as pretty as cake. Last year, according to his Mother's Day survey, I was as pretty as hot lava, so I'm not sure if I'm being demoted or promoted.

My son provided one more runner mention on another page of his card. R is for runner, but also O is for overwhelmed. I would love to be a fly on the wall of his brain as he wrote this. 

Anybody who goes to the store for the sole purpose of buying this much toilet paper is guaranteed to feel overwhelmed sometimes. Just cleaning the toilets after three boys with questionable aim is a full-time job. 

But this weekend the boys (not so much my daughter) have their grandparents' farm in KY as their urinal, so I'm catching a little bit of a break. Although today we did have one pants crapping incident (from trying to just squat in a field and go) and one peeing on the porch incident. I guess when they go wild for so many hours, they start to forget that peeing in the bushes is not the same as peeing on the front porch. Not the same at all. 

Tucking shirts into unders like it's their job.

Next step in this photo series, flick dirt at the photographer with your stick.

We were lucky today that we didn't get any rain (even though the clouds threatened overhead all day) so that we could take full advantage of outside play. Plus we got to do a fun farm chore or two, like collecting eggs. 

But the main purpose of our visit was to spend time with Grandma Skeeter (not her real name, but a childhood nickname that stuck). These kids really are the luckiest to have a grandma like Skeeter, who loves them so much that she will spend hours making origami animals (or whatever else they are interested in at the moment) with them just because. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Men are what their mothers made them," and I have Skeeter to thank for my husband, who works so hard every day and gives his best to his family -- just like his mom. 

Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there who are moms or stand in as moms when a kid needs you!

And even though my own mother will never read this because she is not on the interwebs, I thank her for all the love she gave me as a kid. Because of her confidence in me, I always felt I was capable of doing anything, and that was a priceless gift for a really shy kid.