Crazy Busy Weekend

This last weekend was such a blast, and I'm so exhausted!

I felt like we were running from one thing to the next,

but everything was so fun we couldn't leave anything out!

But first, here is a picture I took earlier this week.

I took the boys to my mom's work to have lunch with her.

Chase just adores his Nana, and he loves playing in her classroom.

 But back to the weekend- On Friday afternoon we went with Will and Katie to Baby Animal Days. Oh my it was darling! They let the kiddos pet all the darling little baby animals. Chase was pretty excited about the whole event. Here he is petting a baby chick. Will tried to get him to hold it, which true to Chase form, he held out his hands and after holding it for about one second said he was done and promptly dropped the chick. (Chase does the same thing with Hudson- we are a little more careful about lending support to his "holds" with Hudson, but luckily both Hudson and baby chicks are durable.)

 Everywhere we went Chase opted to hold Katie's hand. He loves her so much!

 Chase's favorite part of Baby Animal Days-

this tractor looking thing. Chase admired it more than once!

 He was pretty darn excited about the llamas.

My mom gave him some books about llama llama and 

they are some of his favorites- 

so you can imagine that the real deal was fairly exciting!

 And here is sweet Kate smushed in the backseat with the boys 

on our way home!

 Saturday morning we got up early to do the Hope for Hillary Fun Run. This darling little girl is Hillary Wheeler and she's almost two. Hillary was born with a severe brain malformation that makes her have uncontrollable seizures. The only hope for a cure was to split her brain- alienating the half that is causing the seizures. They did this last summer, but in March her seizures returned. Hillary is going to UCLA(the closest place that has a doctor who can even perform this intense surgery) this week for another operation that will hopefully stop the seizures for good. Even if the procedure is successful, this sweet girl still has to go through life only able to use one side of her brain, which will lead to severe physical and mental disabilities. My mom has taught two of the Wheeler's kids, and currently has their son Jacob. They are a darling family and are trying to do anything they can to help their sweet daughter. There was a 5k on Saturday to raise money for her surgery. We were honored to be part of it!

This was Chase and Hudson's first 5k (being pushed in the stroller obviously),

and I didn't learn until after that it was also Ben's first 5k! (How did he go

through 28 years of life without doing one?!)

For the purpose of full disclosure, we didn't exactly run it, since this 

was a fairly last minute decision for us

and we aren't really hard core runners,

but it was fun to just walk it as a family and support the Wheelers and sweet Hillary.

 We did it with my mom and Heidi and pretty much walked the whole thing together,

not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning!

 There were lots of kids from my mom's class there to support Jacob,

and Chase is fairly famous with them as well so they wanted a picture with him!

Jacob, Hillary's older brother, is on the left.

The whole race I kept thinking about how it was Mothers Day weekend and how blessed I am to be a mother to my sweet boys. As I buckled them into the stroller for the race and I looked at their sweet little faces I got a little teary thinking of the Wheelers having to put their almost 2 year old baby in the hands of surgeons in the coming week for a risky surgery and the health complications they will deal with for the rest of their lives. I'm so grateful for my healthy kids.

We came home from the race and got to work planting flowers in the yard. Will and Kate were there as well and it was basically a party! Chase got into as much trouble as was possible, all under the guise of "helping" (bless his heart, he really does think he's helping) and Hudson just chilled in the swing. After we had a girls lunch at Texas Roadhouse (because Will was working) to have one last lunch together before Heidi leaves on Wednesday for her internship in BOSTON! (really any excuse to go to lunch with my mom and sisters is good enough for me!) I love doing things with my family- even though it was busy and I was completely exhausted by Saturday night, it was such a blast!