race for the cure, and our first "real" family photos

my mom and i did the race for the cure this saturday, and we had SO much fun!! i've never done it before, and it was a really cool thing to be part of something so huge and for such a good cause. there were 46,000 racers! we learned that arkansas has the 4th largest 'race for the cure' in the WORLD! i think that's pretty impressive! there were so many groups of people cheering us on along the way, in so many ways! we had about 5 school bands, a few radio stations, a few dj's, TWO separate belly dancing groups, some little girls dancing, and groups of firemen and policemen cheering us on. it really was a great feeling. we were almost late, though! my dad dropped us off at about 7:55 (the race started at 8!), and we found where we were supposed to be, but we were about a half a block in front of all the 46,000 racers, and the gun went off RIGHT as we got up there, so we just had to find a spot where we wouldn't get trampled, and jumped in! we didn't stretch or anything! we started participating in a running clinic to prepare for the race, and my goal was to run the whole thing without stopping, but my knee messed up about 3 weeks before the race, so i missed quite a few sessions. unfortunately i couldn't run the whole way, and i felt bad that i slowed my mom down, but we ran for most of it! i'm so glad we did it. my dad was so nice to drive up to LR to watch violet while we did the race.

brian was in memphis this weekend for a continuing education conference, so my mom and sarah stayed the night with me friday night and i stayed with my mom on saturday night. i spent literally the WHOLE weekend with my mom, and it was great. i love her so much!! it's such a different perspective to have a child (especially a daughter) of your own... if ONLY i knew what she went through, i would've been an angel, and wouldn't have had to give so many "i'm sorry's"!!!! :) i'm so grateful that my mom lives so close and that we've become such wonderful friends. she's an AMAZING woman and i respect, admire, adore, and look up to her in sooooooo many ways... although i missed brian a lot because that was the longest he'd been away in a while, it was really nice to have a 'girls' weekend.' :) my perspective has changed so so so much since having violet, and i just want to relive my childhood and behave myself now! hahaha!

yes, violet will be THREE MONTHS OLD on friday, and i'm a professional photographer, yet we just got our first family pictures taken this past weekend. :) it's not easy to photograph yourself! i was supposed to be in memphis sunday, around the same time brian was finishing up his CE, for a family session for someone else (which didn't end up working out because her kids got the flu), but i convinced brian to stay in memphis for a while longer to get some shots. there's a park (memorial park) in memphis that i always used for photos when we lived there, so my mom came with me and we met him over there and i set the shots up and my mom took them. :) it was fun! brian was very patient. :) he had a long weekend and was ready to go home, but was nice enough to let me get at least a few pictures of all 3 of us! i strategically hid my humongous leftover-baby belly and they actually turned out alright! :) thanks, mom, for helping out so much! i love you to pieces!!!!!!!!!!!