My girls and me, 5K style

Too much tomato pasta and I dropped off blogland. Actually, tryptophan-induced gluttony has gotten the best of me as of late, but that's another post.  :)

One event my girls and I have not missed the last five years is the the nation's largest 5K for women. The first year was in 2007, with 4-year-old Amanda and a 7-month-old Abigail, and Amanda walked with me while I toted Abigail in a Bjorn. Read about our first foray here:

In 2008 - read about our second year here:

In 2009, I made the mistake of emptying out my memory card without fetching the 5K photos.  What's worse is that I never wrote down the memories.  Oh well....

In 2010, I was but 2-1/2 months postpartum when the girls and I walked again:

Again, I didn't write down the memories!

So here I am, a few months behind, making sure that blogland knows I've taken photos AND written the account down for year number five!

::2011 5K::

With three little ones and their items to keep track of, I made sure to lay out all of our uniforms the night prior.

The morning of, we were up at an ungodly hour to get going - see how dark it is still?

Here we are ready to go, all five of us (there's one nestled in my belly!):

We met up with our good friends, Julie and Brooke, and we happily bugged other 5Kers for a group photo:

Amanda sure had fun having a friend with her! Plus, I got smart (after several years of doing this) and signed up for the stroller wave, so my girls didn't have to endure looking at other ladies' backsides and legs for the opening ceremony.

Abby and Alyssa had the luxury of a stroller ride the entire time. Amanda was walking the entire thing at Abby's age!

It was a gorgeous day with no rain in sight. Julie and I had a lovely time chatting the whole way. It didn't feel like 5 kilometers at all! Even though this was Julie and Brooke's first 5K, you never would have known.

The finish line photo:

We all sat down and wolfed down our finish line breakfast!

Looking onward to next year's event!  With four kids in tow....