Wedding & Dancing

Yesterday after swim class we headed up to Fort Wayne to celebrate Mike's step sister's wedding. We'd been prepping Izzy for the wedding all week, as it'd be her first wedding and no doubt a fun time for her. Every time we mentioned Andrea's wedding, Izzy's eyes would get big and she'd say, "I'm going to be the flower girl!" You see, Izzy will be a flower girl, but not until September at Tim & Danielle's wedding. They sent her a package complete with a flower girl t-shirt and book. We've been reading her the book to prepare her for her role...but it seems that as soon as we said we're going to a wedding this weekend, she got confused. Let's just say Izzy was beyond excited about seeing a real, live flower girl at the ceremony! She wouldn't nap, as she was too excited! We left Laney with Bob & Laura, as she goes to bed around 7 and it'd be no fun (for her or for us) had we brought her.
By the time we got into the car headed to the ceremony, Izzy crashes. Nice timing, right? So we kept her in the car another 20 minutes once we got there so she could snooze. It was going to be a long night!
Izzy had to stand on her chair to get a good eye on the flower girl, Sophia.

Andrea and her dad...she made for one stunning bride!

Ceremony site was at the Rose Gardens and it, too, was quite a beautiful site!

At the reception with Daddy...look at her big blues!
Izzy was finally able to meet the flower girl...they danced the night away!
Taking a break (it was probably 10pm here...3 hours past her bedtime!)
Izzy "borrowed" the maracas from the band...
...and shook them while dancing to their music! What a fun night!!!

Marathon Training is underway...

My 18 week marathon training started this week. I've been looking forward to this for 5 years, ever since Mike ran the Chicago Marathon in 2005. Being a spectator there inspired me, but the timing just wasn't right for me. Fertility treatments were my focus, not running. So here I am, a mother to two darling girls, and training for my first full marathon.

I've had about 4 weeks *off* since the Mini Marathon in May, but have kept up running and cross training to keep my endurance up. This weekend is my first long run consisting of 8 miles. Funny, 8 miles was near the end of my 1/2 marathon training and now it's my first long run. I've been seeking out running partners everywhere I turn as I know a partner will be my greatest asset in making it through my long Saturday morning runs. Some of these runs will be out of town and therefore I will have to run alone. Like the 19 miles I'm going to have to run on the country roads of Southern Michigan during family camp in September. Now that should be interesting.

The planning that goes into the training on a daily basis is consuming my every thought: What pace will I aim for today? What route will I run today? Have I taken in enough fluids/calories to get me through today's run? Is it going to rain? Do I need a hat/sunscreen? I mean, the list goes on and on. And the planner in me LOVES every minute of it.

Since training for a marathon is nearly another full time job, other areas of my life will be receiving less of my time (read: Mike, Izzy & Delaney). Mike has already been 100% on board with me being gone for 2+ hours every Saturday morning and one evening a week. He has trained for this before and knows what goes into it. He's making sacrifices of his own time so I can do this for me. There's no way we could both be training for the same marathon at the same time. Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge the amazing husband I have that recognizes this has been a personal goal ever since I started training with him in 2005 for Chicago, only to be told by my doctor that I had to stop running if I wanted to get pregnant.

We accomplished our goal of having a family...and now it's time to reach my next goal: crossing the finish line in Chicago on 10.10.10.

I'm running 19 miles this week. At my peak training I'll be running 36 miles a week.

One mile at a time...

Swim Lessons, Man Olympics & Sisters

This is going to be a long post...and a random one, at that. Bear with me. This is just a cute picture of Laney Bug learning to walk with a push-behind toy. She's super close!

Izzy's gymnastics classes are on hold until the Fall, as we have signed her up for swim lessons at the Monon center all summer. Class was supposed to be held outdoors; however, the weather was lackluster all day Saturday. Please excuse how horribly the pictures turned out at the indoor pool:

Swimming to get toys and putting them in the basket

Diving for toys
Saturday afternoon my girlfriend Lori came over for most of the day to watch the girls while we had a Funster event. Each of the year's events are completely and totally random and this one did not disappoint. We went to the 1st Annual Man Olympics (think Beer Olympics for charity). Our team was called the Spotted Cow (Mike & Clay both have family in Janesville, Wisconsin and their fave beer is Spotted Cow).

The day's events consisted of 8 events: Relay, Yard Poker, Slime Hunt, Tug-of-War, Dodgeball, Cornhole, Trike 500, Ladder Golf, Beer Pong and Water Balloon Assault. I am not making this up. In fact, the group who hosted and created this idea are a group of physicians. Drunk physicians. Ha! Here was the trophy, which we did not win:

This was a very well-organized event:

Scoreboard

Sober Relay: consisted of doing crazy things such as smashing egg on your head, pouring beer down your britches, and chugging a beer.

Mike & Maggie had to do a wheelbarrow

In between events

Front of the house hosted the Trike race:

We were up against another team, each of us had to do two laps and in between the laps we had to chug a PBR. Nice.
Water Balloon Assault: catapulting water (& paint)-filled balloons at a human target!

Mid-day drinking the team mascot beer

Dodgeball: If you got out, in order to get back in you had to chug a beer.

We had SO much fun and are looking forward to competing again next year. I have never been a part of anything like this and must say I was a bit nervous about a full day of drinking, as I don't get out much these days. Mike and I had a blast and couldn't have done it without Lori's help with the girls and Jeremy's picking us up at night. Thanks guys!

Sunday was pretty low-key. Mike worked in the yard while the girls and I went to Jaime's house for a playdate. After naps we headed to the pool for a few hours. And tonight the girls were in rare form, snuggling and wrestling and laughing hysterically at each other. Mike and I literally just sat back and watched them have nothing short of some silly sister time. I love how close they are getting!

Jammy time fun

After Laney went to bed, I was sorting through my jewelry drawer and Izzy wanted to try everything on. She is so stinkin' cute...she always pulls up a stool and "puts on" my makeup and jewelry. Had to snap a pic of this:

Too cute!

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

Love, love, loved this weekend. Mike was busy with Indy 500 festivities while I was able to enjoy breakfast with Deanna, dinner with Jaime, hangout time with Molly AND three days at the pool with my girls. Loved every minute of it.

Saturday morning before Izzy and I left for breakfast, she snugged with daddy
Izzy is very serious about wearing her "sunnies" in the car like mommy and daddy

We met Deanna & Connor at Cafe Patachou...yum!

And then we went to the opening day of the Monon center pool to meet Jaime (Gigi), Luke & Jacob (Mike stayed home with a snoozing Laney)

Izzy carried her bucket of toys around with her all weekend. She has a touch of hoarding in her (in all honesty, it's just the age of 2.5 - sharing is tough!). Went down the slide with the bucket and everything.

Saturday night we went to the Morse's house for the annual BBQ. I'm sorry to say I didn't take ANY pictures of the adults. Just one of Laney and Christopher (Falcione). They are growing up so quickly!

I didn't take one single picture on Sunday, as Mike was at the race and I was at the pool with BOTH girls solo. Had to get my bearings on how to manage two girls; feed them, play with them, change them et al. Was a crazy busy 2 hours but so much fun. Laney actually loves the pool (Izzy, on the other hand, at this age was not a fan) so that made managing both girls easier than I anticipated.

Mike joined us on Monday to swim. He ran to the pool and met us there. He immediately took Izzy on the lazy river to cool off. I think Bug is a touch too small to bring in...so we hung out in the kiddie pool.

Laney crawls and walks (with our help) all through the water. She's very brave and loves the water.

Splashing

Playing with daddy

Funny faces

Tonight Izzy was showing us how she feeds her babies (I found a bunch of miniature bottles from the hospital and she is having so much fun with them!)

The weather was beautiful all weekend, until tonight...it started raining. Izzy was dancing around the living room singing "Rain, Rain, Go Away!" and I just couldn't pass this up:

Another photo shoot with Molly

In our house, about 90% of the photos in frames or hung on walls are taken by our best girl, Molly Connor (http://mollyconnor.blogspot.com/). She wanted to try out her new backdrop and we were up for the challenge! The girls and I packed up and ventured to Molly's and did some playing (and a lot of hanging out!) in front of the camera. Here are just a few of the shots Molly captured:

These bloomers finally fit Laney Bug! (Thanks, again, Jaim!)
So happy
Love this wrinkled up nose!

Peek! Just Iz

Thanks again, Molly, for a fun morning! Izzy loved the donuts and movie, while Delaney thanks you for letting her nap in your bathroom (I know it was random but it was dark!) before we went to the pool.

Delaney is 9 months old!!!

This little girl is 9 months old and is movin' and shakin' all over the place! Delaney is a super crawler, climber, cruiser and talker. She is on the verge of walking on her own, which completely surprises us, as Izzy didn't walk until she was 15 months old! She has also weaned herself from all bottles. The pediatrician said this is common once babies start on solids and are feeding themselves. Let's just say that Delaney has been eating table food for almost a month...she is so over wanting a bottle. She's proven to have quite the personality already by choosing to be so independent. Wonder where she gets that from?
At the pediatrician
Delaney's 9 month stats: weight 17 lbs 1 ounce (50%), height 27 1/4 inches (25-50%), head 45 cm (50-75%). The doctor is beyond thrilled with her growth and development and couldn't believe she was crawling, climbing and pulling up on everything in the room. She also was able to witness Delaney feed herself with both hands (puff in one hand and pear in the other); Laney doesn't mess around when it comes to eating...double fisted all the way!

Izzy brought her doctor kit with us so she could play along!

What's so fun about keeping this blog as my journal is that I can look back at what Izzy was doing at the same point in her infant years:

Height 28 1/4 inches long - 50-75% percentile
Head 44 1/2 cm round - 50-75% percentile
Weight 19 lb 2 oz big - 50-75% percentile

Seems as if Laney Bug is shorter, weighs less and has a BIGGER head (who knew?!) than Izzy did at 9 months. However, Izzy was only ROLLING at this age, whereas Laney is near walking. Amazing the differences in siblings!