Tutus & Warmer Temps

If you've ever visited our house (or our living room-turned-playroom) you'd know we have many, many dress up items, costumes, hats, jewelry, accessories & tutus. I believe we have 6 tutus to be exact. Some nights just call for dancing (to hip hop Mick.ey Mou.se) in our tutus:

 And some nights call for snuggle time with daddy:

 The weather slowly climbed upwards into the 50's over the last few days and we tried to play outside both Friday and Saturday. Izzy loved being able to climb on her monkey bars, swing and slide once again.

 Here' is Laney telling Katie to "shhhh" her barking:

In other news, the first week of Mini Mara.thon training went well. I mean, if you call having to stop frequently on the treadmill to catch my breath a good thing. Yeah, I didn't think so either. But I still did my speed training and got all my weekly runs in. I even ran 7 miles on Saturday morning in 30 degrees. Was very different than my last long run on the Mon.on just 4 months ago, when it was in the 80's by 7am. Very nostalgic to be back out there among the early morning runners, crossing familiar mile markers and trying to get my breathing in rhythm with my mind and body. Felt gooood to be back. It had been too long (I could tell because my legs have been sore all week). Here's to hoping each week gets easier and easier!

Inspiration...

Tomorrow is the first day of my 12 week half marathon training. I haven't run since October and am dreading the discovery of how out of shape I am. I wanted a LONG break from running after my marathon. And now I've had it. And it's time to get back on the horse. Or the treadmill. Whatever. I'm actually chomping at the bit to start and am ready to get back into fighting shape. Not only am I training for the half marathon in May, but from my previous blog entry, I'm also running a 200 mile relay in June. Which means my long runs will be longer. In fact, training for the relay is almost as intense as training for a marathon. I like a good challenge, can you tell?

Anyway, I've been trying to get inspired for my training and discovered this:

 I love this motto. Short and simple: do what makes you happy. I watched an Oprah this morning about happiness and what makes us happy. The biggest takeaway was to choose experiences that make you happy, not things. Things cannot give anything back to us. However, the memories we have from the experiences in life can. To remind myself of my passion and those memories, I created an inspiration board (in my closet...now that we have kids there is little left to the house that is personal space):

 Hoping to add another few medals and bibs to this board this year: Mi.ni Marathon in May, Ra.gnar Relay in June and the Mo.nument Marathon in November (just signed up today).

I also made a shadow box with my Chicago Mar.athon bib, medal and finisher photo. Just need to keep inspired and reminded why I run...because I can. It's my passion, and I'm pretty sure I wear it.

Moose sighting & Snowman building

Friday night the entire Moosebrugger clan came over for dinner. We hadn't been together as families in way too long. It was a treat for me, as I had just spent last Friday at the pool with Meg and the boys; seeing Meg twice in 7 days!!!

 Sassy Princess

 Jude

 Mike's relay team's shirts arrived this day...so the boys had to try them on. Team name: R.I.L.F.s. Work it out.

 There aren't words for this one.

 Saturday morning we had ballet...

...and Izzy's last gymnastics class. Every last class of the session ends with a few minutes on a large bounce house. Was hard to tell Izzy's favorite teacher we wouldn't be back (for now), especially when Miss Sarah told us that Izzy was ready to move up to the next class. We'll give ballet a year, just like we gave gymnastics, then let Izzy choose which one she'd like to continue with. Regardless, we take the summers off to make time for swim lessons. (Side note: I'm in the final process of finding a summer nanny for the girls so they can spend the summer outside of the same 4 walls of God.dard. Yet another reason why those swim lessons are imporant!)

 Laney and I watched while Izzy & Mike built a snowman in the front yard:

 Aunt Carla gave the girls a snowman kit, and Izzy was able to put all the accouterments on him:

 This afternoon when Mike left for a run, Izzy decided she was going to go for a run too. She put on a cap, sweatbands on her arms (and legs) and a watch. She ran approximately 23 laps around our main floor (counting each one) and yelling out her times as she turned the corners (her times were 20, 22, etc.). She kept on saying she had to find things to put on (or take off) to make her run faster. It was hysterical. I probably should have videotaped instead of photographed, it was that funny.

Saturday night I went out with Molly & Meghan to celebrate Meggie's birthday. Had so much fun dining with friends and meeting new ones. I also spent a long time talking about marathons with some peeps and got so inspired that I signed up for another one (gasp)! More on that later. Was a fun night with friends.

Of course there were nametags! Happy 30th Meggie!

A little bit of crazy & a whole lot of fun!

It all started as one of my husband's crazy ideas. Mike said he wanted to get 12 people to run a 200-ish mile relay from Madison to Chicago. No way, I said. You can't find 12 crazies to do that. If you know Mike, you know NOT to challenge him. He rounded up a group of 12 guys in a week's time. After he registered, we were online watching all the home-made videos previous teams had put together (there are about 15 of these relays all over the country every year). One video in particular inspired me. It was a group of all women who ran this relay. That was all it took. I sent a text to my bestie with the idea and she replied with, "Duh, I'm in." Well if she would be willing to do it, others might too! I sent an email to a bunch of friends (and FB stalked many, too) asking for interest. We got excited when we had 4 people. Then 6. Then 8. The last 4 were a little harder to come by. But we DID IT. We have a group of all FEMALES to run this relay in June. Oh. My.

This is quite a well planned out race, as there are two vans of 12 people and each runner has 3 legs she will be running. The minimum total miles everyone will be doing is 12 miles (with the max at 23 miles). In 36 hours. On little sleep. There are maps. And reflective vests, headlamps and tail lights (for night running, of course). There are staggered start times (the team's pace is averaged out and the slower teams start earlier than the faster teams so as everyone to finish around the same time). There will be lots of driving. And running. And cat-napping. If you don't know your 5 other van-mates, you will soon be besties with her.

I just can't tell you how excited I am to be a part of this. And that I was able to round up 11 other women who are JUST as excited as I am. We have beginner runners to experienced marathoners on our team. I can't wait to see us all come together to complete this crazy race!

These are all pictures taken from http://www.ragnarrelay.com/  There are prizes given out for best costume, best decorated van, and best team name. 

The hand-offs are via a slap-bracelet at each checkpoint

 Team waiting for their runner

 Pretty sure we'll be wearing tutus...stay tuned for our team name!

 And we will all finish in Chicago as a team. Most likely sleep-deprived, stinky and a whole lot of crazy.

 This is a picture from last year's relay that ended in Vegas. H.O.T.

My teammates include:

Jaime (bestie)

Laura (cousin)

Amanda (cousin)

Kerri (colleague & friend)

Melissa (friend)

Karie (friend from elementary school)

Erin (friend from elementary school)

Ashley (friend of Kerri's)

Betsy (Jaime's sister)

Amy (Jaime's sister)

Ashley (Jaime's niece)

Here's to the next 17 weeks of training (some of which have us running 3 times in a 24 hour period to understand what kind of torture we're headed for!). Wish us luck...and sanity!

Hide your crayons...

Because this is what happens when Laney Bug finds a crayon or a marker. This picture was taken last month at our neighbors' house and I just came across it in my email inbox. It was too cute not to post. Now when we go over to Jill's house we have to hide Sam's art supplies so Laney won't color herself green or turn her entire mouth into a green mess. Oh, and don't you just love that my 17 month old just has peach fuzz on her head? I was bald until I was 2, says my mother. Pretty sure my lips weren't green though.

Ice, Ice baby...

Last week we had some pretty major ice storms in Indy. And then a few inches of snow on top. And then more ice. Trying to find a bag of salt in this town was an endless pursuit. Traveling to work was near impossible. Schools were cancelled almost the entire week. And the SAHMs I know where pulling their hair out. I was only home for 2 days and it was more than enough for me. I could never work from home, as I get NOTHING done with the girls around. I mean, who wants to work when a 3 year old is asking to play Barbies and my 1.5 year old is wanting to read a book every time I turn around? If I hadn't had deadlines all week, the snow days would have been welcome. Was fun being home with the girls for my birthday, but let's be real: I was ready to go back to work once the roads were clear to more than just emergency vehicles.

 The girls and Mike got me a cake and a new GPS running watch that I've had my eye on for a year. Cannot wait to try it out (just in time for Mini training next week!).

Buggy and Izzy enjoying some birthday cake

 Laney started sitting on the potty on Friday morning. She hasn't done anything on it except read. Love that SHE initiated this and we didn't!

 Friday morning we met the Moosbrugger three at the Mon.on Center to do some serious swimming. Was so much fun to see these guys...it had been about 7 months! Here's Oscar...can't believe he's such a big boy and swimming under water already. Seems like just yesterday I was his nanny and he was 6 months old!

 The princess posing in her new (to her) bikini...we've dug out all the Tynan hand-me-down swimsuits for our upcoming Florida vacation!

 Friday night I did some crafting. I have a hard time sitting idle, can you tell?

 Saturday morning we woke to about 6 more inches of snow and the roads were treacherous...but we were not going to miss ballet & gymnastics! We had to get our sillies out somehow!

 This is what we woke to Saturday morning, was nearly a white out:

 Give us snow, we'll go sledding! Our house sits on a slight incline, so Mike made a few sled runs for Izzy to go down. They were outside for an hour having fun. We couldn't believe Izzy lasted so long outside!

 Mike kept pushing Izzy down these runs and she kept running back...

 While Buggy and I watched with snacks from the front door in the comfort of the heat

 And Mike had a little fun of his own:

 Saturday evening we had dinner with the neighbors and stayed out late (10pm is late for both the adults and Iz! Bug went down there). I was overserved, which made for a very lazy Sunday spent in our jammies. Jaim & Luke came by for some playing:

And this is what a tired Laney Bug looks like after a long weekend. Here's to Spring being right around the corner!