27 Weeks

Baby Wolff update:
- 27 weeks and reaching the end of the 2nd trimester
- Weighs almost 2 lbs. (size of a head of cauliflower)
- Kicks a ton these days...or shall I say these evenings. This babe likes to be most active from about 8-10pm.
- Is doing some serious squats and lunges in mama's belly. Kicks are getting pretty darn strong...Jeremy enjoys seeing my entire belly move and pop.

Mom update:
- Getting a little more tired by early evening, but still feeling good overall.
- Running once or twice a week, and then doing elliptical and/or some YMCA classes on other days. It all depends on the week and how much energy is still reserved after work for bouncing around.
- Purchased and wore my first pair of maternity jeans this past weekend. On sale and LONG length...a miracle!
- Signed Jeremy and me up for our childbirth class at the hospital in late November...a Friday evening and all day Saturday session.
- Painted the baby's room on Sunday with my friend Bibs. Went soooo much faster with two of us (thank you Bibby)!

Dad update:
- Very busy with farm work in the evenings and weekends, and will be from now through the end of fall.
- Patiently waiting for the fields to dry a bit more so they can go full swing on harvest.
- Working on his fish house with any bit of free time in hopes of having in ready for this winter's ice fishing season. I'll post pics when it's done. This thing is shaping up to be pretty big.
- Started a new nickname for me..."BELLLYYYY" everytime he sees me after work or in the morning. Claims it's getting "pointier."

The Wolff pack is all doing great and staying busy until the newest member officially arrives!

26 Weeks


27 Weeks
Side note: I don't know what's going on with my hair...apparently getting a little lazy getting ready for work

So long sweet summer

It's officially fall, and I must say I'm loving this crisp weather (minus the rain we had last week). Nothing beats having windows open, enjoying the change in leaves, watching football and breaking out sweaters and boots.

With the end of summer also came the end of my garden for this year. Technically, I still have all my tomato plants in full force and am picking those, but a couple weekends ago I pulled the plug on the green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers and peppers. There were some stragglers still coming through, but not in the same quality or quantity as earlier.

Part of me was sad to see these veggies be done...after all, they had been extremely good to me this season. I can honestly say I hardly felt like vegetables were on my grocery list this summer. They were overly plentiful and did well for this first-time gardener. But the other part of me was ready to be done picking...and after pulling out these now massive plants at season-end with their prickly stems doing a number on my skin as I heave-hoed them out of the ground, it was clear that it was time to be done. Overall, a satisfying and pretty successful season!

Jeremy and I really loved to make fresh salsa (our version of pico de gallo) with the tomatoes, peppers and jalapenos from our garden, and then onions, oodles of seasonings and other random adds. Last weekend we made another batch, and I swear we devour it as soon as we make it. We'll get a few more batches made with all the tomatoes, I'm sure, but it's definitely been a summer fave.



Happy fall!

Rain Rain

Go away...

We've been getting crazy amounts of rain down here in Southern MN since Wednesday afternoon straight through until last night. It's created a lot of flooding for the area, especially around Truman and Owatonna. I've seen a lot of sitting water throughout town, but nothing too bad by our place, and our basement is just fine. Though I'm hearing plenty of horror stories from co-workers about flooded basements!

I typically love a good rainy day, especially when I can wear sweats, lay in bed and watch a movie. But this time around it's not quite as welcomed because of harvest. Jeremy, his brother and dad started combining beans on Monday when it was warm and windy, but have taken a break ever since with this rain. Hopefully it doesn't set them back too far...we don't need another long harvest like last year!

Besides some hopefully drier weather, this weekend we get to see my parents for dinner tonight, I work two events all day tomorrow and Sunday my good friend Bibs is visiting for the day/night from Green Bay. Hoping to get the nursery painted sometime in there, too! Should be a busy, but fun weekend. Happy Friday!

Twin Time

You know those friends who you could go weeks without talking to or even months without seeing, but when you do it's like you never missed a beat? I have a good few of those friends, and Allison is definitely one of them. And though we talk more often than not, we don't always get to see each other as much anymore.

We became really close friends in high school, especially when be both started working at the local DQ every summer. We hung out so much the last couple of years of high school and quickly realized how much alike we were...both about 5'9"/5'10" with freakishly long legs so we could share ALL clothes (tall girls of the world, you know this is a rarity), gangly, both good students (if I must say so myself, ha), both active (she was a swimmer, I ran track) and both valued each other's friendship immensely. During Spirit Week our senior year, on Twin Day we both dressed in Hawaiin gear. We were coined twins ever since.

Allison went to college at UMD while I went to UW-RF, and we both made frequent trips to visit each other. After college, we both lived/worked in the cities, which was all too perfect. And in May of 2009, she stood right by my side as I got married. Allison now lives in Illinois, so the 5 hours between us is the most it's ever been. Though we're just as close as our high school days.

All of this rambling about Allison brings me to this past weekend. She emailed me last week to see what I was up to for the weekend, and after my quick response of not much...?, she said she was going to come visit! Best surprise ever. So Friday through Sunday we got some quality twin time in. Loved having Allison at my place for a few days and being able to catch up in person. I'm thankful for this girl and the solid relationship we have.

And now, a little montage to my twin. And be thankful my highschool pictures are still back at my parents' place in albums, so I couldn't scan in any oldie but goodies.

RF Days in 2005

With our high school friend Sam after he ran the TC marathon


Always an honorary RF-er with the rest of my college friends

Does runs with me (though in high school when I'd make her come with, she always had a few choice words for me when I'd make her push it at the end. To her defense, if she'd try to get me to swim, I'd sink after the first lap.)

Bach Party

Wedding Day limo ride

Baby Catch Up

I'm a little behind on my belly posts. I can say I've been growing like crazy and am having some mixed feelings about the changing shape. But I know it's all part of the process and have started to embrace it now. As Jeremy says, "Anne, there's a BABY inside of you. What did you think was going to happen?" And honestly, it's a really amazing thing when I think about all that happens to make this little life come to be. We're so blessed and I'm starting to enjoy this pregnancy body while it's here. I know, I know...I'll probably be singing a different tune in a month or two when I'm double in size and waddling across ice.

Here are the last few weeks...
23 Weeks


24 Weeks


25 Weeks


We had our monthly doctor appointment yesterday, and everything is on track. I've been having some burning pain on the top right part of my stomach, which turns out to be what I figured the doc would say...growth. Because my uterus is growing and pushing up higher at this point in the pregnancy, it's causing my diaphram to be squished/pushed out. Or something like that. And there's a nerve that's connected to it that causes the burning pain when it's being pushed on. It's pretty interesting when Larr-Dogg explains everything that's going on inside. Yea for an anatomy lesson each visit...and poor Jer, ha.

Baby weighs 1lb. 10oz. and is right at about the 50th percentile for most of its measurements. Jeremy was shocked, since he thinks we're having this huge ginormous baby. Enter his alpha male syndrome. Heart looked great on the ultrasound and heartrate was 153 bpm. And Baby W's mouth was moving like crazy in an eating motion. I can tell it's my child...preparing for eating already. According to Baby Center at week 25, he/she is the size of a rutabaga (lovely) and about 13 1/2 inches. Baby's beginning to exchange its long, lean look for some baby fat. Baby is also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to tell its color and texture.

Three more weeks and we enter the third and final trimester. December 26 still feels far away, but the thought of entering the last trimester puts it into perspective.

Note to Self...

Every year at work, we have a United Way fundraising campaign with a few days of activities to raise money. This year, we did our annual chili cook-off where you can pay $5 to judge/eat the chilis, and if you make chili to enter that's your donation. So this year I braved the regulars and decided to whip up a crockpot of chili. Figured with my robust garden, this was a great way to utilize my overabundance of tomatoes and peppers, and put it to a great cause.

So last night I looked up an "award-winning" recipe via Google and doctored it to my liking. Of course, the spicier the better in my book. I was cutting up my last jalapeno from our garden to throw in when I felt a little burning on my hands. Didn't think much of it...I had been cutting onion, tomatoes, mild peppers, etc., so just figured all the juices were irritating my skin a bit. WRONG. Come time to clean up, my left hand was on fire. Suddenly nothing felt good unless I stuck my hand in cold water. This burning kept progressing...it literally felt like I had just burned my hand on the stove top and my raw skin was exposed and in serious pain. This was around 8pm and I was hoping it would go away pretty quick, since I was tired. Slightly confused and in panic mode, I went back to trusty Google and checked out "pepper burn on hands." Apparently it's pretty common, and a number of people posted home remedies. I tried a baking soda/milk paste, Dawn soap, vinegar, aloe...you name it, if I had it in the house I tried it. No relief. Whatsoever. Finally, at about midnight after making remedies and not wanting to keep Jeremy up, I laid down on the living room floor with my hand in a Tupperware of cold water next to me. Nothing else was working and this was my only relief...there was no keeping my hand in the open air for more than 30 seconds without crazy pain and I couldn't keep my mind off it. I mean, was I even going to be able to sleep tonight? Did I need to call poison control for help from these stupid peppers?

I must have dozed off finally and woke up around 3:30am (no, I didn't pee because of my hand in the water, though that would really top this experience) to a much less irritated hand. Put some aloe on it and went back to bed. That's right, about 7 hours of burning pain from some jalapeno peppers. Note to self, wear gloves when cutting hot peppers. No exceptions.

And I'm happy to report, the burning hand was worth it (well, not fully but I'm going with it). I won the chili cook-off today! Won a restaurant gift card and bragging rights among the boys at work. I'm probably not going to tell them that Jeremy's new nickname for me is "hot hands."

The chili that I sacrificed my hands and sleep for...

10K Schmen K

Well, we did it! Erin, baby and I ran the MDRA 10K in Mpls this morning. And considering neither of us did much prep for this race and weren't completely looking forward to it, we did pretty darn good if I must say so myself. Perfect weather at 8am today...sunny, crisp (but not too cool) and no wind. The course was almost completely flat and there was a good mix of runners. All around a good, fun race with a great friend.

Afterwards, Erin and I went to Butter (a delicious little cafe in uptown) where we rewarded ourselves with some breakfast, coffee and convo. And before I forget, the surprise of the day was my parents driving down to the race and cheering us on! Just before the start, I looked over and there was my mom looking into the crowd of runners for us. So surprised! My dad was on the other side ready to get pics of the start. So thoughtful of them to make the drive for a quick trip to watch us...even on my dad's birthday!


Now it's time for a relaxing rest of the evening...hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day!