Little Girls.

The girls are so close. They're best friends, despite how much they love to annoy each other. They'll be bugging each other, but once they look at each other, they just start cracking up. When one laughs, the other joins in and then the laughter just explodes and seems endless. It's my little piece of heaven.

They drive each other crazy, they drive me crazy, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love how immediately after they get their Sunday dresses on for church, they both twirl around the front room and spin until they fall down.

Lately I've been especially grateful to be a mom. And even more blessed that I get to be Claire and Aoife's mom. Maybe it's because Claire's been singing along to every song on the country station and Taylor Swift and Luke Bryan are a couple of her favorites. Or maybe it's when Aoife comes around the corner with her big blue eyes and devilish grin and simply says, "Hi.". I love watching her tot around the house usually with a giant stuffed dog under her arm. I love the sound of cackling little girls in the morning.

But most of all I'm grateful for the lessons Claire's been teaching Ross and me. Here are some of her recent quotes:

I look so cute today, Mom.
I can run so fast.
I'm so good at basketball.
I'm magical.
I did a good job.
I'm so smart. 
I'm so cute.
I'm a sweet girl.
Aoife loves me.
I can do it.
I painted that and I did a good job.
I'm so strong.

We were sitting down to dinner when Ross said something about how he wished he had Claire's confidence. And I do, too. How much better would my day be if I could say just one of things Claire does about myself and believe it 100%? She's always commenting about how great she is at something, or what a good job she did at whatever. And I love it. I love that she knows she's cute and sweet and smart and that she knows who she is. It's everything I could want for her and a good reminder that I'm doing completely failing as a mother.

I love these blonde critters and I'm excited we get to add another. I'm really luckily to have these little crazies in my life.

Is It Fall Yet?

We went second hand shopping yesterday. I scored a pair of boots, a sweatshirt, cardigan, 3 cute maternity shirts, a skirt, two pairs of shoes for Aoife (have I mentioned how much she loves shoes?), and an adorable pair of rain boots for Claire that will forever be plastered on her feet. She's in love with them. All for the grand total of $35.

I think I just found a dangerously addicting hobby. The last couple weeks have been cooler and I got tricked into getting excited for fall. I've been thinking about how I want to decorate, my cute new boots, apples and pumpkins, and the leaves changing, scarves, hats, sweaters, everything. I love fall. Or maybe just fall fashion. Either way I'm excited. It's my favorite season. While Mama Loveland was here I broke out all of the girls' warmer clothes. They have some cute outfits I'm excited for them to wear!

Unfortunately the weather realized it's still August and the temperature is back in the high 80s.

So when is it socially acceptable to break out all of my autumn decor?

This is our first fall in Wisconsin. I love the trees, and there are tons of them. I'm itching to watch them change and find all of the fun harvesty things to explore here. We were beyond spoiled with Thanksgiving Point in Utah. I'm really, really going to miss it. Last year we had a season pass so the girls and I spent almost every single week up at the farm playing. I really hope we can find something similar so we can keep up our anniversary tradition.

Speaking of, has it really been almost 4 years? Everyone give Ross a pinch and tell him how amazing he is at handling my crazy.

12 days till September. Maybe I'll find some homey fall crafts to keep me busy till then and then we'll decorate. Here's what I've found.

Rugged Maniac- Chicago/Milwaukee 2013

It's been a little over a week since my race, and the race photos came out a few days ago, so I guess it's time to tell y'all about it.

I ran the Chicago/Milwaukee Rugged Maniac. It's a 5K obstacle race, with something like 25 obstacles. I figured it was only a 5k, and with that many obstacles, I wouldn't be running very long stretches, so I didn't start training until a couple weeks before. With CrossFit, I wasn't doing a ton of running. Some workouts would have you do a few rounds of 400-800 m run with different lifts in the rounds, too.

I was surprised that I could run at a faster pace. I was doing between a 7:15-8 minute mile, and some of my splits I'd do at a 6 minute mile. I couldn't hang onto that more than a quarter mile, but I felt like Dash from the Incredibles doing it. It was fun. I forgot how fun running is. 

Ross and I are running a race in September with a couple friends, so I was really saving the major training for that.

The night before I got some snacks for the drive and for my volunteer shift. (If you volunteer, you get to race for free!) I didn't sleep very well the night before. I'm not sure if I was anxious or excited or what, but when 4:00 rolled around, it would have been all to easy to shut my eyes and fall back asleep. Gratefully, Ross is my biggest cheerleader and told me to go have fun and good luck and that I could do it. (meaning I could get up, not actually do the race.)

Once I grabbed my clothes I was awake and good to go. I loaded up the car with all of my gear and started the 2 hour drive to Wilmot. Shockingly, no gas stations are open that early so I had to wait to get my massive Diet Coke. On the plus side, there were hardly any commercials on the radio and all of my favorite songs were on. And middle of no where Wisconsin has the prettiest sunrises over the corn fields.

We got the course map with the official obstacles emailed to us before the race, so I knew the first obstacle was an uphill run. What I didn't know was that the race was at Wilmot Mountain. Being from Utah, "mountains" here are more like hills. Well, this was indeed an actual mountain with ski lifts. And the entire race was up and down the mountain a thousand times all around the stupid thing.

Volunteers got a super comfy T, which is currently my favorite shirt, to wear during the shift. We were split in half; people to work on the course, and people to work in registration. The majority of volunteers wanted to work on the course, so I volunteered to work in registration. We were so busy, the time went by incredibly fast. The check-in tent was at the bottom of the largest hill, so we got to watch those poor people walk/crawl/climb up the hill. We were told how tough it was.

After the shift we got to race in whichever wave we wanted. We got ourselves another free T shirt, too! I went to the car to change and drop off my gear, got a snack, and called my sister who was on her way to Finland for her student exchange. After our chat I headed to the finish line.

I was definitely not prepared for the mountain. I ended up walking with my comrades up the hills, but ran on the straight and downhill parts. The obstacles were really, really fun. I'm looking forward to doing more obstacle races next year. I was wearing my 'baby on board' shirt and got a lot of "Wait, you're doing this PREGNANT?! huffs from fellow racers and a lot of "You go pregnant girl!" While doing the obstacles. I skipped two, out of this babe's safety: the balance beam over a pit, and the 12 foot wall with only two very small holds that we were supposed to climb over.

My favorites were all crammed in the last mile or so. The fastest water slide I've ever been on: You shoot down this tarp into a muddy pool. You're going so fast, you skim the water for a few feet before you topple over and get mud up your nose and in your mouth. Climbing up tunnels, jumping over fire, tunnel slides, cargo/wall climbs, it was all fun. The fire jumps were at the end and my legs were so tired, I was nervous. They had firemen on site manning the obstacle and I asked them, "so you just jump over it, right?" I'm sure I looked like an idiot and they told me I could jump, back-flip, cartwheel, what ever I wanted over it. I just jumped. But in the photos, I look like a dancing fairy.

The last few obstacles are in tar-like mud. You come out black and you don't even recognize yourself. They had showers at the end with a hose, but the lines were so long. I brought along a gallon of water, towel, and sponge to wash myself off in the parking lot. I probably should have brought along 5 gallons of water.

I changed into clean clothes, but the rest of me was still dirty. I'm pretty sure everyone at Ikea thought I was homeless and I half expected someone to buy my meatball meal for me. Ross was sweet enough to wash my shoes in the tub for me, and run them through the washer. Twice. And they're still dirty.

And now for pictures. I'll even throw in the awkward ones. Next time I'll try to look more awesome jumping over fire.

Mama Loveland Came to Visit.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Mama Loveland came into town two weeks ago. Her timing couldn't have been better, and we loved having her here. We were spoiled rotten in Utah, being so close to family, that it's been pretty lonely here in Wisconsin. It was such a treat to have her come and stay with us and it went by all too quickly.

We crammed that week full of exploring that I can't even remember some of what we did!

Thursday we visited the Arboretum. Claire didn't love the mosquitoes, but it was really nice to get outside. We also went to Animart where the girls loved playing with the cats and dogs.

 Ross took a couple days off of work and got to enjoy a long weekend home. We ventured up to Old World Wisconsin. It's been something on our to-do list for a few months now. It was neat and the girls enjoyed seeing all of the animals. Claire loved helping with the chores. Unfortunately, the tiniest Miss decided to act up and I spent most of the time looking for the nearest trashcan to vomit in. Most of the houses had the stoves on and the heat and smells didn't sit too well with me. But I still got to listen from outside the buildings and the tram that took us from village to village was the most relieving break.

That night we got to go on a date! We tried out Hu Hot, a Mongolian BBQ place (Seriously, every pregnant women's DREAM!) All you can eat with whatever flavor you're craving. It was delicious. I could eat it all day every day. Then we played a round of mini-golf. It was a blast.

Saturday I got up at 4 AM for my race. I'll post about that later. It was so fun! I also got to go to Ikea to get the girls bunk beds.  Aoife is still in her crib because she's a climbing, walking, destructive terror. We tried her on the bottom bunk one night while Claire was on the top. Aoife could get down and play, and Clarie was pretty upset that she couldn't get down to play, too. It just works best for everyone that Aoife stays in her crib for a while longer. Claire picked out some Rapunzel bedding and loves sleeping  on "the big bed". She's done so well up there. It's amazing how big she is!While I was out, everyone else went to the zoo.

I had my 16ish week appointment last week, too and actually met the doctor who will most likely be delivering this baby. He was very quick and to the point, but never once questioned me about having three babies so close together. In fact, he has three, almost four kids spaced about the same. I think I like him, but he doesn't like weight lifting of any kind during pregnancy. After consulting with Ross and looking back on all of my research, I decided to politely take the grain of salt and continue doing what I've been doing. We'll see how my body starts feeling the further I get.

The last few days with Mama Loveland, we took her on the ferry, to our favorite beach, the beauty store, downtown, the girls went for wonderful walks with her, and watched lots of Elmo and played Candy Land.  Oh and lots of trips to Sonic. It wouldn't be an Anma visit without trips to Sonic. The 8 days with Ross' mom went  by way too fast. We had so much fun and she spoiled us ROTTEN. The drive home from the airport was the worst, and I was proud of myself for not bawling the whole way home. For the next couple days, Claire would wake up and immediately run around the house looking for Anma. It was really sweet. We can't thank her enough for visiting!

Ross and Aoife will be visiting Portland in November for a few days for his sister's missionary farewell. Claire and I will be having a pity party.

I Have A Race on Saturday and An Announcement to Make.

I signed up for my first obstacle race. It's on Saturday. It's kind of far away and I have to leave here at 4:30 in the morning. I'll be volunteering for the first few hours and then I'll run it in the afternoon. I've never done an obstacle race before, and if you volunteer you race for free. So I figured free race, community service, and I'll get to watch people do it to get the hang of it. It'll be fun. I'm excited. And it's only 36 miles away from Ikea, so I'll have to make a little detour on my way home. 

I'm so excited about this race, I decided to get a cool shirt to race in, and it came today!

Now I'll have a visual excuse for passing up the "jumping from post to post and hoping you don't slip and fall off because of all of the mud obstacle."

Yup, this is an announcement. We found out back in April that we were going to be a family of FIVE come early January! For some reason I got this really great idea that it would be fun to keep it a secret until I really started to look bigger. I'm officially out of my regular jeans so I guess it's time. Which is perfect because Mama Loveland came into town yesterday morning. What could be a better 'Welcome to Wisconsin' present?

The coolest and most fun pregnancy test I've ever taken. Love the digital ones!

And it's a really really big deal because I am the WORST at keeping surprises a surprise. We celebrate birthdays and holidays a month early in the Loveland household. 

 It's been an ....interesting experience so far. I absolutely loved the midwives that delivered the girls in Utah, loved the hospital, loved everything about it. I had such a great experience, I'm worried everything from here on out would just be disappointing. They set the bar HIGH.

So we found out in April. I called our insurance to get the info on how to get the ball rolling. For the last few months, every time I call the first question I get is if I would like to continue the pregnancy. I was shocked, appalled, and to be honest, really sad. It was irritating talking to people who thought they were delivering the worst news in the world that I was pregnant, when really we couldn't have been more thrilled. We aren't in Utah County anymore, that's for sure!

First I met with an OB coordinator who did all of the initial blood work and set me up with a Dr. She wasn't sure if I would need to see a high risk specialist or not, so I chose to see a family practice doctor until he thought a specialist would be better. Our insurance doesn't have midwives in the network, so it seemed like family practice would be the closest to the experience I had before.

The problem is, he books so quickly, so I haven't even met the man yet. My last appointment I saw another doctor who just took care of the general things that happen at prenatal appointments. She thought I was hilarious. I liked her. That was at my 12 week appointment, which was really at 14 weeks because the schedule was so full.

That appointment was actually a little scary. We couldn't find a heartbeat. I can't even tell you how long I laid on the exam table. I was immediately sent off to an office across town for an ultrasound to make sure everything was alright. Gratefully, it showed up on the ultrasound right away going strong. She's situated close to my back, which makes my back hurt like the dickens some days.

This is been my favorite pregnancy so far. Sometimes I forget I'm pregnant and just feel heavier. The sickness kicked in pretty early, but usually only in the mornings. The downside was, it started the second I kind of sort of started to wake up. Like a ton of bricks. The hardcore nausea medicine doctors usually prescribe works only sometimes, but Diet Coke has been my life saver. And I'm not even embarrassed to pop the can open at 7 AM.

The sickness has died down mostly. I'm not throwing up every morning anymore, and I'm generally feeling great after a few sips of soda. And as long as I remember to eat often during the day, I'm good to go!

No lasting cravings, though I did have a week long relationship with Chipotle earlier on. That was wonderful.

Ross' mom came in on Weds morning, and I scheduled a gender ultrasound at Stork Vision for the day before, so we could surprise her with that info as well.

Our little Loveland clan met up at the office Tuesday afternoon. It was really cute and they had it set up like a home theater room with a couple big screen TVs and a toy table in the middle for kids. The girls loved that. You could tell the gal really loves what she does. She was having so much fun showing us the little bean and even threw in some 3D pictures for us, too. Claire loved it and kept talking about the 'grey and orange baby'. (Grey for the 2D and orange for when she saw the 3D images.)

So here's the big news... Poor Ross is completely outnumbered! Even though it's our third, I was so excited and thought about all of the pink frilly things, headbands and bows, dresses, and shoes.

She was incredibly active and wouldn't hold still very long to get great 3D pictures. She loves to roll and turn, play with her toes, and always has her hands up by her face. She's a busy little thing.

(And just for the record, I was right! I guessed girl!)

I called my mom later that day to break the news. I told her that we were adding to our girl collection. She was silent for 6 seconds. (I counted.) And then she laughed and was excited.

I took the girls to Carter's after to pick out some sister shirts and a new outfit for the newest miss. The plan was to give Ross' mom a present with the little outfit to break the news. I ended up finding this one, and it was perfect.

Matching shits for the big sisters.

The 'Welcome to Wisconsin' present all wrapped up!

The ultrasound tech even printed a profile picture with "Hi Grandma!" as the caption. We gave Anma her present in the car. When we got back, we Skyped with the rest of the family back home in Oregon. Grandma helped Claire and Aoife tell the Aunts and Uncles one by one.

Honestly, it felt really weird telling people, I was pretty impressed with my secret keeping abilities. But I guess it's time to own up to my growing belly. We're absolutely thrilled to be adding another gal to the family. Ross was beyond excited to be adding another adorer. We're making the world a more beautiful place with blonde lasses.

I'm still doing CrossFit. When I met with the OB coordinator, she said I shouldn't be lifting more than 10 lbs. I laughed. At the 12 week appointment, I asked how that doctor felt about lifting weights. She asked how much I was lifting and I told her I could deadlift 135 all day long. She choked a little and said the recommended weight was 25 pounds.

We had a great chat. I've really done my research. I found this article and LOVED it. I highly recommend reading it. I searched for studies about high intensity training and pregnancy and couldn't find anything. I asked the doctor about it and she didn't know of any either. A lot of women give up their fitness routine during pregnancy, or seriously scale it down, so there just isn't a ton of information on it out there. (PS. if you know of any, send them my way!)

I've decided to continue my routine. I scale the workouts when there's an exercise I can't do. Like doing pike pushups, or kipping handstand push ups instead of hand-stand pushups. I take set breaks when I have a high rep/high weight lift, but I get them done. She was okay with that plan and would pass along the info and ask my doctor about it as well. She emailed me back and said we were good to go!

I have an appointment with my actual doctor on Monday and we'll chat more about it, but so far it's been wonderful. This is the best I've felt in any pregnancy.

My actual due date keeps changing, so I'm between 17-18 weeks along, not quite halfway. (Though about halfway for how early these babes normally come!) She should be arriving in early January.

The first u/s. Around 10 weeks.

The 3D ones were had to make out, and she's so tiny and pretty skeletal, but her face with her arm in front of it.

I loved how well you could see her hand and cute tiny fingers. She loved having her mouth open.

Sucking her thumb, playing with her hands.

Alien-like, but her her arm and hands and ribs.

Check out that belly button!

The classic profile shot.

And again, those little fingers covering her face.

I love her already and can't wait to kiss that nose!