A new year

Wow, another year has passed. Sorry it has taken a while to post. We had a really nice Christmas this year. The celebrations started with a big dinner on Christmas eve with some of our closest friends here in Sicily. Everyone was dressed in their pajamas and ready for Santa! We had a great dinner and afterwards we exchanged our Secret Santa gifts. Sometimes it doesn't feel like Christmas over here because we are so far from home and family. But this year it actually felt a little more like Christmas here. We have made such great friends here and it's a little bitter sweet that this is our last big holiday together before everyone starts to move away. Thankfully most of us our all moving to the same area or close enough to drive to visit.

Only 5.5 weeks left until Baby Hanlon comes! We are getting pretty excited. We finally recieved our car seat in the mail this week. We pretty much have everything that we have to have ready. I'm still packing my hospital bag and trying to get everything ready for him to come home. Thankfully we are not doing a nursery here in Sicily since we are moving soon, so I am not obsessing over that! Our last doctor appointment was on Dec 24 and everything went well. His heartbeat was right where it should be. Our next appointment is in two weeks and we will go over the birth plan. Time is flying by! It doesn't seem like it has been that long ago when we found out that we were pregnant.

I never thought I would be one to say that I'm ready to have the baby. But honestly I am. I'm ready to meet this little guy who has taken over my body. My pregnancy has been a great one. I haven't had any problems other than a little morning sickness or nausea here and there at the beginning. I've stayed pretty active throughout my whole pregnancy, which has probably helped out a lot. It took me a little bit to get used to his movements. Sometimes it still feels weird when he moves around like a little fish in my tummy. It's hard to imagine that a little human is living and growing inside me. It doesn't seem real...but I am always reminded of my ever growing "beer gut" or as Aaron calls it, my "keg". My stomach actually hasn't gotten that big, or at least not as big as I was thinking I would be. But I am sure it's coming in the next few weeks.

Growing belly

Here are some pics of the growing belly. It's getting pretty big!

16 weeks

18 weeks

20 weeks

22 weeks

24 weeks

28 weeks

28 weeks

Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving this year! We hosted it at our place for the first time. It was a potluck dinner, and everyone brought a lot of yummy dishes. We ended up with about 20 people in our tiny townhome. We all somehow fit inside and everyone had a place to sit.


We had a fried turkey and it was very good! I'm not a huge turkey fan becaues it usually always ends up being so dry. But after having my first taste of a fried turkey, I'm not sure if I would want a regular turkey again. This was soo moist! We had such a variety of food. We had a fried turkey, ham, duck w/orange glaze, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potato souffle, stuffed pasta (not sure of the exact name, but very good), veggie tray, cheesy crab dip, fried meatballs, and of course dinner rolls. I think that's it, but I'm probably leaving off something. We also had tons of desserts!


Here are some pics from the day... The others are posted on webshots.


How many men does it take to carve a turkey???

Derik cutting the ham

Half of the crowd chowing down on the good food

Aaron and I on Thanksgiving - Say no to maternity shirts!! They make you look like a cow! haha

And of course our babies - Georgia & Smokey!




We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Only 11 weeks left!

It's hard to believe that we only have 11 weeks until this new little guy will be here. It doesn't seem that far away. So far eveything is going great with the pregnancy. I haven't had too many cravings and haven't wanted anything odd like pickles and ice cream. But my sweet tooth has increased a lot!

For those of you who didn't know, I took a trip home to Atlanta in late Oct and stayed for 3 weeks. My mom had a baby shower for me and we got a lot of really cute gifts. It was a great time! I got to see my family and friends, and of course eat some American food! Here are just a few pictures from the shower.

When I got back to Sicily, one of my good friends here also hosted a shower for me here. We also had a Men's "Beer & Diaper" party for Aaron and all the guys. I didn't want them to feel left out. Everything turned out really great. The guys were all at our house drinking beer, watching football, and playing the PS3. Our house was transformed into a Man Pit for a nite. Aaron had put up a projection screne to play the PS3 on in the living room, had football on the tv, and then added another tv into our dining room. The women were next door doing the traditional baby shower things. It was a really great time. Here are some pics from the baby shower...

Baby Hanlon

Here are the ultrasound pictures of Baby Hanlon. As you can see, he was proud to show off that he was a boy. We didn't get many pictures of his face. We are extremely happy it's a boy!!

Finally choose the bedding

After doing a lot of searching, I have finally found a baby bedding set that I really liked. I didn't really like any of the "baby" themed sets that I kept seeing and I also didn't like anything too modern. This set is perfect! It's exactly the colors I was looking for and it's perfect for our little country boy. My mom is amazing and purchased this for us! We love my mom!

Incase you wanted to see us...

We still upload most of our pictures onto Webshots. We haven't finished uploading all of the pics from our last trip home in May or the pictures from our trip to Rome. The website was pretty slow the last time we were trying to upload. We are looking to find another website to share our photos with you all, but something that is quicker. But for now, enjoy the pictures that we have on there :)

http://community.webshots.com/user/Hanlonam?vhost=community

We are back!

It's been a while since we have posted a blog. What can I say, we are slackers. :) But with the upcoming new arrival of our little guy, this is the best way to keep everyone updated. As many of you know, our little one is due on February 15, 2009. We are pretty excited to welcome him to our family. We both really wanted a boy, and were ecstatic to find out that's what we got. Time is flying by, and he will be here before we know it!

We have a name somewhat picked out, but nothing is confirmed yet. As soon as we decide, we will let everyone know!

Keep checking our blog for some new pics :-)