38 Weeks and...Resting

I officially started my five hour work days today. Ahhhhhh. It was nice to get off at 12:30 and go home and rest for a little bit before picking up Ella from day care. I hope to get a lot done now that I have the extra time. I still need to finish packing my hospital bag and wash baby clothes. I'd also like to pack away all of my maternity clothes and get them ready to re-gift or donate. But of course, on the top of my list is resting!

I had my 38 week appointment today and everything looks good. I am 2 centimeters dilated which is great news to me since I didn't dilate at all with Ella. I was actually at 2 centimeters when I checked in to the hospital last time! I'm mostly just happy that all of these contractions I have been having are actually doing something.

Because all of my vitals were good, I don't have an appointment again until March 8th (my due date). If I make it that far I will have an appointment that morning and if Peter and I choose to, we can set a date to be induced a week from that day. I, and the nurse, kind of doubt I will make it that far. But of course, you never know!
Here's hoping that my next post is introducing our new son!

Ready to Bring Him Home!

Anna and I spent last weekend getting the nursery ready for our new addition. It really didn't take as long as we thought it would and Peter and I are really pleased with the way it turned out!


Ella has figured out how to climb up the changing table and her new favorite thing to do is get her diaper changed while laying on it. I figure this is actually much easier for me to do, so I let her do it. She has wanted to get into the crib too, but I told her that only babies go in there. So now she puts her dolls in there and covers them with a blankie so they can take naps.
Now that the room is done it has given us a lot of opportunities to talk about Miles and explain to her that her baby brother will be here soon and will be sleeping in the crib and getting his diaper changed on the changing table. She seems to understand a little bit, but of course, the idea is still a little foreign to her.

Finishing his room really put me at ease, but I did start to think about all of the other things that we need to get done around the house. I really need to pack a bag for the hospital and need to get Peter to set up the pack 'n play and swing.
My baby brunch is tomorrow so I figure after that I can finish getting things organized and figure out what else needs to be done.

This past week has been really hard on me. Working a full 8 hours is getting hard and usually by 1:00 I am ready to go home. My feet and ankles started to swell this week to the point that my shoes start to feel really tight. I'm walking much slower and get tired much faster. I also started to get a sore throat and chills yesterday, but seem to be okay today.
I came home last night and pretty much didn't leave the couch. After resting for a few hours though I started to have Braxton Hicks that were really painful. I had six in about 25 minutes. Following the rules the doc told me (laying on my left side and drinking water), they subsided and I just fell asleep. I have had a few more today as well, so it's definitely something I will bring up at my appointment on Tuesday. (This is why I need to pack a hospital bag!)
I may start working half days soon to try to get some more rest as I know I will need it before labor and delivery, and of course after!

On to other news--
Blake has been working on a science project for about the last month. He decided to make cornstarch into quicksand and test if certain objects would sink and how long it would take them. It was pretty cool. The cornstarch mixture looked like liquid, but when you touched it, it felt solid. If you picked it up, it would liquify and run through your fingers! His science fair was last weekend.
Here's our mad scientist!

35 Weeks and Counting!

While I feel like this pregnancy has taken forever-it was kind of weird to type out that I am 35 weeks pregnant! But here we are!
This pregnancy has been very different than my first. It has taken much more of a toll on my mind and body. I'm sure that toting a toddler around has something to do with that, but I am surprised at how different it has been. I feel like it has been the longest 8 months, and I am much more ready to just have this baby and get my body back!!

I haven't been taking many pictures lately and I'm kind of bummed about that. Ella is such a character and wish I had more pictures to post so you could see her silliness.

She loves to take pictures with the camera. When she wants me to smile for the camera, she says, "Mom, cheese me."

She's a pretty good photographer!

We have been dealing with the terrible twos over the last few months. Ella is quite the tantrum thrower when she doesn't want to do something. The worst tantrums seem to come when we are trying to leave the house and she doesn't want to go. Or lately, it has been when we try to leave my mom's house! She is quite the fighter!

She has also taken to just completely ignoring us when we are asking her to do something. That can get pretty frustrating, and I have found that it's very hard for me to find the patience to deal with her sometimes!

I just keep telling myself it is all temporary! Soon enough I'll miss her being this little, so I just deal with the bad moments, and relish the good ones!

Everything is going well with the pregnancy. The doc says I'm on "cruise control" right now. I have been having a lot of Braxton Hicks that have been pretty uncomfortable so I did have a cervical exam to make sure that I haven't started dilating yet. Everything was fine. Of course, in a few weeks we are going to want me to start dilating!

I have been trying to be good about relaxing and staying hydrated, but it seems like the contractions start once I actually lay down to relax. Last night I was pretty uncomfortable with the pain actually radiating to my hips. I don't worry too much though because they usually stop within an hour or two.

I'll be working on getting the nursery set up this weekend so I will take pictures afterwards and post them. I will also try to get some more good pics of Ella.

Trip To the Aquarium

We headed to the Denver Aquarium last weekend and had an awesome day checking out the animals and having lunch.

Ella touching a starfish!

When I showed people this and told them it was a butterfly, Ella says, "No mom, it's a TATTOO!"


Tiger-Rooooaaarrrr!




Checkin out the Ray

Had to have her pose in front of the Rainbow Trout for my dad.

We finally got around to taking a belly shot! So here I am at 21 weeks...

In the last few weeks I have really started to feel the little guy moving around. He's pretty predictable too--moving at the same times every day. I definitely feel like I am carrying higher than I did last time--so I'm a believer in the old wives tale about carrying different if you are having a boy or girl!

Mouse Hunt Update- We think we have caught all of the mice. We have a caught a total of six! Ugh!!! It's so gross! I actually saw one earlier in the week and so I was pretty obsessed about catching that one--which we did. Since then the traps have been empty, so hopefully this means we have got them all. We are going to patch up the hole behind the stove that they were living in and I shall commence with the deep cleaning!!

Say Hello To Baby Boy Hanley!!!

Okay, so apparently I just needed really big news in order to get around to updating the blog! Not that finding out I am pregnant was not big news, but really-there's no good pics to go along with that news!
So I am 20 weeks along and feeling pretty good. I developed the same side pain that I had when I was pregnant with Ella. It picks and chooses when it hurts and there are some days where I am fine and others when I can barely stand to sit at my desk for more than three or four minutes at a time. It's really frustrating sometimes, but not much I can do about it.
Mostly though I have just found that I much more tired this time around. Of course, lots of things are different. I'm chasing a two year old around and I'm not exercising as much as I did the first time--which Peter never hesitates to remind be about!
This ultrasound was a little bit more fun than Ella's. Ella hardly moved, to the point that the tech was unable to get a picture that she needed to get. This time, the little guy wouldn't stay still and so the tech (who actually turned out to be the same lady who did Ella's (!), was having trouble getting a non-blurry shot! It was so cool though to see him moving around so much. We did get to see him kind of stretch for a second, but mostly he stayed curled up and just kind of scooted around. I have an appointment next week with my doctor (the same one I had with Ella) so we can go over the results from the photos taken.
Sadly, we have not taken any belly shots of me yet. I will do it this week though and will try to better about getting them on a regular basis so I can put them up when I update this thing. Now that I have given up on trying to upload pics from my phone it shouldn't be such a hassle.

For those of you who don't know, the raccoons eventually moved out on their own. Just like everyone told us they would. But they were there for a good three months!

The newest pests to invade out house are mice. Discovered about 2 weeks ago, the little buggers are wiley, but we have set up traps and have caught one. We are hoping that there is only one more and are strategically setting up traps in order to get it. I never thought I would be as freaked out by them as I am. I can't stand to walk around bare foot anymore and am constantly eyeing along the floorboards to see if I see anything! When Peter would let Koa out at night, sometimes he would just leave the door open and go back to sleep. This is how we think they got in. So now that he has stopped doing that, we have sealed up the dog food and tried to rid the counters of any food stuffs.
This of course has just exacerbated my nesting tendencies and I have made a list of each room in the house and listed out how I am going to go about deep cleaning each one!

So here are the pics that I had on my camera from the last few months. Or a few of them at least.

In August we travelled to Virginia for Peter's family reunion. It was a lot of fun to meet so many members of the family and to relax and take in the beautiful scenery and historic attractions. These ducks were right outside Kathy's room so we got some bread crumbs and went out to feed them.

This was after dinner one night where we saw a slideshow and learned the history of Kathy's side of the family. It was way cool. They had made a family tree with the most recent generation listed--Blake, Ella, Colin, and Ciara!

We took a trip to Busch Gardens while we were out there. They have a Sesame Street park with kiddie rides. So of course we couldn't pass up the photo ops!

Ella walked right on up to Miss Zoe! I was so proud of her. I had to call her name a couple of times to get her to turn around for this picture. She was so in awe, she just kept staring at her and trying to hold her hand. So cute!!

We have started working on potty training. While she has really only peed on the potty once for me, she does really well with Jenna (her new day care provider). Some days she will go the whole day without wetting her diaper. She will tell me all the time that she has to go potty, but then she just sits on the potty, asks for toilet paper, throws it in and says, "I'm done!" The pediatrician's nurse said that there's really no need to push it at this point. She says that at this age they want to feel like they have control over something so this is something that Ella can kind of control. I agree with her and figure she'll come around eventually. (Look at how long her hair is getting!!!)

This past weekend we went to Nick's Farmer's Market and bought pumpkins.

Then we had people over to for a carving party! Everybody except Peter carved one but Andrew did his old school with a Sharpie and a carving knife. The rest of us tackled the complicated patterns.

This is mine. For some reason none of us could get a clear picture of this one. Anyway, it's a wolf in case you can't tell!

Heather chose to one of the more difficult ones! But it was worth it--pretty awesome looking, eh?

This is Elizabeth's creepy screamer. I really like the way this one turned out.

And here is Blake's bat. He had the biggest pumpkin and one of the more difficult patterns.

We all had a lot of fun and there will for sure be a 2nd Annual Hanley Halloween Pumpkin Carving Party! Save the date!

Well, with another little one on the way there are sure to be some big changes headed our way. I will post as things come along and keep everyone updated on the Hanley Clan's newest journey!

Our New Roommate

About a month ago Koa started whining and barking at the chimney one morning. I kept yelling at her to get away and eventually I walked over to the chimney and could hear some fluttery noises inside. I figured it was birds. For the next week or so I could still hear the noises and Koa was still chomping at the bit to get to whatever was inside there.

Finally a couple of weeks ago I told Peter that we were going to have to find out what was in the chimney and get it out because Koa was on the verge of losing her mind--which in turn was putting me over the edge as well!

I refused to go anywhere near the open chimney so Peter grabbed a flashlight and stuck his head into the fireplace. At first glance he thought it was a bird. But then the furry critter turned and looked at him!

He closed the flue (after cursing!) and said, "Uh, that's a raccoon!."

I photographed the culprit a few nights ago:

She crawls up that drainpipe to get to the chimney. I can hear her come and go. She leaves around nine o'clock every night and usually comes back around four or five in the morning. The other night I heard her start to make her descent so I scrambled outside and turned on the porch light. She started back up the drainpipe. I yelled for Peter so he could come see her and then I grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots.
She is much bigger than we anticipated! And she was kind of hissing at us. It was really creepy.
We are pretty sure she has babies in there and some mornings (around the time that momma returns, the babies go crazy!) Peter and I have laid in bed and just listened some nights. It's so loud sometimes that I think they are actually IN our living room!

Why havn't we had her removed yet? Well, animal control will not come get her. You have to call a private company. It turns out that it would be no less than $300 to have her removed. That does not include removing the babies and capping the chimney.
Peter and I both hit the internet in search of tips to get rid of them and we have tried a couple of them. We have placed a radio in the fireplace and turned it up really loud during the day so that it would be uncomfortable for them while they are trying to sleep. (Peter almost died laughing because the website suggested tuning it to talk radio or hard rock! He was curious what would happen if we got the punker raccoon who actually liked hard rock. Wouldn't we then be encouraging her to stay!? hehe We also thought to just play some Rush Limbaugh for a few hours--that ought to get her out in a hurry, eh?) Along with the radio we also poured ammonia in a bowl and placed that inside the fireplace so that the fumes would also make it an uncomfortable living space. Neither of these worked.
I spoke with a woman at one of the companies and she was also fairly certain that this raccoon just nested here to have her babies and that she will soon leave on her own--and take her babies with her. She told us to give it a little bit more time and then have them come out and cap the chimney once they are gone.

While I am tired of Koa barking and whining at the fireplace, and tired of the chittering coming from the chimney at various times during the day and night, I do feel better just giving Mrs. Raccoon her own space and enough time for the babies to get bigger so that they can all leave on their own.
Hopefully this happens soon!!!

Ella Turned Two!

Without further ado...here are Ella's B-Day pics!

Got her up and dressed for her party.

Ran some errands, brought home the balloons and the cake.

Opened presents!

Andrew, Connor, Izzy, Me, Ella

Typical girl-loves phones!

Connor scoping out what to play with next!

Izzy Busy checkin' out the Sesame Street book

Her Tink costume. Had to stuff her in it that day. She's still not a huge fan of it, but I'm sure soon she will love to dress up.

All in all it was a great day. We had tons of family and friends stop by to celebrate with us and each one of them made it a very special day.

Here's some more pics:


Look how long her hair is

Looong hair!

Odd new hobby: cleaning out the lint between her toes. She can sit for quite awhile and do this.

Gotta get both feet!

Rockies game! Apparently Ella is really funny!!

Connor loves to hug. Ella...not so much.

Momma and Ella

This month has been crazy busy. It started off with Ella's birthday party and will end with a bar-b-que at my Aunt Roxanne's house for Memorial Day. We have been busy with work and trying to entertain the kids. Blake finished up baseball just in time for Peter to start softball. I have also been hunting for jobs and will going on an interview this coming Monday (wish me luck). My last day at the school is the 21st. These last few weeks have been tough not knowing what I will be doing this summer. Peter and I would like to make plans but they will depend on whether or not I am working. So hopefully in about a week I will know what's going on.

Blake will be finishing up school at the end of the month and heading to Texas at the beginning of June. I am trying to plan a day trip before he leaves. We may head down to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo since we have never been there.

The weather here has been rather disappointing. The rain and the snow is still hanging on. Hopefully it starts to clear up soon.

We are all looking forward to sunny Colorado days.