Thanksgiving and giving thanks

Here's a belly picture, taken by Aaron. Julie is 17 1/2 weeks here. She's almost 20 weeks now, so it's a little bit old. The belly is continuing to get bigger and since Thanksgiving time, Julie has been able to feel soft kicks and not so soft kicks, more and more often. She's very grateful for them, because they help her feel like everything is okay in there.

For Thanksgiving the small Denney family went up to Kalispell to spend the holiday with the bigger Denney family. All of Aaron's brothers were there, along with Grandmas, nieces and nephews. It was a great visit. Joseph is getting more and more familiar with Aaron's family and misses them more and more whenever we leave.

And in exciting Denney family news, Aaron's brother Tim and his wife Anna are expecting their second baby! Anna is due in June (We're pretty sure). Abram will be about 18 months old when the new arrival comes. We're so happy for them!

In the name of being thankful, Julie came up with a cute game to play with Joseph to help focus on Thanksgiving, and being thankful. We all sat on the floor and rolled a ball between us. Whoever gets the ball says something they're thankful for, then passes it to the next person who says one thing they're thankful for. Joseph just loves this game! We don't think he really understands what it means, but he gets really creative and asks to play it often. In the hope of having a Thanksgiving decoration, Julie adjusted the game. We played it again, and wrote down all of the things we were thankful for. Then we made paper chains and had a great big chain of "Thankful Things" to hang on our wall. It was really fun and we'll definitely play again next year.

Joseph is also learning bits and pieces about Christmas and getting more and more excited for that. We tell him we'll be sharing Christmas with his other Grandma, and other cousins. He understands it a little bit. He is definitely excited. Saturday evening we all decorated the apartment with our Christmas decorations. We only have a small collection, but we like them. We got a small 3 foot artificial tree to hang our ornaments on, with lights and garlands. It looks beautiful! Joseph enjoys the lights too.

We are looking forward to our Christmas holiday in California. Julie is finishing up her class, as promised, to earn this vacation. She finished her last two essays, and now has one day of reading, and then studying for the final exam! Her final is scheduled for December 8th (her mom's birthday). Please remember her on this day and keep your fingers crossed! Passing this test is the last step to being able to apply for graduation. Well, we will try and post again before we leave for California. Our current departure date is December 16th. Oh, and Julie is having her ultrasound on December 15th! So we'll have some exciting news in just two weeks!

p.s. leave your guess in the girl vs. boy war! We'll find out who wins in 2 weeks!