Changes

Julie's been having tons of "fun" trying to figure out this blog business. It's hard, but she enjoys it somehow. Hopefully you can all still read this. She's experimenting with new fonts too. We also put up some of our family photos that were just taken recently. Enjoy!

In exciting news, Julie just took her final exam today, for her first Independent Study class. It will be two weeks or so before it is received and graded, but she's done on her part. She is writing her term paper for her New Testament class, and finishing up the reading assignments. She has until May 9th to finish. She's pretty excited about her progress. We are going out to dinner tomorrow night for date night to celebrate finishing her first class!

Tagged! Julie's sister Stacie "tagged" her a while ago, which means she gets to fill out some get to know you questions and what not. So, since she's been tagged quite a few times, she finally decided to do it. Here you go:

10 years ago I was 14. I was attending Palomares Middle School.

5 things on my to do list...
1. Edit family videos
2. Make our "Deal No Deal" board - story for another blog
3. Complete Joseph's car bag
4. Finish making Stephanie's apron e-book
5. Make a spreadsheet for last year's RS Quarterly Reports - being RS secretary is so glamorous

5 places I have lived...
1. Pomona, CA
2. Alfred, NY
3. Provo, UT
4. Ventura, CA
5. Missoula, MT

What would I do if I became an instant Billionaire?
Pay off all our school loans, buy a house, and a second car.

5 jobs I have had...
1. Server at Mt. San Antonio Gardens - Claremont
2. Light turner-offer at Alfred University - story for another blog
3. Tour Guide, Alfred University
4. Course Production Specialist, BYU
5. Day Care Provider, Missoula

5 things you probably don't know about me...
1. I am really into sci-fi and fantasy
2. I make homemade wheat bread
3. I make a really mean sweater - crochet
4. I have plans of getting a graduate degree one day
5. I can be really obsessive compulsive, and a perfectionist

We consider ourselves to be loving people

This was Julie's score:

20

This was Aaron's score:

28

We think Aaron got a lot of extra points because he's big, has a long reach, can kick really high and has some fighting experience (having 3 brothers).

Onto real life. We have a huge slide show full of pictures from the last few months. Enjoy, enjoy. During March, Aaron had spring break. During that week we took a trip with another family over to Spokane and took turns going to a temple session. A few weeks before that Julie was able to go to Spokane and attend "Time Out For Women". It was her first time but she absolutely loved it and would recommend it to anyone (any woman of course). It was a good time.

We're just plugging along for the most part. Joseph is ever growing, and so is his vocabulary. Most of his words are the kind that only Aaron and I can decipher. But they're actually not too bad. If you haven't seen the slideshow yet, Joseph's favorite new thing is to do the dishes. He LOVES to do dishes. Of course his definition of dishes changes constantly. For a while it was play with the cups and things and pour water here or there. Then it was rinse everything and put it on the counter. Now it is dump everything into Mama's side and watch bubbles come up his side of the sink. Either way, it helps Julie to stay ontop of the dishes and we try to let him help as often as possible because it will be his inheritance one day. So might as well learn to like it, huh?

Aaron will be finishing school at the beginning of May. We'll be staying and working here in Missoula over the summer and trying to make ends meet until we start the semester in September and get our next loan installment. We trying our best to minimize the loans we're taking out, and it'll be tough, but we think we can do it.

The weather in Missoula has just recently made a turn for the better. It's been beautiful days. Joseph's inner Montanan is coming out. He just loves to be outdoors. It's given Julie some time to weed out the planter that is downstairs. It might technically belong to the people who live below us, but they pretty much don't want it, so it's given Julie something to do while Joseph wanders around. He's gotten quite good at staying where she can see him, or coming the minute she calls for him to come back. She'll be planting some flowers pretty soon. If they grow and bloom, we'll take a picture.

Well, Julie will try and do smaller updates every now and then, if there's anything to update. Life is pretty simple and non-exciting here. For more exciting lives, check out the other blogs on the right. Just kidding. We miss and love you all!

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Best February Ever!

This past month earned the "Best February Ever" Award because Julie had the best 6th birthday a girl could ask for! A huge thank you for all of the emails, phone calls, cards and myspace messages. She felt special the whole day and who doesn't want that on your birthday?

As for the rest of the month, we have a few updates. First off is the newest addition to Julie's family. Stacie and her husband Jim welcomed Nicholas Taylor Simpson to their family on February 28th at 9 p.m. Just 3 hours shy of being a leap day baby. He was 7lbs. 13 ozs. and 20 3/4 inches. He's healthy and Stacie and baby are doing great. We're so happy for them!

Along with our tradition of having happy baby news, Julie's sister Heidi is unexpectedly expecting number 3! She is due the end of September. If you check our her blog, you can find updates on her pregnancy.

As for our little family, we are doing really well. Aaron is chugging away at school and doing really well. Julie is also plowing through her classes. She is very proud that she only has 1 1/2 lessons left, 2 tests, and she will have finished her first class! Expect a new post when that happens, because we will be celebrating!

Joseph is great as always. He's currently feeling a little down, and actually lost his voice today. It makes his cry the saddest thing you ever heard. But we're pretty sure it's just a respiratory virus that's going around and we expect him to be back at it in a few days. He's such a trooper! At his last doctor's appointment he was 34 inches and 33 1/2 pounds. What a chunk! He is growing too fast for us to keep up with, but we love every minute of it.

We've uploaded some new videos to our video page, so check them out. We hope you are all well, and send our best wishes to all of the sweet new babies and recovering moms (and dads) in Julie's family. We can't wait til we can visit all of you!

Happy New Year!

So, it's been quite a while since our last post! As you can imagine, tons has happened since early November.

First off, we went to Aaron's parent's for Thanksgiving. We had a great trip. It wasn't too snowy. We all went up into the hills and cut down Christmas trees. Julie was the lucky one to pick and cut down ours. It was a great little tree!

Then again, in December, we headed up to Kalispell for Christmas. We were able to stay at Jared and Anita's house. It was very busy, and tons of fun. Joseph really enjoyed being around Jared's girls. We were also able to meet Tim and Anna's baby boy, Abram, for the first time.

At the beginning of February, we also took a quick trip back up to Kalispell for Jadalin's baptism! She turned 8 in January. It was great to visit for that special occasion. It's hard to believe she is already that old. She's growing fast, and her sisters are right behind her!

Julie was able to work on her Independent Study class a lot during Aaron's winter break. After work, Aaron would come home and take Joseph out for about an hour and a half. Julie would stay home and do homework. This got her going, and now she's working hard to keep her momentum now that Aaron's back in school. Julie was able to take her first of 3 tests for this class, and just found out she received a 92, which is an A-. She's really happy with that! She also just got signed up for a class here at the local Institute. She's taking New Testament. It's the last religion class she needs for her bachelors. The director there, Bro. Rogers is helping a lot. She's registered for the weekly class, but can't attend because of her baby-watching duties, so she's doing it mainly independent study. But they're going to meet regularly and talk about the class and then she'll write a term paper at the end of the semester. She's really excited about this class, although that now means she's doing two classes at once! Wish her luck!

To add some sad news with the happy, Aaron's family did have two funerals during the month of January. His father's sister, Gail, passed away in early January. Then Aaron's great grandma (his dad's grandma) also passed away at the end of the month. We were able to travel up to Conrad, MT for Great Grandma's funeral. It was a great chance for Julie and Joseph to meet some more of the Denney/Denning family. (The two names are related, and it is really confusing)

Now for some happy news! Travis and Heather have welcomed their beautiful baby girl into their family! She was born January 25th weighing 7 pounds 4 ounces and 19 3/4 inches. She is happy and healthy, Heather is healing very well, and it sounds like Cardon is adjusting to his baby sister as well as can be expected. They have posted pictures on their blog, linked to the right.

Another wonderful addition is Miss Sadie Dawn Bigler, born February 10th to Stephanie and Nathan (and Brayden)! She was 7 lbs 1 oz and 19 inches. She is beautiful, and they are all doing well. They have pictures posted on their website. The link is to the right.

Aaron is well into his next semester at the U. He's enjoying his new classes. This semester he has two night classes (versus one last semester). That is definitely not ideal, but Julie and Joseph are handling them better than expected. We guess last semester got us adjusted to handle this semester's schedule. Aaron is also applying for a scholarship to help pay for next semester. Cross your fingers for us. It would really help a lot!

As always, we can tell you about Joseph. He is well over 30 pounds now. Probably about 32, Julie's guessing. He is getting taller as well. We think he was around 33 and some change when he was measured last. He has a doctor's appointment later this month, so we will get some official stats for you all. He is talking quite a bit. Well, he's always been a chatterbox, but now he's trying to say words. Julie says his official first word is "ball". He says it a lot. He also says "baby" and "trash" (he has an obsession with the trash can). Joseph also had his first trip to the nursery at church this past Sunday. (While the adults attend Sunday school and other meetings, the children between 1 1/2 to 3 go to a children's class) He did really well. It's a very full nursery with a lot of cryers. But Joseph didn't cry, and from what I was told, didn't push or hit either. That made us very happy. All in all, he's doing great. We absolutely adore our little guy!

Hopefully we've gotten all caught up. Oh, if you know Heidi, check out her latest blog! There's some great news there! Until next time, we hope you and your families the best and send our warmest wishes from Missoula!

It's November

Well, it hasn't been too long, but things are already happening. First off, today is our first snow day! Joseph and Julie were looking out the window noticing that the clouds were low on the hill. Next thing they knew, snowflakes were starting to come down. By the time Julie could get shoes and jackets for them both, it was already pouring down and sticking on everything. Joseph definitely didn't know what to make of it, but he was still sad to go inside for his nap.

Last Thursday Julie and Joseph had a WIC appointment, and they were finally able to learn how much this big boy weighs. Drumroll... 30 lbs! Julie and Aaron guessed right. We figured he had to weigh at least 30 and he was exactly 30 lbs. She can't remember exactly how tall he was. It was between 33 and 34 inches tall. He had grown around 3 inches or so and gained about 3 lbs or so since August. We though he might thin out when he started walking, but so far we're wrong.

Joseph's latest favorite activities are making towers with his legos, as well as putting them on our little gate (shown in the slideshow). He also likes to stack our shampoo bottles along the bathtub. He will literally do it for half an hour. We took a small video so you can see what we're talking about. It's pretty fascinating to watch. Julie's posted some fun new videos you can watch. As for the rest of the month, it's a countdown to Thanksgiving, then to the end of Aaron's school semester, then to Christmas! We'll update again soon. Til then, have a warm November!