It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Our new Christmas Village-a gift from Mom and Ashley :-)!

Our biggest/most beautiful tree ever :-)

We LOVE Christmas!

Thanksgiving!

So much to be thankful for this year! With the current economy, I have been very aware this year of just how many material blessings I take for granted on a daily basis! I am so thankful for our beautiful home, providing us with a warm, dry place to live...our comfortable bed-again with warm blankets, our jobs, the money to buy necessities and some extras, working vehicles, and on and on the list could go. I am working on being more prayerful for those who don't have as much and having an increased attitude of giving this year--as really, none of "my" stuff is mine. Rather, God has blessed me with it for this time, and I should be using it to bless others!

I am also so thankful for our family, as always, and Dave and I are getting excited to welcome the new addition to our family. We are enjoying beginning to decorate her room, think about doing things with her in the future, and as we set up our tree last night, wonder if we'll have to keep her from crawling towards ornaments next year!

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with both sides of our family this year, complete with turkey, pie, cheesecake, stuffing, and some rousing games of Yahtzee! We praise the Lord for His many blessings in our life, and now look forward to celebrating His birth!

Baby's Room

BEFORE (our junk room)

AFTER (the beginnings of baby room)

We are making progress on the baby's room :-)...We sold our bookshelves and weight bench on Craig's List and found a matching dresser and nightstand combo and crib (that's also a pretty good match) to replace them! (also from Craig's List) After A LOT of cleaning/organizing/throwing out/Goodwill run, it's starting to look like a baby's room and makes for a good before and after shot!

It's a girl!!!

Here's the 18 week baby bump picture. And after our ultrasound today, we can say with some confidence (baby wasn't in exactly the right position, but the tech was nearly certain) that it's a girl! Due date was bumped back a few days to April 4th--which is totally okay with me because I really did not think an April Fool's Day birthday would be very nice. It looks like we will probably end up having another ultrasound in a few weeks because the tech wasn't able to get one of the pictures the doctor wants because of how baby Bertolini was sitting. Now we get to start thinking of nursery ideas and what little girls need! We've known so many people that have had boys lately, we had kind of been thinking that way (assuming it was something in the water!). But God had different plans, and we look forward to raising the little girl He has blessed us with! And with all the boys in our church, we're already getting offers for an arranged marriage!

Halloween/Josh's B-day Celebration

So my family came over for Halloween and to celebrate my brother-in-law, Josh's birthday. We had a nice time and took Sophie aka: cute little pink poodle, to our church Trunk 'n Treat. She didn't really understand the whole trick or treat thing and was kinda overwhelmed with all the people, but she looked adorable (as you can see) and managed to get about 4 pieces of candy--which was probably just the right amount for a 2 year old! I'm sure she'll have it all figured out next year and can teach her brother A.J. and her new cousin!