Today, I am feeling so thankful, and needed to share.

 In the midst of busyness (and sickness), God has given me a gift today.

He has allowed my heart to pause, and give thanks for these guys, and so much more.

It was two years ago around this time that I completely surrendered my dream of having a child to God. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. That fall, I had miscarried our third baby. I didn't know what God had in store for our future. It seems like such a long time ago, but really it hasn't been all that long since God has blessed us with Josiah. I was talking to my mom when she was up last, and we realized that if the other three pregnancies had worked out, there would probably not be a Josiah in our family today (Chris definitely didn't want 4 kids!). It made me that much more thankful for him!

Since that time, God has been slowly been restoring my hope. This Christmas season reminds me of that more than any other. I have hope that if God carried Jesus from the manger to the cross, He will see me through whatever he has planned...and even give me BIG, unexpected blessings along the way!

Blessings on you all as you prepare to celebrate this amazing season!

I decided just to post the recipe rather than emailing it out (sorry I don't have a picture, as my camera was not working before these disappeared the last time I made them!). These are really worth making if you like cranberries, cream cheese, white chocolate...not so healthy, but a very nice Christmas treat! I found this recipe on a copycat websight, wasn't entirely happy with it, and made my own revisions.
Hope you enjoy the reults!

Cranberry Bliss Wedges

Cake:

1 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup diced dried cranberries

1 heaping cup of white chocolate chips/chunks

Icing:

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

3 cups icing sugar

4 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup diced dried cranberries

Drizzle:

1/2 cup icing sugar

1 Tablespoon milk

1/2 tsp. lemon juice

2 teaspoons vegetable shortening

Directions:
*Oven- 350

* Cake: Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, ginger and salt and beat well. Add flour, stirring gently until smooth.

* Fold in diced, dried cranberries and white chocolate. Spread into greased pan (9x13).

* Bake 35 minutes, or until brown. Cool.

* Icing: Blend cream cheese, icing sugar, lemon juice and vanilla until smooth. Spread evenly onto cooled cake. Sprinkle 1/2 cup dried cranberries on top of icing.

* Drizzle: Mix 1/2 cup icing sugar, 1 tablespoon milk, and shortening until well blended. Drizzle using a cake decorator or a baggie with a small hole cut in a corner. Zigzag back and forth over top of icing/cranberries.

Let it sit for a couple of hours before cutting. Cut these into triangular wedges for serving with coffee/tea, or cut into squares or bars for a platter.

Makes about 16 wedges or 24 large squares.

Here is an update:

- Josiah turned 14 months old yesterday! Unfortunately our camera is broken right now, so I don't have any updated pictures-we are camera shopping.

- He is now making a lot of animal noises, and saying many more words. Yesterday, I caught him up on the kitchen table, quacking at the ducks through the window. His climbing has reached a whole new level...literally!

- Josiah is learning to walk in boots. I didn't realize how much work this was!

- I am busy at work, and those reports are piling up like crazy. I have four of them sitting in my bag, and they take about 2 hours each to complete. I need to work out a new schedule!

-Christmas is quickly approaching, and I am much less prepared than I was two months ago. I bought several gifts when we were on vacation, but haven't done a thing since then.

- I baked a lot this week, because it was my turn to take snack to my mom's group. I will be baking a lot next week for a cookie exchange that I joined. It has been fun to have a reason to bake! If anyone is interested in a great new Christmas-y recipe, I have one for Cranberry Bliss bars. Starbucks serves these every year, and they are really good. Let me know if you'd like the recipe. It's amazing!

- We may go to the Santa Cluas parade tomorrow night if it isn't raining too hard. It's funny, because the last one I went to, I remember feeling parts of me freeze as the night went on. This mild weather is so nice!

- Not much else new with us! I'll post some new pictures when I can.

Recently, Chris has started a new blog, and he asked me to post the address on here for all of his friend and family connections who frequent my blog. It is very thoughtful and reflective. Check it out:

http://sacredcompanion.blogspot.com/

We had a playdate at the park yesterday afternoon. The mom I went with has three little girls. One is Josiah's age, one is four, and the other is six.  Josiah was enjoying being up high on the structure with the older girls, when one of them asked if she could take him down the big twirly slide. I agreed, since he is usually pretty daring; however, I regretted it when she started to go down with him on her knee, and I heard him yelling, "no,no,no,no...". 

Thankfully, he quickly changed his mind by the time he got to the bottom. I don't think he has ever been more proud of himself. He strutted like a peacock for a full ten minutes at least. His chest was stuck out, and he kept stopping to clap for himself. The girls invited him to try again, but he was too busy pacing the entire length of the playground.

When he was finally ready to go again, he climbed back up to the top of the structure, with the 6-year-old close behind him. All of a sudden, I heard her say, "He's going without me..."  This is when we all turned to see Josiah flying down the twirly slide all by himself! I caught him by the hood just before he landed, and you should have seen the victory dance that time around. It was shameless, at least for him! "Where do boys learn this strut?" I found myself wondering, until I saw Chris again...

After many hours, I think my blog 'facelift' is almost complete. I was just getting bored. Now that I know the ins-and-outs of blogging make-overs, I'll warn you...I love changes, so don't expect this one to last for long!

Anyways, we have been loving it outside lately- hasn't it been beautiful?! Unfortunately, Chris has been quite sick this past week, so he has been hibernating a bit. Josiah has been frequenting parks, and he now hollers when he sees one, "Maaaa, ma, ma...", just in case I missed it. 

We have been looking for alternatives to crowded indoor activities that involve a lot of kids.  We put our YMCA membership on hold for a bit, because we are not getting vaccinated, so we are trying to avoid 'germy' places just until some of this blows over.  The first day I almost went crazy, but I am starting to enjoy the pace. I think we have had some very fun and creative times in the past couple of weeks!   Thankfully the weather has been nice, which helps so much.  Here are a couple of our 'getting ready for outdoors' pics:

A couple of weekends ago, we got to visit this little guy. Wesley is my new little nephew. He's already two and a half months old. What a cutie he is!

We also had a visit from 'Grampie'. My father was down visiting from Alberta.  Josiah loved him! It may have been helped by the fact that he came with lots of new books, and a 'Larry' from Veggie Tales!

Here is a picture of him and Josiah together.

And that's a little bit of us!

We are under construction! Please bear with me as I make changes.

 It is is taking me a little longer than I thought!