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!

This weekend, Chris and I got to go out...this is really big news,
as we don't do this as often as we should! Anyways, we went to the
Steve Bell concert in Sackville on Saturday night with some
 friends. The concert was so amazing. Chris has really
enjoyed his music for the last couple of years.
 I thought it was okay, but wouldn't necessary choose
 to listen to it myself; however, he is such an amazing
performer/storyteller that I actually loved it.

We even went out afterwards, and didn't get
home until after midnight. This is an extremely late night for us,
 as we are usually fast asleep long before this time.
But we didn't have to rush home.

Chris told everyone who asked that we had tried
the parenting thing for a year, and decided that
it wasn't really our thing...

But, actually, Josiah had his first sleep over at his
 Grammy and Grampy Mealey's house! It seemed to
go really well, except that he decided to get up at 5:15 am
and not go back to sleep. He must have just
been too excited- oh dear! He's always up at the
 crack of dawn, or before. It doesn't matter how
late he stays up, Josiah loves mornings.
Sleeping in for him would be 6:30/7:00, and this rarely happens.
Normally, he is up around 5:45-6:00.

I feel guilty that Chris and I actually slept in until
after 8:00 when all of them were up so early!
 But it was so nice to get caught up on sleep.
(Thanks Grammy and Grampy!).
We really needed it, as we are both recovering from colds/flu's, etc.
We probably should not have gone out, because
I think we are paying for it a bit today
(as I am typing this, my voice is almost gone completely!),
 but it was worth it!

Psalm 103

When I was a kid, I went to 2 private Christian schools. One was amazing...the other was not so much. One of the teachers/pastors there thought it would be helpful to threaten us into good behavior quite frequently. Actually, most of them did so. I was a kid who was already so desperately trying to follow the rules, and already scared enough. I remember this teacher telling us on many occasions that God had a video camera, and that he kept track of everything we did wrong. On judgement day, He would pull out all of the tapes, and play them in front of everyone. The major problem with his story is that he had not included any grace or forgiveness element. What a hopeless message.

I literally felt for years, that no matter how much I confessed, my tape would still be played. I still need to consciously remind myself that this is not the case for someone who is forgiven. What detriment that man caused to so many young people back then. As I parent now, I am trying to learn how to show God's grace along with teaching and discipline. This is not an easy balance, and one that is sure to grow more difficult with age (both mine and Josiah's!).

This passage is a constant reminder to me:

"He has not dealt with us according to our sins, or rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him...(Psalm 103:10-13).

"As far as the east is from the west"...I love that!