Finally I bought them! I had been eyeing these up for a while at Walmart and finally broke down and bought them. I love the house to smell of Christmas and I love to burn candles in the winter so this was awesome! They smell great and 4 for $10, not bad!

I meant to post this quite some time ago, the finished wall is such a blessing! We can finally use the wall for our couch! And this is our little electric fireplace that we got to replace the big natural gas one. It has been heating the house beautifully!!!

Dinner and Awards!!!

This weekend past was the big GTT at our church, a confrence that I was really looking forward to. We ended up only making it to 2 of the 4 or 5 sessions but we were blessed none the less!!! It has been hard in some respects and I have been kind of down... I am, with the help of God, picking myself up. And it has been great in other ways... here is a story and a wonderful award!
On Friday, as we had already made plans, we dropped the kids with my mom and went to an employee recognition dinner for Adam's work. I was really looking forward to this. Sometimes I don't like these kind of events becasue they are uncomfortable and I don't know anyone but this I looked forward to. As a lot of you who read our blog already know, I used to work at Tim Hortons, I was a supervisor and kind of managed the small store that used to be in the mall. It was not as much responsibility as one of the other stores but I still had to do a lot of extra work and lifting, etc. When I found out I was pregnant with Joshua, Adam was working as a cashier at a local store and was waitering at a restaurant. He wasn't making the big bucks, and neither was I. We were just scaping by so I planned that I would work till the very end of my pregnancy, I planned to take my leave just before Christmas, then I would get my Christmas bonus and the baby would be born the next month. God's plans and ours don't always line up... I was told by the doc that I had to take my leave, for medical reasons in July. I was freaked out!!! We wouldn't have money to live! We prayed that God would provide. As always God came through, and quick! Adam was ay his bro's house a couple nights later and noticed online an add for a job. He knew that it was not anything he had done before, but knowing that God had given him a heart for helping people in need and mercy toward them, he went and applyed. He got the job almost immediately with no previous experience or schooling! They trained him and he has been working full time hours since the start. We felt so totally blessed to have the wages he was making coming in and then with my EI we would be just fine for money. This job was not easy for Adam... it took a lot of humility and he had to do a lot of things that were not what he wanted to do... but he didn't quit, he has been so faithful, knowing that it is what God has called him to! Also, to make things even better, about 2 months after he started there was a union increase that put his wage up quite a bit! I never thought that I would be able to be a stay at home mom, but ALWAYS have dreamed that I would and, of course, God knew and knows the desires of my heart. I never had to go back to work and I don't forsee having to till after all the kids are in school. I thank God for giving me such a faithful man. His heart is truly for his family. This was a very special night to celebrate 5 years at his job. Thanks Adam, you amaze me still with your loyalty and care for your work!

Adam's 5 year certificate, pin and pen!

On to Hello as Blogger won't post pics anymore...

Christmas Parade!

We were off to the Santa Parade the other night. Much fun, but really short!!! Here is Joel and me, he was sleeping right till the first police car sounded a siren, he looked up and said, "What was that? Down mommy down!" And that was that... enjoying every minute of it, the happiest I have ever seen him wake up.

Adam and the kiddos admiring the floats... and waiting for the candy to come!

My ma took this of us all. Joel absolutely adores parades!

It is dark, but there is Santa, the reason for the parade, and the one float that we try not to mention too much to the kids as our kids know that Santa isn't real... sorry if you all were convinced of his realness... haha. Only problem with the Christmas parade is that it is so dark that the floats don't really come out that well. Oh well, we try anyway.

Just before leaving the parade, it was short, but a joy for the kids, and they got lots of little treats to go home with! When we got home my Uncle Lloyd and Grandpa met us and we got pizza and had a nice dinner and visit together. I love nights like this, it always is a special night when spent with the ones we love!

Just a little fun in the snow

Well, here are a few pics of the kids playing in the snow. I am tempted to say, after the big dump of snow we got, but I can't bring myself to call it a dump as the snow was so light that even after 3 days I could still kick it up with my boots without any effort at all. I LOVE this kind of snow and all the trees being blanketted. This is what I call a White Christmas and I am hoping for another "dump" of the like before Christmas day! Beautiful and the kids had a blast!



The pool from summer, I procrastinated in dumping and putting away, a little late now I think! Makes a pretty fun skating pond for the kids though, wonder if it will hold water next summer. I am so horrible at making sure things are put away... must work on that!!!

Cookie time!

One of my very favourite things to do with the kids, bake cookies!!! I love it and remember so many VERY fond memories of my mom patiently letting us join her in the cookie fun when we were kiddos. Here is a little glimps of the joy, Joel eating the beater, and Joshua cleaning his hands to help with rolling the cookies into balls and rolling them in sugar. These were called Peanut butter mini kisses... or something like that (too lazy to read the recipe!) and they were DELICIOUS!!! Anyway, forgot to take a pic of the finished cookies so, this is all for this post.

Birthday cards

For Joel's birthday, along with paying for a good portion of the mattress we got for him, Nana got him this cool card. I am amazed at how cool some cards are. So anyway, there is a little 'punch out' car in the card and stickers to decorate it. Then there was a little first place cup and a "winner's circle" cardboard peice for the car to sit on. Joel was extatic to do this with Daddy the other day. They put together the car and then Adam let him put the stickers on. So fun and Joel loves cars, so incidently, it is wrecked already, but really fun while it lasted! Thanks Mom!
Putting it all together
And the finished project!!! Yay!

Hope you all enjoy reading this, it challenged me a bit.

The Antidote for a Dying World by Marnie Pehrson

We recently studied the unusual Old Testament book of Hosea in Sunday school. In this parable, the Lord compares Himself to a husband and Israel to an unfaithful wife. In the story, Hosea takes a wife who is unfaithful to him. She goes after other "lovers" instead of remaining faithful to her husband. Like the wife in the story, Israel has been unfaithful to God by going after gods of wood and stone.
The wife says, "I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink" (Hosea 2:6). She seeks after them, but she cannot find them. They remain elusive to her until she finally decides to go back to her husband because it was "better with him than now" (v 7).
Then the husband in the story says, "For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal." In other words, Israel took all the things God had given them and gave them to idols. Then they attributed the good they received to false gods instead of the true God.
To prove his point, when the wife returns the husband in the story holds back his abundance until the wife humbles herself. He takes her into the wilderness and speaks kind words to her and then gives her back all the good things she once had (v14-15). Verse 16 concludes "it shall be at that day saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi (husband) and shalt call me no more Baali (master).
Notice that the Lord doesn't want a "master-slave" relationship with us. He wants a "husband-wife" relationship with us. There is a big difference between the closeness and love that a husband and wife share and a master-slave relationship.
So how can we apply this parable to us today? We aren't off worshiping idols of stone and wood are we? However, how many times do we look at all the good things we have and assume they came from our own hard work, or from the lotto ticket we bought, or from government programs? How many times do we acknowledge that everything and I mean every little thing that we have is from God?
How many times do we view His commandments as a hardship upon us? How many times do we see him as a Master and us as the slave instead of realizing that every command, request, or prompting through His still small voice are words of loving-kindness that will bring us to greater love and happiness?
In scripture we repeatedly see individuals and civilizations go through a pride cycle. They come to God, repent, are blessed, prosper, become proud and then fall. At the point of humility, they come to God and repent. His mercy returns and the cycle repeats. It is my belief that the point at which prosperity becomes pride is when we stop being grateful. It's when we do as the wife in this story did and stop acknowledging that every good thing we have comes from God. It's when we start attributing our success to our own ingenuity or to other false "gods" we put before the true Source of all good things.
At the point of ingratitude, we become proud, and pride surely goes before a fall. Humble gratitude is the antidote for pride and the cure for a fallen world.
Written by: Marnie Pehrson

We've made the switch from Christmas tree to nativity scene to keep Christ at the center of our Christmas. Feels great and the kids have been great around it so far. 

Joshua wanted to shine the flashlight on it so it would be like the movie he saw with the star shining down on baby Jesus. 

Looks like he has my smile 

Cute 

Our friend Linda made this wonderful backdrop for us. Thanks Linda!!! 

Set up our new fancy smancy nativity set which we just bought.