Who knew that cuddling could be such a chore?  Sophy woke up early from her nap today and when I have time I like to cuddle her on my bed for a while.  She likes to snuggle when she first wakes up but today I think I almost regretting it.  She had to have her ‘lovey’ (a bunny blanket that she sucks her thumb with) a blanket from her crib and this little pillow with us while we were trying to cuddle and we just couldn’t get everything in right place to her satisfaction…  she kept wiggling and wanting things to be moved until I just gave up.  It is apparent we are going to have to work on stream-lining cuddling again.  Who knew?

So Sarah just had her birthday and every time someone here has a birthday I make a cake from scratch.  Since my mother-in-law Mudite gave me America’s Test Kitchen Baking cook-book,  every cake I bake comes out of there and they are AMAZING cakes.  Complicated I think, but really really good.   So for Sarah’s birthday I made the chocolate sheet cake recipe rather than the layer cake recipe because I thought it would be fun to decorate it.   I know I’ve never done a nice job decorating cakes in the past, but you can’t get past this crazy thing called hope.   Anyway, I thought I would decorate the top like a big candy because Sarah loves candy… so I went and bought all this candy, decorated the cake and this is how it turned out…

Utterly ghastly.    Really awful.   And it’s not just because it’s sitting next to the professionally decorated cake.  It looks just that bad or worse on it’s own.  When Jason’s cousin saw it she asked, “Oh, did Sarah decorate it herself?”  I should have answered ‘yes’, but I owned it.  I’m awful at cake decorating, I really am.   This is going to be added to the list of things I should never really attempt untill I have professional training.    It can join ‘never pick out my own paint colours’ somewhere at the top of the list.    The only saving grace was that it was yummy… it really was.

So last night I dreamt I had triplets… yes triplets.   And then in my dream I was having a hard time doing the math, I couldn’t figure out if I now had 7 or 8 children. .. and really, when you have that many, does it really matter?   I do remember that one of the babies was a boy, but the babies didn’t really seem like newborns, more like a few months old but I was just glad that the weight I had gained was baby weight… ha!     I’ve always been a terrific dreamer, and most of the time I just find them very entertaining in their odd way. 

And talking about entertained,  it’s getting hard to entertain these children when you can’t kick them outside because it’s too cold outside!  Yesterday the kids had indoor recess at school because they deemed it too cold for kids to play outside and looking at the forecast and seeing -25 C with the wind chill does make one think twice about going outdoors.    So yesterday  I just had to do what anyone would do in this kind of weather, I made chocolate chip cookies and then curled up on the couch with a coffee and book.  And I didn’t make just any chocolate chip cookies, I pulled out the big guns,  in fact, this is what  the recipe says on it…

Ok – it’s a little blurry, it says, “these are why Sophy was 10 lbs”  My sister-in-law Shelly made me a batch before Sophia was born and then I got the recipe from her and kept making them and eating them and that’s what I blame Sophy’s birth weight on… that and the fact that she was a week overdue.  But they are so worth it… in fact I think there is only one left, I better go hide it.

After spending this morning  morning with a wonderful friend,  and talking about alot of things,  this quote came to mind that  I had on a plaque in my room as a child.  I could only remember the context, so I tracked it down and here it is..

Oh, the comfort –
The inexpressible comfort of feeling
safe with a person,
Having neither to weight thoughts,
Nor measure words – but pouring them
All right out – just as they are –
Certain that a faithful hand will
Take and sift them –
Keep was is worth keeping –
and with the breath of kindness
Blow the rest away
Dinah Maria Craik (1826-1887) 
 (Taken from her novel, A Life for a Life, published in 1859)

It certainly is a comfort to have friends you can pour out your soul too – and not have to ‘worry’ about things that you probably shouldn’t have said, or maybe how you said something.   So thank-you my wonderful friend for a great chat this morning and those yummy muffins!

Happy New Year!   I’m always pleasantly excited by the New Year as the year seems like a clean slate before me just waiting to be filled.  I wonder what will fill the days of this year?   Maybe this will be the year the Lord will come back, hallelujah!  Or maybe this year I won’t have another baby (I’ve had them every odd year since 2003) and maybe this year I’ll finally learn how to keep my house tidy-  even though my 4 children don’t seem to be on the same page as me on that one. 

I don’t have any resolutions this year, which I normally do, but I have a few simple goals.  They are to try to keep my kitchen tidy as I go,  to not cave in to my children, when I make a decision, I need to stick to it!   I want to try to do devotions with my kids every day and have them work on some scripture memory.    I also have some things I want to work on with each child this year…   I want to keep up Erik’s blog with him.  I want to work on William’s reading and teach Sarah her letters and I want to cuddle and play with Sophia more.   

But I think my biggest hope for this year is that I can learn to put God first in everything – like Norm our pastor preached about on Sunday.   God isn’t just pleased with whatever I give him, he wants my best and so often that’s just not the case.   It’s learning to say ‘no’ to self and ‘yes’ to God.      Here it is in a nutshell – one of my favourite verses…

He has told you oh man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.  Micah 6:8

I’m excited to see what this New Year holds for us!