Christmas is here once again!  This past year has slipped by at an incredible speed, but still it holds so much. I don't know when, or if I ever had a year before that seemed to hold so much joy and pain, peace and travail, faith and doubt, sickness and health, deep sorrow and divine comfort in it for me. God has been doing so much in my heart in deep ways that it almost overwhelms me to think of it!
   And then I realize this is why He came. Why He was born. I am so glad that He was willing to come so that I can be salvaged from myself and my sin. He is so beautiful! I was thinking today about the fact that the greatest gift the world has ever known was given in the form of a little baby boy, and I think that even humanly speaking, I can maybe understand the sweetness and beauty of that gift more then ever before. I hold my own son and think of Jesus' mama, and wondered how she felt when she cuddled her little son, held him tight and smothered him with kisses. Did she really understand just Who she was mothering?  How many things she must have pondered in her heart again and again! She was holding in her arms our only hope of salvation! Our only way to God!  Our only way to eternal life! He is my Saviour and my King! That is something that I feel like celebrating about!
   We plan to leave early in the morning to head up to OH for Christmas to spend time with Craig's mom  and also some dear friends that we look forward to being able to connect with again, LW. We hope to be home by next Monday night in time for Craig's weekly Bible study. I just love Christmas time! With it comes the warmth of family and friends, good foods and yummy treats that seem to come only at this time of year, and the memories of happy Christmases past. It has been fun for us to try to create our own family traditions now that we have children that will make warm memories for our children as they grow up.
   I need to close and get a little sleep. I wish you all a Merry Christmas!
  

   Hello, I am finally going to take a minute to write at least a note on here for those that are wondering who we are.  We are Craig and Mari Strain with our two precious daughters, Amy and Andrea.  I am very honored to be Craig's wife and the mother to our children. I love being a homemaker, wife, mother, hostess, friend, sister, neighbor, and you name it.  I love life and want to live it to the fullest. Jesus is my life, first of all, and makes everything so rich and worthwhile if we do it for Him.  And when those hard knocks and trials come He never leaves me alone. (My, how much I needed Him through this past year with some of the dark valleys we walked through!)  He has been faithful through it all, I just want to be more faithful to Him!  We are anticipating the arrival of another little one any day now, and I am sooo ready to have this baby!  We are very excited to say the least!
   We also have a young man, Darryl, living with us who is a part of our family and who I "mother."  I feel  too young to be "mom" to a 19 year old, but he says he needs me to be that to him so I try my best. :)  Our girls just love their big brother!  They lost their other one, Isaac, around 7 months ago when he downed in Hon. and we all miss him dreadfully. Esp. with thinking about the arrival of another baby. Isaac was so much a part of our the girls' lives since they were born. Esp. our last one when he was here so much after her birth.  I have been so happy that we at least got to share with him about this pregnancy and he was so excited!
   I feel like I am  still all thumbs in trying to figure out all this computer stuff but we got it to try to stay in touch a little more with some friends and missionaries. So bear with me, I don't promise to have a very great xanga site or to post on here to much.  I don't have too much time to spend on here especially with having another baby. I love to hear from you though and look forward to getting to know some of you better. I just want to make sure that I keep my priorities straight, and family and my children's needs comes before the computer! :)
   I was gonna keep this a note!  We are preparing to leave in a little bit to go to a cookout in the mountains tonight to enjoy a beautiful fall evening with a bunch of our community friends, neighbors, etc. It is a yearly thing that is held and we love it! People bring their instruments and play good, old-fashioned songs around the campfire till late in the night. There are long tables laden with good food of all sorts.  Get a bunch of good Southern ladies together and you don't lack for good eats!  It has been a wonderful way for us to get to know more folks from our community and connect with them. Our neighbors are such wonderful people that when we get to know them we get to know the whole family and their children and friends, etc. We decided we may as well go yet while we have the chance if baby hasn't come yet!
   I need to run along! ~Mari