Wow, how does time go by so quickly? We're already on the 5th day? *checks calendar* 7 more days till Christmas!! ^_^
Today, I was gonna share a music video that I did...but I didn't have enough time to upload it :P So for now, I'm going to give you a list of 10 of (some) of my favourite Christmas songs. These don't include the traditional carols like O Holy Night, or Silent Night, Or Joy to the World, or Go Tell it On the Mountain, or O Come All Ye Faithful, or God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, or ....well, you get the point. It's just a given that I love those songs already ;)
Anyway, let's get onto the list, shall we? Decided to start of with one that I thought very appropriate to the blog party ;)
Good morning, everyone! (and now let's see if I can actually post this in the morning :P) Jesseca from Whimsical Writings tagged me for... *drumroll*
Thank you, Jesseca! :D
Now, first for the rules (of course, 'cause I'm a good girl :3)
1. Find some lyrics you think are really meaningful and type them into a nice background
(Be sure to name the song and the writer!)
2. Then post it on your blog and tag as many people as you want.
Here are some of my meaningful lyrics:
There are days when I lose my focus and those are usually the times when I feel myself falling. But then God shows His great love and compassion to me and I understand that no matter what I do, no matter what happens, God should be my primary vision.
One of my favourite Creation songs! I've sung it since I was little, and now that I'm older, I can more fully appreciate the lyrics. We're living in our Father's world, and it's amazing! Sitting quietly in nature, soaking in the beauty of the wonders He has made - what can be better? :)
God answers our prayers. They're not always the answers we're looking for. But even if it doesn't look like God is listening to us, we should continue to TRUST in HIM!!
There we go! Almost the end of the tag :D I hope you all enjoyed reading some of my favourite lyrics. Are any of them your favourites?
Today, I'll be doing a review on Christmas With You, an album by The Wiebes. So, this is how it is going to work. First, there'll be a mini introduction to the Wiebes, then I'll put down each song that they did and then tell you what my opinion is of each song. Make sense? My family and I have listened to this album more than 5 times through already, and we're still not tired of listening to it! I'm listening to it right now as I'm typing! It's actually what gave me the idea to do this post. You see, our plans kind of got altered by something that came up in the family, so yeah, we had some changes that we had to adjust to. We got back from the airport yesterday evening and so I wasn't able to do what I had originally planned for today. Then while Tiger Lily and I were wrapping presents for our cousins, we were listening to this album again, so that's where I got the idea to do a review on this. :D Hope you enjoy!
Before I get into any introductions, here are some really cute pictures of the two :)
Shane Wiebe was a contestant in Canadian Idol, and he made it to the Top 5. He is amazingly talented and his voice is just so awesome! :) He is married to Angela Wiebe, another beautiful singer, and they are parents of two children. The two have been singing together since the day they met. And boy, do they make a great pair! :D
We first heard of them when they came as guest performers to a concert that we attended. They were so amazing, we ended up buying all 5 of their albums! And got Mr. Wiebe to sign one of the CD's :) Wished Mrs. Wiebe would have been able to do it too, but she was busy elsewhere!
In their album, Christmas With You, there are the following songs:
Angels We Have Heard on High
This song is one of my absolute favourites in this album. Angela's voice is so clear and so high, it's what you would describe as crystal clear! She has a really beautiful voice, you could listen to it all day and not got tired of it! (I've done that once actually. Listened to Christmas With You for most of a day, and yep! Didn't get tired of it at all! :P ) The song is sort of like a mash-up with another Christmas song, the Merry Christmas Canon. (not sure if that's what that song is called... ;)
Glorious Impossible
One of the family's favourites! It has a really catchy tune and the chorus is soooo cool! And the harmonies are really beautiful in here! Well, actually, all the harmonies in the other songs are just a beautiful, but hey, going to try to not repeat myself here because I tend to repeat harmony and melody a lot. :P
Christmas With You
A very jazzy sort of song. And something that Tiger Lily and I love to try singing in the same range as Shane :P Very low, but we can actually do it! Lots of fun to sing along with, and the boys and Tiger Lily just realized yesterday that one of the verses says "the kids are coming down with the flu" which they find hilariously funny. So yeah, lots of laughter whenever we're playing this song! :D
O Holy Night
The. Most. Beautiful. Song. In. the World.
And Shane made it even better! I know I've said this before, but he has an AMAZING voice!! You have to hear it! He sang O Holy Night at the concert and it gave me delightful shivers just listening to it. Especially when he sang those high notes!
Actually, I found a video of it from Youtube.... so maybe you can hear it! :D
Messiah (Anna's Song)
Okay first off, the words in here are amazing. It's like a story from Anna's point of view, first while waiting for Christ to appear, and then what she thought when she finally got to see Him. It really shows how we should be looking out for Christmas. We shouldn't be looking forward to presents and Santa Claus, I mean, we have to remember what Christmas is really about! We should be looking forward for Christ, and what He did for us on that day. :)
Angela proves here that she can not only sing really high, she can also sing super low too! The low notes that she's able to hit in here really personalize this song, but yeah. She's amazing. Have I said that already? :)
The First Noel
This was done as a piano instrumental, so no vocals :( I want to say that it's rather simple, but then all the chords and extra harmonies just won't let it qualify as simple anymore. It's a very pretty song!
Mary Did You Know
Somewhat jazzy here too. It's almost got a mysterious quality to it, which makes it really amazing. My favourite part of this song would be when he sings "Did you know that your baby boy is Heaven's perfect Lamb? The sleeping child you're holding is the Great I AM!!"
Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming
Umm....how to put this. . . This is the only song that none of us have managed to get used to. So it's not a big favourite. It's sung as an a-capella, but there are only two people in it, just different tracks to sound like there are more people. It's a little confusing trying to hear it, and personally, I think their voices get muffled because of the way they're singing. You know how when you listen to an opera or something like that, most of the time, the singers' voices are somewhat muffled? Kind of like you don't get to hear what they actually sound like, kind of thick and fake? I know this might not be making any sense at all to you! Sorry! If it did make sense, let me know! ;)
Huron Carol
The rhythm and beats in here make it very much like a Native American chant, super cool!
What Child Is This?
Not sung in the "normal" way, depending on how you usually listen to it! We usually hear this song sung to the tune of Greensleeves, how do you hear it as? At first, I didn't like this version at all, but it grew on me and now I really love it! :D
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
So awesome! I wish I could hear this version on the radio!!! One of the major things that stick out for me is the way they change the words so that instead of saying "if the fates allow", they sing "if the Lord allows" instead. They sang this song at the concert as well, and afterwards, Mom and I asked each other at the same time "Did they sing this instead of that?" :D
Away in a Manger
Features Angela Wiebe's a.m.a.z.i.n.g voice again. With a lovely harmony by the talented Shane Wiebe. Honestly, I don't think I can emphasize more onhow talented and amazing they are! :D
And that's the end of the album! I hope you enjoyed this post, and hey! let me know if you listen to any of their songs!! :D
Luke 2: 13 - 15
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
Guess what? Faith P. from Stories by Firefly is hosting this really awesome, totally fun Christmas blog link up! Faith and a group of other bloggers will be coming together to give you The 12 Days of Christmas! So hop on over to Faith's blog for tons and tons of fun and Christmas-y stuff! :)
Sooo....I'll be doing a post today on one of my favourite Christmas songs, Silent Night. It's a beautiful, simple melody that really describes the beauty and awesomeness of that night when Christ, our Saviour, was born.
Silent night, Holy night All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin, mother and child Holy infant, tender and mild Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.
Silent night, Holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth
Jesus, Lord at thy birth.
Silent night, Holy night
Shepherds quake, at the sight
Glories stream from heaven above
Heavenly, hosts sing Hallelujah.
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born.
Just singing this song gives me vivid images of the manger scene, peaceful and quiet, the glory of the angels, the beauty of their singing, and the shepherds' shock and surprise; does this happen to you too?
Luke 2:7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger Luke 2: 8-9 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear
Luke 2: 13-14 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to Godin the highest,and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Here are some fun facts about Silent Night as well as some pictures (and possibly some info ;)) of the replica of the Silent Night Memorial Chapel.
1. Silent Night has been translated into over 300 languages and dialects around the world
2. The song was first performed on Christmas Eve, 1818. That makes this song almost 200 years old!
3. The lyrics for the song were originally written in 1816 by Father Josef Mohr. 2 years later, he asked Franz Xaver Gruber to compose a melody for it. It ended up being composed for a guitar, the reason of you will soon find out! :)
4. Silent Night was sung by the English and German troops during The Christmas Truce in WWI, 1914
5. Silent Night was first performed with the guitar because the church organ needed repair!
6. Silent Night is one of the most popular Christmas songs in the world.
7. The Old St. Nikolaus Church, where Silent Night was first performed, was badly damaged, so the Silent Night Memorial Chapel was built in its place.
There is a 1:1 scale replica in Frankenmuth, Michigan,
at Bronner's Christmas Store. So if any of you live in or near
Michigan, you should go check it out!! :)
8. Gruber's orignal tune was actually more of a sprightly, dance-like tune rather than the slow lullaby that it is today! The more common version was composed by a priest by the name of John Freeman Young.
Oh, that's where that picture went. I was gonna use it for #7 :P
9. Okay, this isn't really a fun fact, it's more like a statement :D You all probably know by now that Silent Night was composed in Austria. So it's only fitting to include a copy of the song in it's native tongue!
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft; einsam wachtNur das traute hochheilige Paar.Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh! Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,Hirten erst kundgemachtDurch der Engel Halleluja,Tönt es laut von fern und nah:Christ, der Retter ist da!Christ, der Retter ist da! Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,Gottes Sohn, o wie lachtLieb' aus deinem göttlichen Mund,Da uns schlägt die rettende Stund'.Christ, in deiner Geburt!Christ, in deiner Geburt!
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Well, I hope you enjoyed reading about the history of this song and looking at all them pictures ;)
What fun fact did you not know about?
Which one did you find the most interesting?
What is your favourite Christmas song?
Don't forget to visit Faith's blog for more Christmas fun! Here's the link again: Stories by Firefly. Now hop on over and join the fun! :D
Some more little scenes from life in this crazy household :D
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A couple of days ago, Dad saw Toblerone with his mouth puffed out as if he was eating something. Thinking that Toblerone was eating something he wasn't supposed to, Dad told him to spit it out. Toblerone just stared at him as if trying to say You do not want me to do this. But it didn't communicate very well with Dad, I guess, because he told Toblerone to spit it out again. So Toby obeyed. And sprayed out a mouthful of water into Dad's hand. And Dad had just finished getting ready to go to work.
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So....last Sunday, we were discussing the sermon during lunch. Talking about money, the proper use of money, why we have money, and how money can become bad if you idolize it, etc. Everyone was adding in what they thought to the conversation and then Dare Devil, who had previously been very quiet, piped in "Oh, I know what dirty money is! It's when the money has dirt and mud on it, right?"
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Oh yeah! I can't forget about this! Dad got a GatorXUV550 for the younger ones, and they've been going nuts with it! In a good way :)
Tiger Lily says to mention that it is plastic. . .
But it still moves, and boy is it fun to watch. I think it's more fun to ride, but us two older girls can't cause we're just so slightly too big for it.
I was actually quite surprised though at how well Dare Devil and Snow White could drive. So far, I haven't seen them crash into anything, and Snow White can do a pretty good 3 point turn. I'm still trying to learn that, and it's not easy for me at all. But she makes it look like she's done it a million times already.
Dare Devil is also a very good driver. The only problem is that when I was taking pictures of him while he was in motion, he kept looking at me and smiling so that I could take a nice picture. So yeah, then he wasn't looking where he was going and it was getting a little scary watching him weave in and out and around and about. The fact that there's a four year old driving a two year around in a Gator (mini though it be) is scary enough for me!
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I've been extracting DNA from bananas, jellies, and even Ritz crackers. Okay, so the crackers didn't do anything but become really mushy and soft and yucky looking, but the banana gave a lot of DNA, and the jam was so-so. It made really nice pictures too! :)
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Last Saturday, Tiger Lily and I helped out at the PCC banquet with lots of friends from our youth group at church. It was lots of fun serving to others with one another! :)
Tiger Lily, two of our best friends, and I were assigned on coat check. That meant we had to take all 643 guests' coats, hang them up, and MOST importantly. . . don't lose them!!! Then after the banquet was over, we had to give the coats back. Duh :P
Anyway, the system for keeping all the coats was confusing at first, but with some tweaking, we all managed to come up with something that would work. And guess what? It did! :)
Some people preferred to keep their coats on, or bring it in with them to the banquet hall, but I'd say we ended up taking around 550+ coats.
Up with all. those. coats! :)
At first, it was very stressful running around, trying not to lose both tickets and coats, but thankfully it came together and we all managed to work in a nice, somewhat orderly fashion :) Thanks also to some other friends who came to help us :D
There was a closet on the right of this picture, as well as another rack and closet on the other side of the hall.
I wonder what we're looking at?
Oh, and I just had to add this picture of the chandelier. When we first got into the hall, we were all like "whoaaa....this place is amazing!!" It was so beautiful and breathtaking. There was this massive sparkling chandelier in the very middle of the hall, with two smaller ones on either side. This picture is not exactly how I wanted to show it, but I didn't have time to circle it and snap thousands of pictures of it like I usually do. Coat check, remember? ;)
Hard at work. . . I think. Or else we're playing Hangman ;)
Me and our two fellow coat check-ers :) Thanks to Tiger Lily for taking the photo! :)
Ahhh yes! And the stairs!! On either side of the hall were these absolutely magnificent stairways. They were so pretty! So once there was a break in the crowd and no one seemed to be wanting their coats, I got Tiger Lily and these two pretty fellow coat check-ers to run up the stairs and let me take a picture. :)
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Tiger Lily was (actually, she is right this instant while I'm typing :P) looking for a song to do for a Studio Assignment, (that's for the vocal course that she is taking that I may or may not have forced her to take. . . ) and she thought of doing the Dragon Theme song. Where No One Goes. Have you heard it before? It's a really fun and nice song. Anyway, she was looking up the lyrics and she realized that the chorus actually goes:
We go where no one goes
We slow for no one
Get out of our way!
Once she read that, she was like "WHAATT??? That's so rude!" Then she showed it to me and I heard it and I was wondering how did we not hear that before? It's so weird! But yeah. . . she won't be singing that for her Studio assignment! :)
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So, what did you think? Would you like me to continue doing these Random posts? :)
What did you find most interesting in this post? Most funny?
I'm very sorry for the delay in this post. Procrastination has been a problem lately. I'd better get over this lazy habit though before school starts, or I'll be in major trouble!
Lately, we've been having a fairly busy couple of weeks. The two older boys took swimming lessons over the past week and a half and since we were so close to out friends' house, Mom would drop some of us off there. We girls had a fun time recording songs...all from the Hobbit, in case you were wondering. :) Funny thing was, I haven't watched the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings, so I had to Youtube all the songs so that I could learn it. Listening to my friend sing it multiple times also helps!
Tiger Lily and I also recently watched The Hunger Games. We just finished Catching Fire yesterday. To be honest, I think I prefer the books to the movie, though it's probably because I read the books before I watched the movies. ;) Mom prefers that we do it that way, although I have to say, sometimes the movie ends up rather disappointing because it's missing favourite parts or the characters look different or something like that! And in The Hunger Games (the movie, I mean) they (the film directors and such) make it ... a bit more inappropriate than I would like. I mean, where in the book do any of the characters swear? Also, I'm the kind of person who, after seeing something, will usually see it in vivid detail for quite awhile. Thus the reason why I usually close my eyes during ...not-nice scenes :) Although, I don't think the movie emphasized too much on the killing, I'm not too sure since I closed my eyes whenever I knew a scary part was coming (another good reason for the book first ;))
Have you read or watched (or both) The Hunger Games before? What did you think of it?
And now, after that somewhat lengthy ramble, comes the real reason why this post is here. :)
Day 161: August 7, Friday: Recording Time!
Day #162 - August 8, Saturday: Golden Kernels
Day #164 - August 10, Monday: Sleeping Buddies....not :P
One little boy did not want to sleep by himself, so he crawled into Big Sister's bed
when no one was looking - anyway, until I found him :)
Day #165 - August 11, Tuesday: Reflection in the Side-view Mirror
Day #166 - August 12, Wednesday: Monster Egg!!
How much do you think this giant egg weighs? Put your guesses in the comment
box and I'll let you know by the end of the week.
Hint: It's over 60 grams :)
Day #167 - August 13, Thursday: Pyramid of Pens
Day #168 - August 14, Friday: A Bee and Coneflowers
Day #169 - August 15, Saturday: Toy Zebra
Day #171 - August 17, Monday: World Famous Brownies
Whew! Have I really not done my picture of the day post for 10 days? Tsk tsk, bad me! :P
Friday, May 22: New Song
One of the songs that I'm learning for my vocal class. It's so funny, it's hard
to sing without giggling!
Saturday, May 23: New China Doll
Sunday, May 24: One minute he's up.....and the next minute he's gone! :P
And now for the week of flowers that I said I'd do. Note: Some of the flowers I have no idea what their names are...so I'll apologize ahead of time if I call it "Red flower" "Purple flower" etc. :P
Monday, May 25: Red Columbine (*gasp* I actually know what this flower's name is! :D)
Tuesday, May 26: Orange Tulip
Wednesday, May 27: Lily of the Valley
Thursday, May 28: Whit Flower Cluster
Our grandparents also brought us to a horse show. It was amazing! The horses were beautiful and SO good! I wasn't allowed to take pictures during the show, so I only took them outside by the banners.
Friday, May 29: Purple Flower
Saturday, May 30: Rose...kinda
I know, I know, this isn't a real flower. But I forgot to take a picture of a REAL flower. So I took a picture of the ...arm painting? on Snow White. (It was supposed to be face painting, but the lady was willing to do it on Snow White's arm instead. Isn't that lady talented though? The flowers were soooo pretty!)
Sunday, May 31: Happy Mother's Day (?)
It's raining outside....and I can't take my camera outside. So I'll substitute with a picture that I had made with GIMP for Mother's Day. Note: There IS a flower! :P
