Happy New Year!

I just decided to go with a new look for the New Year. My new question, instead of "Who am I?" is "Why am I here?" (In the sense of, what should I be doing with my time and energy?)

I realized I forgot to post this earlier:
Little Pilgrim's Progress book report by Matthias and Bethany. I read the children's version to them, and then they did an oral report of what they remembered. They loved the story, they kept begging me to read it to them. I love it when that happens, especially when it's such a good book.

Jesus Up Away

Just when Carrie Ann was learning that hot air balloons go "Up, up and away," she came across the story of Jesus' Ascension. Ever since, her favourite story has been "Jesus up away." She even asks for it when we are thinking of a song to sing! So, finally, I wrote a "Jesus up away" song for us to sing when Carrie Ann asks for it. She sang along on the chorus right way when I sang it to her! Here is a recording with Carrie Ann, myself, and Bethany joining in about halfway.

Jesus Up Away

Frank's comment was that it sounds like I'm singing the alto -- so I asked him to write the melody for me! So one day I may come out with an improved version. For now, it is fun to sing it along with Carrie Ann!
Chorus:
Jesus went up, up and away,
He will come back, one day to stay.
Jesus went up, up and away,
Look, he'll be back, quickly!

Verses:
Jesus was born, lived as a man,
Later he died, but rose again.
He told his friends, "Go tell the world,
I will be back at the end."

Jesus went up to make a place,
In His big house, is lots of space.
There's room for you and room for me,
For all whose hearts are made clean.

While He is gone, the Spirit comes,
To do His work, 'til we go home.
Here on the earth, He'll clean our hearts,
Finish the work of rebirth!

More Talking

Carrie Ann's favourite new word is "Sorry!" -- it works like a charm for making mad, sad people happy again! (For example, after she bites them....)

Frank got my microphone working again (Yay!), and Carrie Ann cooperated very well today, repeating words and not eating the mike!

Bethany and Carrie Ann on Sept. 24 '08 -- Carrie Ann still had trouble keeping the mike out of her mouth!
Carrie Ann and Matthias on Oct. 5 '08 -- he prompted her to say computer words like "web browser", and she cooperatively repeated all of them! At the end, I ask her to say "Finished", and she says, "Nope, more talking!" So we went on:
Bethany joined them, with a toy telephone -- notice how nicely Carrie Ann says "Sorry" and "Thank you".

Let me know how the sounds are, I'm still learning how to edit... Thanks!

Sounds

So one of Carrie Ann's new words is goom. She said this at the table (I want a "goom", Mommy) -- so take a guess, and I'll tell you at the end of the post.

Here are the last of the sounds I managed to capture.
Stuck
Swimsuit
More talking
Thank you
Who's there?

I hope you enjoyed them, because my drivers took a beating in one of Frank's experiments, and I can't get the microphone working again! My next project (which may take a while since school starts again tomorrow for us) is to get the videos off our video camera and post them one way or another. I'll let you know when I get that working (last time I tried, the sound was about 2 minutes ahead of the video, sometimes more, sometimes less).

Ps Goom? It's a spoon.

More Sounds from the kids (Again)

A couple more samples of Carrie Ann's baby talk:
"This down"
Hold it
More of this
Please mommy!
Raspberries (or strawberries)
Say about that
Matthias was so proud of this fainting sound he made!
Matthias fainting
Bethany singing about her cute little sister:
Cute baby!

Some new ones which I haven't been able to capture: Carrie Ann says "simmick" for music, one which really tickles my funny bone. She can also say "Amedida Bededida" -- guess who??? And Dopdopdida for Poptropica, Matthias and Bethany's latest favourite game (I highly recommend it, as far as computer games go.)

More Sounds from the kids

I thought it was time to post a few more of the sounds the kids made!

Bethany and Carrie Ann singing
Bethany singing
Carrie Ann crying --yes, even our sweet, cute little girl has her moments!
Carrie Ann -- really loud!
Daddy's Home! -- one of the girls' favourite phrases when they see the car drive up in the driveway!
Jesus goes up, up and away! -- Carrie Ann was very impressed with the story of the ascension!
Matthias and Bethany laughing
Stories -- I posted this one before, but if you didn't finish it then, you can listen a bit farther now!

Enjoy!

Oboe and Beep

We read a book about musical instruments today, so I had to find a movie of them playing too! I thought this one was very good (for oboe):


Well, I looked on some MP3 blogs, and it turns out they put the mp3s in with links, just like I did in the previous post. So there you go. And here are some more.
Beep
Babaludipoo
Grandma
Okay
Bye

And one more picture -- I wanted this one of the smocking on the girls' dresses. One day, someone came up to me and said, "I really like the smocking on Bethany's dress." Turns out she had done smocking herself. So now I know what it is called!

On a second look, I realized that it is hard to tell from this picture what smocking is: embroidery on top of pleats. I finally found a good set of pictures on this site (though Wiki tells you all the different stitches as well as the history...).

Speaking of crafting, did you notice the quilt hanging in the background? Deb and MaryAnna made it for Carrie Ann, using some pieces of one of Mom's dresses. I finally found a good place to put it!

Pictures and Sounds

I haven't posted pictures in a while!

Here is Carrie Ann, being a munchkin:Bethany loves to read (just the pictures, for now, though).
Matthias created a video camera from Construx.
We spent some time recording our voices. The first "podcasts" should be included with this post (how technologically enabled am I?). "Stories" is a long one by all three children, while "potatoblanket" is a short sample of baby talk. If they work out, there will be more to come.
. . .
Well, I guess I figured out how to send a podcast, but not how to receive one. So if you know how, you can listen to mine. If not, click here (for baby talk) and here (for stories)! If anyone knows how I can get the sound links to appear on my blog page (or even if that's possible), please let me know. Thanks!

PS read on, I posted a couple today.