Music, Witnessing, & Singing

Recently we were asked to sing and play our instruments during an SDA's dinner...
After some instrumentals, we started with our "Christmas Bells" & "Angels We Have Heard on High"~ both are lovely arrangements complete with different parts.  Through practicing our younger sibling have learned both pieces so they joined in.

Later we did our newly arranged "We Three Kings" where each sibling sings a verse and the rest play they're instrument during the verse.

"We Three Queens" sing "We Three Kings". :)

Bethany was able to play a few selections with her violin student... 

Judah then made a special appearance on his very own Bodhran~ Irish drum!!  It was the perfect addition to "The Little Drummer Boy" with the harp, piano, and Bethany and Eden singing. :)

Towards the end, Jordan gave a Gospel presentation which we hope convicted many people there to look at their lives and wonder about the day when they will stand on their own before the Lord.  We were able to give out quite a few Million Dollar tracts from livingwaters.com and Jordan was very excited to use "Giant Money" as an attention grabber~ it sure worked!

We ended with "Joy to the World" ~ another favorite our ours.

Posted By: Shiloh

Last Minuet Christmas Shopping...

...Was a blast! 

We had way too much fun getting that last gift at the Antique Malls (on Christmas Eve!).

Here are some pictures:

Getting ready to go!

Riding a moose!

The fun begins!!!

Where does it stop with us?! 

We were having way too much fun trying on goofy hats!  :)

Jordan boards a train...

Siblings on the train tracks.

"I'll be home for Christmas..."

On the way home I snapped this gorgeous shot.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. "

~Isaiah 9:6

Stay tuned for a few more updates that we have been getting behind on.  They will be up soon--I promise!  :)

Posted By:

~Bethany



All God's Creatures Got A Place In The Choir!

Here is our latest, greatest song!  It was sung at Bethany's 18 birthday party...

Enjoy and stay tuned for pictures!

The Wonders the Gospel Will Accomplish~

"Oh, the wonders [the gospel] will accomplish! It wipes guilt from the conscience, rolls the world out of the heart, and darkness from the mind...It will put honey into the bitterest cup, and health into the most diseased soul. It will give hope to the heart, health to the face, oil to the head, light to the eye, strength to the hand, and swiftness to the foot. It will make life pleasant, labour sweet, and death triumphant. It gives faith to the fearful, courage to the timid, and strength to the weak. It robs the grave of its terrors and death of its sting. It subdues sin, severs from self, makes faith strong, love active, hope lively, and zeal invincible. It gives sonship for slavery, robes for rags, makes the Cross light and reproach pleasant; it will transform a dungeon into a palace, and make the fires of martyrdom as refreshing as the cool breeze of summer. It snaps legal bonds, loosens the soul, clarifies the mind, purifies the affections, and often lifts the saint to the very gates Heaven. No man can deserve it; money cannot buy it, or good deeds procure it; grace reigns here!"
~ W. Poole Balfern - 1858

Posted By: ~Shiloh~

John Winthrop's City upon a Hill, 1630

Engraving showing Winthrop's arrival at Salem

Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke and to provide for our posterity is to followe the Counsell of Micah, to doe Justly, to love mercy, to walke humbly with our God, for this end, wee must be knitt together in this worke as one man, wee must entertaine each other in brotherly Affeccion, wee must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others necessities, wee must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekenes, gentlenes, patience and liberallity, wee must delight in eache other, make others Condicions our owne rejoyce together, mourne together, labour, and suffer together, allwayes haveing before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke, our Community as members of the same body, soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as his owne people and will commaund a blessing upon us in all our wayes, soe that wee shall see much more of his wisdome power goodnes and truthe then formerly wee have beene acquainted with, wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when tenn of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are going: And to shutt upp this discourse with that exhortacion of Moses that faithfull servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israell Deut. 30. Beloved there is now sett before us life, and good, deathe and evill in that wee are Commaunded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another to walke in his wayes and to keepe his Commaundements and his Ordinance, and his lawes, and the Articles of our Covenant with him that wee may live and be multiplyed, and that the Lord our God may blesse us in the land whether wee goe to possesse it: But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worshipp other Gods our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whether wee passe over this vast Sea to possesse it;

Therefore lett us choose life,

that wee, and our Seede,

may live; by obeyeing his

voyce, and cleaveing to him,

for hee is our life, and

our prosperity.

--

This is part of the "The Arbella  Covenant" that I was studying today.  It is a sermon by: John Winthrop titled, "A Model of Christian Charity", but more commonly known as "City Upon a Hill". 

Read the entire sermon here.

Posted By: ~Shiloh~

Birthday and Bowling!

We were delighted to spend time this past week with the Smythe family to celebrate Mr. Smythe's birthday!

It was a very fun day full of big surprises...

We started out by having lunch together, then went Bowling, and finished off the day with a big bowl of Cold Stone ice cream!  What a day!

Enjoy these pictures that we took!  Oh, and special thanks to Evan for some of the shots.

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Getting our groups set up with balls, lanes, and special shoes!  :)

Yvonne set to work signing everyone up to play.

I love this picture!!!

Daddy preparing his arm-swing.

Shiloh lets the ball fly!

Were we having way too much fun or what?!

Mr. Smythe's strike!

Trying to hit at least one pin...

I actually got one strike!  :)

Yvonne was the one who had all the tips on choosing the right ball, how to throw with smooth movements, and where to line up on the lines!

Mommy with the ball that she shared with Mrs. Smythe.

Evan gets ready!

Jordan goes through a few practice swings...

Eden surprised us all with her bowling abilities!

(Okay, she is using bumpers in this picture!)

Elanne's turn to make a strike!

Here is the happy group after a good game!

Oh, and the ice cream was delicious!

We had a wonderful evening of fun and fellowship with our friends!  We hope to do it again--soon!

Posted By:

~Bethany



Thanksgiving 2011

This Thanksgiving we had a wonderful time of fellowship with the D. Family.

We spent the evening giving thanks to God for His blessings to us, talking, singing, and of course eating delicious turkey!

See for yourself what our day looked like!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We dressed up in honor of the First Thanksgiving.

The cutest little Pilgrim boy ever! 

He was joined by his sister...

...Who was also a Pilgrim with her baby!

Awwww!

And Ben was just hilarious as an Indian!

He was so excited to dress up!

I even pulled out my Indian costume from two years ago...

Shiloh and I made a dessert that was an old recipe from our tribe.

It had a Germanic influence and tasted remarkably like German Chocolate Cake!

"How!"

The parents talking before the meal.

The feasting begins!

The other table.

The father talking.

After the meal we sang some hymns and shared some other fun music together.

Singing our latest, greatest song called, "All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir!"

The D. children blessed us all with their original A to Z Bible verse songs.  They were wonderful songs and the singers were so cute!  :) 

The happy bunch of onlookers!

"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, [and] bless his name.  For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations."

~Psalm 100:4-5

Posted By:

~Bethany



National Adoption Day

In honour of November 19th, which is National Adoption Day, we hosted a showing of the new documentary "Rescued".  It was a wonderful film about adoption and we really enjoyed it!

We had a wonderful day of fellowship with our friends the D. family.

Here are the pictures!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We started out the evening with our famous Bible game!

When ever another family comes over, Daddy puts together a Bible trivia game before we eat.  We divide into teams--Boys against Girls!--and put our heads together.  The team who wins gets to go through the food line first... and sometimes they even get an extra helping of ice cream, but I think that is more of a saying than actually true!

Oh, and Daddy put the game together like "Jeopardy!"

The Girls Team!

(Go Girls!)

The Boy Team!

Daddy giving out a question...

Us Girls thinking, thinking, thinking...

And we won!!!

For the record... we only lost once!  :)

(Sorry Boys!)

After dinner, Shiloh introduced us to the movie.  She was our movie host, you know!

The little ones...

And the whole group!

In case you are wondering who took the picture... I set up my camera for a "self-picture"!  We were quite pleased with the results and amazed that we got everyone in the shot!  :)

It was a wonderful evening!

The official movie trailer.

Posted By:

~Bethany