Hymn Study: Joy to the World

 Did you know that Joy to the World was not written as a Christmas song?

I KNOW!!!!!   I was shocked to learn that too.

It was actually written about the second coming to the Lord.  It was written by Isaac Watts. (source)

Can you imagine how joyful the world will be when the Lord returns?   Even the mountains and the trees will clap their hands.  :)   All the sins and sorrows of this world will be gone!   Imagine it just for one moment...just imagine...no more sin, no more sorrow, just the joy of the Lord at his return.

Isaac Watts, the same boy who was fed up with lacklustre singing in the church, who was challenged by his dad to make something better, became "Father of English hymnody".  If you want to know about Isaac Watts, check here.

Lyrics

Verse 1]
Joy to the World, the Lord has come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

[Verse 2]
Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

[Verse 3]
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

[Verse 4]
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love

Review: This First Christmas Night

Today I have a sweet little softcover picture book to tell you about.

Entitled "This First Christmas Night" it is written by Laura Godwin and Illustrated by William Low.

A little picture book along with simple verse and delightful illustrations.

See this small gray donkey

This long, dusty road

This promising star.

 The whole book is wonderfully illustrated, and conveys well the story of Jesus's birth, the text adding to the story line.

Granted, I do struggle with the biblical inaccuracies, as the wisemen did not arrive when the shepherds did, but I have that struggle with how the Christmas Story is often told now-a-days, even Church programs have the wisemen coming up after the shepherds.  :)

I loved this last page.

 The illustration, the wonder, the centralness of the Christ child...and the hush.

Oh that hush of Christ quieting his people... Reminded me of the wonder of Christmas.  

All the senses are evoked in this 32 page book

"see this small gray donkey"

"feel the frost"'

"smell of sweet hay"

hear "the lamb bleating"

The only sense we miss is taste, but I don't think you really want to taste anything in a stable.  :)

It's a nicely written and illustrated book and it would make a fine gift for your little ones to introduce the Christmas story to them.

 This First Christmas Night

Author: Laura Godwin

Illustrator:William Low 

Published by: Feiwel & Friends
Size: 8.96 x 10.52 

32 pages
Ages 2-6 years

 Softcover is what I received.

Also available as a boardbook. 

Reviewed for Raincoast Books. 

 Amazon.ca : This First Christmas Night

Amazon.com: This First Christmas Night

My Christmas Village 2016

An Overview of my Christmas Village

One of my favourite pieces.

This was one of my first gifts when we got married.

My Village is up!   WOOT WOOT.  Admittedly the lad did most of it this year with some placement of the houses by me, but he was very much into helping his mom out this year so it was like "YES!!  Let's let him".

Some highlights.

I really like my skating rink.  I think it was gifted to me but really can't recall, adding my figures and moving them around daily makes me smile.  :)   I need to find my son's skating lego figures and add them to the mix.  :)

I made the bench area with the trees surrounding it thinking that my lad would put the old man feeding the birds on it, but he turned it into a Photos with Santa area.   I thought that was very clever don't you?  (Santa is a lego man)

So here we have some folks waiting to go on the carriage, while the cow in the background is trying to sneak some popcorn for herself.  "Do you think she'll get some and surprise the guy selling it?"  :)  Gotta have fun with the figures right?   :)

 If I could, I would find about 5-8 more sledders for my tobogganing hill.   It would be neat to have some skiers, snowboarders and sled riders, even someone on a snowmobile would be cool, don't you think?   I currently only have three pieces....I'll look on Monday for some.

I hope you enjoyed the walk through my village.   It's a lot of fun putting it up each year.  It was neat to see the fun the lad had putting it all together and giving me a hand... even if the old man is feeding squirrels this year instead, and not every building has a light, and my choir is scattered about in three different areas.... it all works..and we'll move things around and lego will show up here and there.. it's part of Christmas at our house.  :)

Reviewing our week: Dec 9

 

 This week

We managed to keep ourselves busy.  I had big plans for the week since I'm feeling much better than I have been.. .but learned that I still peter out of energy quickly and therefore lose focus and will to push onwards.

Independent learning

The Eastern Chipmunk:

Why we can't ship Nuclear Waste to the Sun.

Monday:

• Daily smarts, Veritas History and Bible, and Teaching Textbooks.
• Weekly visit with Gramma
• 1/2 hour reading 
• continued our reading of Cat of Bubastes.

 Tuesday: 

• Daily smarts, Veritas History and Bible, and Teaching Textbooks.
• 1/2 hour reading 
• Out to buy two shelves, and then to find room for them in his room.
• Organized lego

• Made decision to sell his meccano and lego action figures as well as a few other toys
• Look what we made today! (recipe coming next week)
•  

 Wednesday

• Foodbank
•  Daily smarts.
• 1/2 hour reading 
• Cleaning and organizing the lad's room (did all on his own)

Thursday

•  Daily smarts, Veritas History and Bible, and Teaching Textbooks.
• 1/2 hour reading 
• Working on his story.   
• Deciding there was more things in his room that needed cleaning and removing.

Friday

• Plans were to have an art class...but snow hit.
• So we started putting up my Christmas village.  We didn't get finished, but we got it started at least.  :)
• And we had fun watching the birds.
•   

Word Prompt Posts.

Peace.
List.
White. 
Joy.  

Reviews:

Santa Based Christmas Books.
The Art of Beatrix Potter.
The Storybook Knight.
Art Series: Designing with Pixar.

Life and Faith:

Sunday Sermon: John: A Call to Repent
Hymn Study: Thou Didst Leave thy Throne
Do Not forget the Lord God. Continued study in Ezekiel 23
Recipe: My Pineapple Ham.   A family favourite
Ezekiel is a sign.  Continue study in Ezekiel 24
The Lad's delight in tidyness.  My lad requested I put up this post. :)
Field Trip: Kitchener Symphony. 

Linking up the following places:




 

Five Minute Friday: Joy

As I sit here this morning pondering the word joy, 

outside my window (past the cat sitting in my way) I see snow.

I wish you could have seen him yesterday when the snow starting falling.

Sitting on his sofa watching the snow come down.   Doing his strange meowing that he does when something excites or interests him.

Then Hubby left to go do some work at the church.

The meowing changed.

He was distraught.

He paced and walked the house.  Checking every room.

Then hubby came back.

Contentment.

A quick jump up, a soft petting, and gentle purr.

Then back to sitting in his spot, watching the snow, with his excited "meows".

Isn't that how joy is fully expressed?

Joy is more than happiness.   Joy is happiness contained within something.

For this cat, for this Chase...joy is my hubby and snow falling.

What is your joy? 

_________________________________________________________________________

Five minute Friday was started by Lisa, and then continued by Miss Kate.  You can find her at her blog Heading home.   Every week she posts a word prompt.  This week the word is JOY. 

The rules are simple  Free write on word prompt for five minutes (more or less).  Link up.  Then go and encourage those who have gone on before.    Simple enough eh?  :)   Join us won't you?

Ezekiel is a Sign to the People

Today our study takes us into Ezekiel 24. You can find the ESV text here.
Since I like listening to the bible, here's the NIV audio.

My Thoughts: 

 The Word of the Lord God again came to Ezekiel, saying to him: “Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day."

A Parable was given to him, with a pot set to boil with choice meat pieces put into it from the best animal of the flock.   The best meat and bones, put on to boil well.

This pot is a sign to the land, the people, the rebellious house of Israel.  For this pot will be set to boil and burn and corrode until it is all burned up.  It will be burned until it is cleansed of all the meat and blood and bone.

And God's fury will be satisfied.
As He says: I have satisfied my fury upon you.  I am the LORD. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel will have a hard thing happen to him next.   The things he delights in... will be gone.   Yet he will not be allowed to mourn or weep over it.  He can sigh quietly, but nothing more.

He told the people the parable in the morning, and by evening his wife was dead.

Can you imagine it?
Oh my... to be told this would happen and know that you couldn't externally mourn her loss.   
How difficult that must have been.

So the people asked:  “Will you not tell us what these things mean for us, that you are acting thus?” 

 The Lord's answer is thus:  Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and the yearning of your soul, and your sons and your daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword.  And you shall do as I have done; you shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men. Your turbans shall be on your heads and your shoes on your feet; you shall not mourn or weep, but you shall rot away in your iniquities and groan to one another. 

So the things that Israel delights in... they will be gone.  Just disappear. They will not be able to mourn this loss.  Ezekiel is a sign to the people. And when what he has done, is done to them, they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.’

As for Ezekiel, once all this has happened, a fugitive will come to him and report to him the news.   When that happens, Ezekiel will no longer be mute.   Until then, he will be a sign to them.

A Lad's Delight in Tidyness

Did you know that sometime in the 4 months we'll be moving?

To that end, we're  trying to find the furniture and belongings that we say "I'm not going to move that".  

My lad has taken that thought to heart and over the past couple of weeks has been working hard to clean his room, and MY oh MY the articles and papers and toys and junk this lad is tossing.  :)

He even went out and bought two new-to-him shelves for his room.

He's rather pleased with how it all turned out and said I could post it up on the blog for comments.

No before pictures as well... he wasn't happy with his room so no pictures allowed of that.

 
Allow me to walk you through some of his changes.

Where the shelves are placed used to be a large drawer cupboard.   It was good for the storage of blocks of wood, stuffies, toy animals and such like, but he's 11 now, his play takes a somewhat different turn these days.   

We moved it out to the book room where I'll use it for other things.  It left him with one shelf which was unacceptable, but YAY!!  Mom found some shelves for sale and the previous owner was willing to accept counter offers from a lad!!   An even better woot woot!


Shelf One:

Top Shelf - Christmas Snowmen, trophy and catapult.

Next Shelf- snake skins (literally) and art projects

Next two - papercraft items and support items

Bottom shelf - can you see how he made an area for his cat to lie down?

He is SO pleased with his just for Milo area.  :)  and Milo seems to like it too.   All we need to do now is add a cat door to his bedroom and Milo will always have access to HIS BOY.




Some of the treasures he wants you to see.   All these treasures he made.  Some from a kit, the rest all him.  :)

Second shelf unit

This unit predominately holds his books along with his 3-d models and a few other treasures.

The tractor is a reminder of his grandfather.

The bottom shelf holds toys he can't quite get rid of yet, as well as some cat magazines etc.

Model car, items from Kiwi Crates and a bit of this and that.






Treasures again for you to see: 

One last area that he wants to show off.

OH!!!  I almost forgot!!!   He figured out how to hang up his real sword!!!!

My son is hoping you like what he did with his shelf units.  Nothing on the floor, everything nicely organized.  What more could a tidy boy want eh? Other than... MORE SHELVES!!!!   :)

Field Trip: Kitchener Symphony

In October my son and I went to Kitchener, they were doing a children's symphony event there.  We went with our homeschool group.

BOY, did the lad and I have fun.

It was a rather neat program, they sent us the music before the program so we knew what music to expect.

No cameras were allowed during the program so I only have this so-so shot while they were warming up.

The conductor did a really good job as introducing each piece and telling the children what to expect from it.

In the hall of the mountain King , oh my how my lad liked this song, and has asked for me to play it again for him more than once.  :)

The conductor explained that you could hear the fellow creeping into the mountain and having some goblins or something start to sneak up behind them, and then a huge race at the end... would they catch him or would he escape.    My lad LOVES the imagery and the music..ah.. it makes him smile.

They did 10 pieces in all, each time the conductor gave some explanation of the piece and gave the students something to listen for.   Sometimes he provided imagery, other times he asked what emotion the piece asked or demanded of them, and so forth.  All the different ways the music tells a story were explained and demonstrated.

If you ever have a chance to go to a Children's lesson time at the orchestra, do so.  You'll learn much and be able to watch your children's faces light up with joy.

Days of December: White

The Instagram word prompt for the day is white.   
As I thought about this word this verse popped into my head: 

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  1 Peter 2:9.

I have to admit, this is my favourite verse in the bible.  God calling us out of darkness.

Art Series: Designing with Pixar

YES! It's time for another Art Books from My House to Yours. I really need to take the time to provide you with links to all of them, but not today. :) Today's book is Designing With Pixar: 45 Activities to create your own characters, worlds and stories.

 Anyways, when I first saw this 80 page I wondered at its usefulness, and then I really started looking at it. The author Ms. Emily Haynes takes the beloved pixar characters and uses them to help children design better characters, worlds and stories. I'm going to be using this book with my lad to help him once he finishes his story, to turn it into a book. :) Won't that be cool?

Using pixar characters we are drawn into determining colours for characters skin, hair, clothing etc.   How do those colours make you feel, what do they draw out of you.

We are then led to think about shapes, how does the shape of the character change your thoughts about them.   Often the words "Imagine if...."

What makes your character(s) interesting?   How would you draw them to show those interests?

I won't say this book is huge and very in-depth, but it does excite the curiousity.   What if Nemo wasn't orange and white, would it have affected how we thought of him?   What if he'd been a moray eel instead?   Or if Brave's Merida had long blond tresses rather than a wild mass of long red-haired curls?

Colour and shape influence what we think and feel about characters (and perhaps about the people around us... like the book we are listening to right now where the main character likes to dress in greys and browns so she won't be noticed).   Could such a character be drawn and how would you draw such a person?

It's a simple and yet intriguing concept don't you think?

This book comes with a ton of pages to write and colour on.  To Design your set and to think through changes you would make to movies they have put together.     You see this book is the result of work done by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Pixar Animation Studios when they worked to put together an exhibit.    The exhibit was all about Pixar's design process.   Research, Iteration and collaboration.   A Story need to have appeal and believability. 

Research - when you look to the world to help inspire your own work.
Iteration - playing with colours and shapes to create your own worlds and characters
Collaboration - working with other people to help tell a story.

The goal of the book: to help people tell their own stories.

To that end, they use their own characters, such as Eve from Wall-E

We are asked to imagine that she has met an alien intruder, what does he look like, his shape and colour?   Does the mean friend or foe?

Emotions can be different colours, like red for anger, green for digust.

What colours could other emotions be?   Like Joy  or Sadness or excitement?

So grab up this book, this inventive activity book that draws you into the world of Pixar and discovery, talk and think about what colours and shapes evoke in your and others.  Work together, create your own stories and worlds.

Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to create your own characters, worlds and stories.

Michael Bierut

by (artist) 'Cooper Hewitt

foreword by John Lasseter 

Text by Emily Haynes

Size is 8 x 10 inches.

 80 pages.

Geared for ages 6-9 (but I see the age spread as higher)

Affiliate links provided for ease in finding this book for yourself.   Thanks for your support.

Amazon.ca: Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to Create Your Own Characters, Worlds, and Stories
Amazon.com: Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to Create Your Own Characters, Worlds, and Stories

Recipe: My Pineapple Ham

I have been making my pineapple ham for ages, but I've never blogged about it as far as I recall.  :)

Was finally up for making a real meal tonight so opted for a family favourite.

Take a half ham... sometimes I use a country ham, or a black forest one, or like tonight a kitchen ham.  Usually whatever is on sale to be frank.  :)

I slice it in thin even slices, sometimes I use my meat slicer (if taking it to a potluck) but more often I just kinda wing it like I did tonight.

Lay them down in your casserole dish.
Cover them with pineapple rings. Slightly overlapping them.
Drizzle some brown sugar overtop...perhaps about 4 tbsp.
Cover your casserole.

USUALLY I then add some apple cider pop... but if I can't find it (not always available) then I'll add some sprite or apple juice (usually 1/2-1/2 mix).   If I'm really stuck I'll add the pineapple juice from the can.

Stick it into a 300 oven and let it cook for an hour or so.

Variations that I occasionally do.

- instead of brown sugar add some raisins or craisins.
- sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the pineapple
- use crushed  or chunked pineapple instead.  My boys don't like this variation though so I do it when they aren't around.

Serve with whatever you are up to.
Goes really well with spaghetti squash lightly seasoned with spices and oil.
Tonight I made crescent rolls and corn which all got devoured.