Not The End

Our hearts are in Beaufort today. We stand in Spirit and in Prayer with the Cushman Family as they say "Good-Bye-For-Now" to their sweet little Ellie.

High Note, Low Note

Until recently, I didn't know much about Disney's Little Einsteins. Now, thanks to the free Disney JR app, we are all on a first name basis. Sometimes, Riley even lets me be June... (other times, I have to be Mary or Joseph and she is Baby Jesus...or we are both puppies... but that is another story for a different day)

For the uninitiated, Little Einsteins set their adventures to classical music and plug in classical works of art along the way. I never thought my two year old would be running around saying "Mozart" "Seattle" or "Paris, France" but she quotes these amongst other high brow tid-bits and phrases.

My concern is that she is going to think there are lyrics to some of the musical pieces... to insist that Beethoven's 5th really does go: 'I Love Balloons, I Love I Love Balloons...' but, I suppose we'll cross the bridge should we arrive at it.

Rye has a musical soul- she loves to listen to music; to dance and sing a long.  Because of this, she naturally adores Little Einsteins. See?








Virtual Christmas Card


If you have already gotten a Christmas card from our family in the mail, you will recognize right away that this is our actual Christmas card's cover. (Unless you already live in Florida, then you got something a little different) Once you click on the links, you will see that the letter is the same as well. If you have not received a card in the mail, it is either delayed due to the antiquity of our local post office or...well, I was running low on stamps, see... and I knew that I planned to send this here virtual one... so... please enjoy this version and know we love you very much!

Even if you did receive a tangible card in your mailbox, there is a slideshow of the children in the virtual card.
Rather than try to get one good shot of the children all looking in the same direction at the same time, I had the realization that I could hit the continuous shot button and improve my odds...2000+ still shots later, I had another realization that a movie would be easier and after a little tweaking, we ended up with a stop motion-ish sort of slide show.

Every time I've played it back, I am moved to thankfulness again for the gift of our kids.
We hope this time of year finds you counting your blessings and enjoying the gifts that we have been given by God. They are innumerable, if only we start to count.

Brewer Family Virtual Christmas Card:
WARM WISHES FROM THE BREW CREW


Nativity ReTooned

For the purists: 

Retooning the Nativity from Igniter Media on Vimeo.

December 2012 SlideShow

We headed out to the beach to take pictures for this year's Christmas cards... I used the continuous shot mode on our camcorder in hopes of catching a few good shots (ever try to get multiple kids to look at the camera, smile & not twitch...simultaneously? Fun stuff, that.)

(See Also: my everyday camera has been re-assigned for use by Chandler & Logan in their FLVS Photography Class...and had dead batteries) 

So, the camcorder... I always forget about the continuous shoot function until I accidentally hold the button too long (it is usually always around Christmastime when I am scrambling to make pictures happen and end up resorting to the camcorder)

I was a little delighted by this realization... "This way, " I thought,  "perhaps I will actually get them all looking in the same direction with print worthy expressions" I figured I had improved my odds anyway.

Once we got home and I began to sift through the 2,000+ stills (the downside of continuous shooting with a camcorder) and realized there was another way... and so, after importing into iMovie and tweaking a bit with some music,  this slideshow:



::sniff, sniff::
Where does the time go?

Children are a gift from God.

Indeed. :) 

Merry Christmas, Glad Tidings, 
Be Of Good Cheer 
 Count Your Blessings 
Throughout All The Year





All Seasons' Reason

Are you keeping Jesus in a manger?

I Am Here from onetimeblind on Vimeo.

Jesus & Santa


Liked This:

JESUS & SANTA CHRISTMAS VIDEO from Barton Damer on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Nicholas!

Nicholas Mark, 1985

I have known Nick for as long as I can remember. No, really. I don't have a childhood memory that doesn't also include Nick's existence. An existence which started a handful and half years ago on this very day. 
Happy Birthday Little Brother 
(who has always been like an Older, Wiser and Better Looking Brother  ;)

When I think of our sibling-hood, several key memories always come to mind first...
Climbing over The Ugly Sofas & Red Eyeball Chair (*see picture below) in games of " I Can Do Something More Dangerous Than You Can" A game in which one of us would do something 'dangerous' like leap from the ottoman to the sofa and the other one had to take that dare then up the ante by jumping from the sofa back to the ottoman with our eyes closed!

I think of hours and hours riding around in the backseat of our various family cars -usually in the  hot, sweaty, summertime- making up games to keep ourselves entertained en route to small country churches in need of a pastor, or with our Granny squished between us en route to the beach. 
(Why yes children, we DID have television way back then... and yes, it was even in color... we just didn't have them in our cars yet.)

I think of countless backyard games & play time with cousins. Of Super Man. The 80's. Knight Rider. St. Nicholas. Sky City. Lucky Touches (Nick had the 'Lucky Touch' with coin op machines... like The Fonz to a Jukebox, a free soda was Nick's for the knocking. Change return slots held other customers' change hostage in wait for Nick's arrival- always paying his searching pinchers with a little jingly change.

I think of games of Alligator on the First Church of the Nazarene front stoop; throwing rocks in the grate behind the church in Wrens. We played games of "Get A Long Gang" that lasted entire minutes before one of us 'messed it up' with a squabble; net-less badminton on Rosemary Drive.

Together, we became expert U-Haul loaders and even shared "Grandma's Attic" seats to get to where we were going.

We were always new in school together- Nick much quicker to make friends than me. Because of Merriweather's combined elementary and middle grades, we never even knew a time where the other wasn't in a classroom nearby on the same premises.

I could spend a lot of time drumming up warm memories of Nick, for as I said, most of my childhood memories feature him too... but he is older now 

(much, much older ;)

And now? Well, now, when I think of Nick-- I think of a fellow follower of Jesus. A man who loves his family, church and serving others.

 I am proud to call you brother Nick, and proud of who you are allowing the Lord to call you to be.

Happy Birthday, Little Brother. 
Keep Obeying Jesus. 
 He has made you an even more awesome person than back when you could fly from the top bunk.
(not that you still can't... just don't try it without some aspirin handy ;)

I love you. 

*sofa & chair in question

Coming Soon

We took pictures for a Christmas card this afternoon. Pretty soon, you ought to be getting one in the mail or seeing our 'virtual card' online... or both. In the meantime- here's a sneak peek from today:

It helps to look away from the camera from time to time

Counting piggies and blessings

Okay~ I realize it's mostly toes, so...

...STAY TUNED!

:) 

Ballpark Bird

This weekend, we LIVED at a local ball park while The Brewer Brothers participated in tournaments...

Some of the games were LATE GAMES, so we befriended coffee:




 Enjoyed healthy snacks (what? they're orange, like carrots!) in the truck with Buzz & Woody 
(Rye has just discovered the Toy Story Franchise):

Gathered "flowers" in the big field: 



Caught up on some reading:


Discovered RING POPS ®
Napped:

Oh, and we watched a little baseball: 
FERNANDINA BEACH PIRATES  12U BABE RUTH LEAGUE







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