2012 at 2:06 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
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Fun Stuff
With Father’s Day right around the corner, we put Janelle back to work developing some new products for 52home@home. Check out a bunch of gift ideas below, including two new pictures from the 52home collection. Perfect for that hard-to-buy-for dad or husband!
2012 at 10:14 am | by Nicole Whitacre
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Fun Stuff
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul.
2012 at 3:43 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
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As many of you know, if we ever have to review music here on girltalk, my husband Mike is our guy. He is a talented musician (yes, I’m biased) and what photography is to me, music is to him. Mike and I love to talk to each other about music and photography. Most of the time we don’t even understand each other. He lets me go on and on about f-stops and shutter speeds and I stare blissfully into his eyes while he tells me about drum beats and vocal range. But you know what? I have come to enjoy music so much more. (I even had a conversation about music with my dentist recently!) And Mike actually likes to go shooting with me.
This post is going somewhere. Sovereign Grace Music just released a new album and so we called on Mike to give us and you the inside scoop. And well, it’s like we invited you to listen in on one of our little conversations. I haven’t got a clue as to what an “ambient guitar bed” sounds like, but after reading his review, I’m gonna go press play on that album again. Gotta be ready for my next trip to the dentist.
Timeless truth calls for songs that stand the test of time. “From Age to Age” is Sovereign Grace Music’s latest 14 song album filled with theologically rich lyrics, as we’ve come to expect from Bob Kauflin and Sovereign Grace Music, coupled with an updated indie-hipster sound, sung with a soulful edge. Ambient guitar beds, creative percussive arrangements, banjos, xylophones and trumpets all come together to create this distinct sound entirely recorded “in house” at the Sovereign Grace Studio. But don’t just take my word for it, listen for yourself and let us know that you think. Consider the newly arranged classic, “O My Soul, Arise” or “How Great You Are” sung by guest vocalist, Brooks Ritter to get a feel for the album before permanently adding it to your iPod playlist.
You can sample the entire album on the cool new Sovereign Grace website, and sample/download the album from iTunes ($9.99), Amazon ($7.99), or Bandcamp ($9.00). As always, you can buy a physical copy of “From Age to Age” from the Sovereign Grace Store. And yes, free charts, lead sheets, and piano scores are coming soon so you can play these songs yourself at home or congregationally at your church.
As my mother-in-law will tell you (and we shared a home for six years, so she would know) there are few things I enjoy more than reorganizing a cluttered spot in my house. But I think it might be even more fun to judge the pick one spot contest—all of the satisfaction one gets out of uncluttered floors and neatly stacked boxes and bins, but none of the work!
Every year, you all make it so difficult to decide a winner, but I think we’ve found one—congratulations to Jasmine! We’ll let her give you a tour of the before and after:
We have a spare room closet that was a junk closet:
2012 at 9:24 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
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Fun Stuff
Due to the wonderful response to our 52home sale we wanted to give you a little more time to buy that last minute Mother’s Day gift. So we are extending the sale through midnight, May 3. Just enter the promo code “MOM” at checkout and you will receive 25% off your entire order. Get your mom a beautiful gift for the home she loves.
I don’t think I’m cut out to be a school mom. (Probably not cut out to be a homeschool mom either, so I’m not sure where that leaves me.) I only have one child in school. Just one itty-bitty kindergartner who only goes half-day. I mean, really, how complicated can that be? She’s six years old and one of those responsible firstborns. But her mom is, shall we say a relaxed third-born? And that’s where we run into problems.
First off, there is homework. Homework has due dates, and I have challenges with due dates. I find them hard to keep in my brain. I must confess that on more than one occasion the “relaxed” adult has been found dragging the responsible kindergartner out of bed early on the morning of said “due date” to do the homework that was assigned seven days ago. And if that isn’t bad enough, the last two weeks, I completely forgot about the homework and the due date. It’s rather embarrassing when the note to your child’s teacher is asking for mercy for you and not the student.
It’s not just the homework that causes me trouble. Last week I sent Caly to school with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, all the while forgetting about the little boy with the peanut allergy in her class. Caly told me that he sneezed during the entire snack time. The teacher very kindly told my daughter that “adults just forget things sometimes.” That’s a nice way to put it.
And today, I find myself in yet another kindergarten jam. Caly’s book that she checked out from the school library is missing. As looking under beds and inside closets has yet to yield the missing book, a fear that I have been working hard to ignore is quickly becoming a reality. I think I might have returned the book to my local public library. Mrs. Keeler, if you are reading this, I want you to know that I will not rest until I locate Three Billy Goats Gruff somewhere in the Montgomery County Library system and return it to your beloved library shelf!
The good news in all of this? The school year is almost over! Three whole months where I can walk around guilt-free. And for those of you that may be seriously concerned about me by the end of this post, let me just say—you probably should be.
2012 at 3:26 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
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Fun Stuff
Thanks to the good people at Next, these five people will receive free registration:
Kathryn Heerema
Tanya Carlin
Samantha Axberg
Jeff and Robin Jennings
Alyse Guillard
Congratulations to all of you and we pray you have a Christ-exalting time at Next! For the rest of you, please note that the early bird special is good through April 22 so sign up soon.
2012 at 8:51 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
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Fun Stuff
It’s that time of year again for the Pick One Spot Contest. Actually, we keep changing the time of year we do this contest, but this year it is that time of year.
Same prize: $100 to your favorite home store (Target, Home Goods, World Market, Pottery Barn etc.)
Same instructions:
1. PICK ONE SPOT in your house that is in dire need of some TLC 2. Take a “before” picture 3. Proceed to give said spot some TLC 4. Take an “after” picture, and 5. Send your pics to us for a chance to win some prizes.
Same time to complete: 2 weeks, so you must submit your entry by Friday April 27
Same email: send entries to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Same judges: yours truly, and you can check out past winners to get an idea of what it might take to win (2011, 2010,2007)
Looking forward to some great entries again this year!
Thank you for the many entries you submitted to our 52home at Your Home contest. It was tons of fun getting a peek into your lives through your lenses. And let me tell ya, it made choosing the winners quite the challenging task. But in the end we narrowed it down to three ladies that we thought demonstrated both a variety in presentation as well as creativity.
So, without further ado, congrats to our winners- Jennifer from Roanoke, Virginia, Kelly from Louisburg, Kansas, and Katie from Greenville, South Carolina. Their images will be featured on 52home over the next three weeks. Each winner will receive a print of her choice from the 52home collection. We begin this week with “52home at Jennifer’s home”. I know you will all enjoy!
Hey y’all! Thanks so much for the many entries you have sent in for our 52home At Your Home contest. If you would still like to enter you have until midnight tomorrow (Saturday) night. The winner’s images will be featured on the blog and the winner will receive a print of her choice from our 52home collection. For rule reminders click here.
Did you know that this month marks two years of 52home? That means that you’ve been watching my daily life for quite a while now. And now I would like to see your daily life! So I came up with an idea that has me pretty excited. I’m calling it “52home at your home”. For all you picture people out there, I want to see what life is like at your house. Ants, cereal for dinner, holes in your socks—whatever life looks like for you. You don’t have to have a camera that weighs half a ton; point and shoots or phones are welcome. This is not about skilled photography (although don’t hold back if you’ve got the goods!); it’s about extraordinarily ordinary daily life, and we all have that!
So if you want to enter this little contest, here’s the deal…Grab your camera and take 5 pictures that capture a typical week in your life. And you don’t have to be a mom with little kids to enter: Long days and ordinary life belong to everyone. Send us an e-mail by Saturday April 7 with your entries at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Your images need to be jpegs with a max width (vertical or horizontal) of 500 pixels. Each image should be sent with a time of day the picture was taken and a caption if you so desire. And you don’t have to take the pictures on 5 separate days. You might have one crazy day where you get all 5! I just need your final entries by the 7th. The winner’s images will be featured on the blog and the winner will receive a print of her choice from our 52home collection.
So, get busy shooting! Can’t wait to get a peek into your homes.
This week’s Friday Funny comes courtesy of my wonderful husband:
So every night for the last three weeks, from the very first night we got Jude and Sophie from the transition home, I’ve tucked them into bed with a very affection bed time saying:
“mah-TAH, mah-TAH!”
This is Amharic for “night, night!”
Or so I thought.
Tonight, we ate at our local Ethiopian restaurant. The owner took a liking to us and wrote down some useful Amharic phrases, including a phrase meaning “time to sleep.”
I mentioned my nightly ritual: “mah-TAH, mah-TAH!” Her eyebrows went up. My heart sank.
“I think you mean MAH-tah, MAH-tah. That’s how you say night, night.”
So what does mah-TAH, mah-TAH mean?
Turns out, in my zeal for cultural sensitivity, what I’ve actually been saying is:
“Spanking, spanking.”
This could explain at least some of the bedtime grumpiness.
Last week the Mahaney clan was blessed with the exciting arrival of Elena Hope Pyle, granddaughter to CJ’s sister Sharon, and son of our nephew JD and his wife Cheryl. This makes—if I’m counting correctly—20 great-grandchildren for CJ’s mom, with several more on the way! We are so grateful that God kept mommy and baby safe and we thought you’d enjoy hearing about Elena’s exciting birth, as told by her grandma, Sharon.
Congratulations JD and Cheryl! With love, Aunt Carolyn
Elena Hope was born on earthquake day. She came in dramatic fashion about 3 weeks early. Cheryl was putting on her makeup at her mom’s house. She had spent the night there because her sister was going to babysit Isabelle while Cheryl went for her doctor’s appointment. She had been having what she thought were Braxton-Hicks contractions, but suddenly she felt what she called “the worst menstrual cramp ever” which made her drop to her knees. She called for her sister and her mom, who threw a blanket down on the bathroom floor and called 911 at 9:13 a.m. At 9:15 a.m. the baby basically fell out! Would that we all could have had 2 minute labors! Her sister Claudine somehow knew what to do. She had her last child 7 months ago, and she said she “ironically” had taken a class on medical assistance. Anyway, she had an unused syringe she used to suction the mucous and used a shoelace to tie off the placenta. In God’s mercy, kindness, and faithfulness, mom and baby are both great. Poor J.D. was an hour away and thought his mother-in-law was joking when she called to say the baby had arrived. He knew it wasn’t a joke when he heard the baby crying! No less than 8 paramedics arrived 6 minutes later in 3 ambulances and a fire truck, not a woman among them! There was Cheryl in her pretty, long dress and beautifully done hair and makeup holding her baby! She weighed about 5 lbs. and is about 18 inches long, although now she is in the 4’s, a little peanut. Later that day J.D. sent a picture and texted, “Elena was born and the earth shook.” They came home yesterday and all are doing well, praise the Lord! I told Stacey (due Sept. 16) and Stephanie (due Dec. 12) they had better not try that trick at my house. Midwifery is not on my resume!
