Winter Song - The Cutest Little Video

I heard Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson sing this song on Jay Leno the other night and I fell in love with it and just recently came across the video for it. It is the cutest little animated short. Here is a cheeky still from the video. Click here to watch.




-Britten

A Little Christmas Angel

Since we are away this Christmas, there were only a few presents for us under our in-law's tree today. Our gift opening will come at home later next week. So for this Christmas day, all snowed in and cozy down in our family's basement, I felt inclined to give myself a spiritual gift and fill my heart as I have felt a little sad and troubled the last few weeks, mostly thanks to the stress of Christmas itself.

Last night after all the kids were fast asleep with the usual Christmas Eve visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads , I settled in to catch up on some blogs I follow. I was reading the last updated blogs on my blog list and stumbled upon a blog through another blog as we bloggers often do. The title is the picture above and it is written by Angie - the mother of Audrey Caroline. She is a Christian, a mother of twin girls (5) and another girl (2), married to a religious singer and she started a blog about her experience with her fourth and final pregnancy and birth of her daughter, Audrey. Audrey was diagnosed with fatal conditions at 20 weeks gestation and only lived for 2 1/2 hrs after being born at 34 weeks. This is the story of one amazing, loving family who experienced great loss. I had just started reading when I knew I was going to be in for the long haul, reading months and months worth of Angie's beautiful writing and touching story, when I got sleepy and knew I had to get to bed so I saved it for today.






Tears, tears and more tears later, this little baby's life and her mother's strength and spiritual journey have completely lifted me up this Christmas day and I couldn't have asked for a better gift. I want to love my children more. I want to pray more. I want to praise my Savior through my trials. If you had told me I would feel this way about 2 weeks ago I would have recommended that you jump off the nearest bridge. haha.

Angie lays out all her feelings and thoughts so beautifully and in such a raw, completely real way, that even if you have never lost a child, you feel you are with her in every step of the journey - that you ARE Angie or part of her family experiencing the gut-wrenching emotion of it all with her. And why would this be an uplifting experience on Christmas Day, you ask? Because the greatest part about Audrey's life was the spiritual journey of her mother and the peace and truth she found in her trials. Even though my own are far different than hers, she was able to find the truth about them for me, the truth I have been seeking for a long time. This was the greatest peace I could have wished for myself, and anyone else bound by a trial in this life, today and always because it was and is all about the Savior.







So Audrey and Angie are Christmas angels for me, who came into my field of view and brought tidings of great joy.



If you can find the time, I have faith they will do the same for you. I recommend starting in February of her blog and working your way through April to get the complete story. If you only have a little time, you can read the letter Angie wrote to Audrey here.

There is also a very touching slide show on YouTube with a song she and her husband wrote called Carry You here. Warning: Get a box of Kleenex.

May the Savior be with you on His birthday and always.

-Britten

Tagged - Bookworm

I was tagged by Kasie. This is also my first tag so it should be cool.

Here are the rules:

1. Open the closest book - not a favorite or most intellectual book, but the closest at the moment - to page 56.

2. Write out the fifth sentence on the page, as well as the two to five sentences following.

3. Then open your manuscript to page 56 and write out the fifth sentence, as well as two to five additional ones.

4. Tag five (or more) buddies to do this same exercise


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So the closest book to me was Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. It had fallen from a book shelf and now was lying on the floor next to my computer desk.

The music changed, and Charlie tapped on Edward's shoulder.

It wasn't nearly as easy to dance with Charlie. He was no better at it than I was, so we moved safely from side to side in a tiny square formation. Edward and Esme spun around us like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

(Aww, I love that part.)

I actually have a manuscript but I'm only up to page 28 on it so I will just use this page. After all, it's half of 56. =)

"Let’s try that!” Jessica said, amused. I was so glad they were so willing to get this address for me.

We walked around the corner to the field and carefully climbed through the barbed-wire fence. Lining ourselves up with Brandon’s window, we started hurling tiny rocks from the field at it but kept missing by a long shot.

“This isn’t working. We’re just going to have to call him tomorrow,” Jessica sadly stated. I mused that she secretly hoped the best for me, to get my mind and heart focused on other things besides bad ex-boyfriends.

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*somewhere in Utah* Jessica: "Wait, is that me you're writing about?"

*somewhere in North Carolina* Rachel: "Are you refering to Brandon Brandon?"

*somewhere in and around Fresno and other various parts of the US* Ex-boyfriends: "What do you mean, "bad"? *Dear Lord, please don't let her publish this*"

Me: "I never said this was a memoir." *whistling and looking very innocent*

Okay, I'm tagging Lisa and Candice. I can't think of any others that are writers and read this blog to see they've been tagged. If any of you are closet writers, come out and let me know!

Confession: I am The Christmas Faerie

So I've sorta had another blog now for about a year now and haven't ever linked to it from here because I wanted to get it completely ready for most of my friends and family to view it first. It is a portfolio of the decorating I've done the past couple of years.

Just click on the picture below to be whisked away to a Christmas Faerieland...




The link is http://thechristmasfaerie.blogspot.com/ for blog lists and the clickable button will now be permanently to the right. Check it around each month and I will have new decor pictures waiting for you.

Here's a peek to tempt you...

"River" by Sarah McLachlan

"I wish I had a river that I could skate away on."

There's something about this song that gets to me every time I hear it.
The words meshed with her breezy but yearning vocals, the melancholy tempo and dreamy instrumentals, not to mention the haunting little reprise of Jingle Bells at the end, well, it's just what I need on one of those December days when I wish Christmas didn't have to be so crazy.
When I wish I didn't have to do the everyday stuff on top of the shopping, decorating, wrapping, mailing, and school program going and could just watch Meet Me in St. Louis, The Nutcracker, and The Holiday non-stop while sitting by only the glowing lights of my Christmas tree or gazing out a window upon a winter wonderland and do nothing but dream, dream, dream...

And maybe it's the countless ice skating competitions/specials I've watched over the years, but when I listen to this song I can clearly see myself skating a complete choreographed ice skating routine from start to finish.
I know every move.
I can feel the crisp, chilled air rush across my face and hair as I glide swiftly over the iced river.
My skirt fabric flapping around my tight covered legs.
Bits of snow wetting my knees.
Blades cutting and crunching the frozen water.
My nose red and numb; sniffles coming on.
A fuzzy scarf warming my neck.
Knit gloves only slightly keeping my hands warm.
Dry mouth and lips turned up in an elated smile.
Head tilted back.
Eyelids closed to shield my eyes from the bright, white sun.
Snow covered mountains in the distance and white pine trees flanking the river like great pillars - sentinels marking the path to pure winter bliss.
Spinning, gliding.
Swirling, twirling.

Floating...

flying.

And I don't skate.
But I can see it.
I can taste it.
I can feel it.

Maybe I'm experiencing a really vivid dream about skating or perhaps I'm actually skating having thoughts of my other life I don't have to go back to for a long, long while.

This is my Christmas Wish.

Happy 1st Birthday to the TwilightMOMS! from the Cast of Twilight!

From the front page of TwilightMOMS.com:

Turn your volume up!!! From the Red Carpet Premiere of Twilight, the cast of Twilight say "Happy Birthday" to the TwilightMOMS to celebrate our 1st year on the world wide web!



My goodness! They truly love us! Squeeeee!

I just want to thank my dad, the Awesome #1 Superdad of the Universe, Mike Harmon, for the long hours of editing he did to bring this video to life! Thanks Dad! I love you!

Production and camera work credits to *gypsy wings* aka Georgia, ~kirsten~ , me aka EndlessTwilight and Sara from TwilightTEENS.

Being the one behind the camera for some of that footage totally made my millenium! Solomon aka "Sam" also grabbed my arm when he said "To my favorite MILFs"

o_O

*Thud*

-Britten

Edward's Wings...and a few other minor Twilight observations...

After viewing #3, I've decided Edward's wings are just about my favorite visual of the movie. The shots they get of him looking intensely at Bella with the wings directly behind him make him look like an angel. A guardian angel? Well, not at this point in the movie. He's thirsting so much for Bella's blood at this point I would describe it more as The Destroying Angel. But it's still magical and yummy nonetheless.


Also, some people thought his reaction to her smell for the first time was a little too over-the-top what with it looking like he is ready to vomit. I've heard of people smelling so bad causing those around them to vomit or at least want to. In Edward's case, it's not that Bella's smell causes him to almost spew - I think he's covering his mouth so he doesn't use it on her! *Chomp* LOL!



There are also those who can't stand Taylor's white teeth. They are whiter than white, that's for sure. Like beacons of light, actually. I'm pretty sure they glow in the dark. But isn't Jacob's smile supposed to be like the sun to Bella? Well, there you go....


Also, look at the Edward picture above again. (I know. I'm totally twisting your arm, right?) Do you see Edward's little book? It's kinda cool. It looks like it's made from a dark leather with some black embossed flourishes on the cover. I've noticed it here in the biology scene and it is also turned open lying page-side down on the piano when he's playing the Lullaby. It also might be open on the lounge chair in his room, but I will need another viewing to make sure. (I'm thinking this is a really good excuse to convince Andy I need to go again, don't you?) What do you think this book contains? Is this what he writes down his music in? His innermost thoughts on Bella? What a Twi-hard fan wouldn't give to get a hold of that book...


-Britten

My Twilight Movie Review

It's a well known fact, or should be by now with the large amount of books to movies we've seen over the last several years, that a movie adaption of a book is going to be lacking and modified from the original version. Catherine Hardwicke stated that their goal for Twilight was not to duplicate the scenes from the book but to get the overall "feel of Twilight" correct and, boy, did they ever! So much so, that a few scenes they took the liberties of adding to or changing from the book seemed like they came straight from the visions of vampires dancing in my head while reading Twilight for the first time.







For example, in the book when Bella was researching vampires on the Internet, I pictured in my mind scenes from old, black and white vampire movies. A glamorous Hollywood starlet draped in a diaphanous silk gown, neck exposed and a very hungry vampire at her throat with slick black hair complete with a widow's peak and dark red cape. Not that Stephenie mentioned anything even remotely close to this in the book, it's just a vignette even the smallest vampire fan reverts back to when you think of the classic vampire. So when we see Bella doing this in the movie it seems only natural that she has this sort of dream about Edward.




Some other very similar examples was the flashback scenes between the Quileutes and the Cullens during Jacob's telling of the "Cold Ones" legend. Again, it was something one has to imagine while he's telling the story in the book with the vintage clothing and what the Quileutes would have looked like and worn at that time period. I can't wait to see the Legend of the Third Wife played out on screen in Eclipse!





The revelation scene when Bella tells Edward she knows what he is worked perfectly as an intro to the content from the meadow scene. In the books they only run and hunt through the forest but when I saw pictures of the rain forests in and around Forks I couldn't help but imagine Edward and his family climbing up the the mossy branches and lurking in and around the ferns. I'm so glad they changed the location from the car to the forest for this scene. Not that the scene in the car wasn't intense and wonderful to read in the book but I like the visual in the forest better. I loved how he climbed up the tree and leaped onto the rocks as he demonstrated his power and explained his family to her. We just got to enjoy all of their surroundings more this way... I loved how Edward took her up into the trees and how Alice walks along a branch and then jumps down into the house. All this contributed to their animal- like movements and senses, their relationship to the natural world around them.




Another little thing they added that I loved was Charlie cleaning his guns before meeting Edward. In the book you get a sense that he is very protective of Bella but to mix that with his first meeting of Edward was just so classic. My hubby always says he wants to be cleaning his guns when Kaiya brings a boyfriend over the first time.

Other additions not in the book:

The apple scene that gave a nod to the book cover...loved it!





The kiss in the bedroom instead of the forest...enough said, really.





Victoria watching them at the end. In New Moon and Eclipse you get a sense that she is always watching them so this set the next two movies up nicely. Plus, Rachelle is just so darn cool and the window she is looking out is the window to the bedroom we stayed in at the View Point Inn. So cool!



Also, to showcase Alice's dance-like physicality they added in the twirl with Jackson during the lunch scene and the way she pitches the ball with her little pointed foot. So cute!





My favorite things about this movie:

All of the above, plus



The humans! Awesome! Michael Welch was a perfect Mike Newton and Justin Chon's Erik was hilarious. They were perfectly annoying as it should be.





Mike Dexter Carlisle is a GOD! Mike Dexter Carlisle is a ROLE MODEL! Seriously, his personality is what I picture God's personality to be like. He is so smart and subtle and kind with perfect willpower and strength and he loves all his children and directs them to rise above their flaws and be better than they are. I loved his anguish in the flashback scene when he was turning Edward. I loved his first entrance in the hospital. The best part was when he stopped Edward from going crazy and letting his anger get the best of him and simply stated, with a hand on his son's shoulder, "Remember who you are." I cry every time. Oh, how I love him so!

Plus, in reality Peter is such a kind man so this only adds to his character.



I thought Robert did a fabulous job bringing Edward to life. Some thought his reactions were a bit too over-the-top but I didn't. Bringing those deep emotions of Edward's to the surface is a difficult task. What is too much? What is too little? How do you convey the impact of Bella's smell for the first time to an audience who has never read the book and how do you get it perfect for those who have? I think he was subtle and timid when he needed to be and strong when it was called for. It's always going to be difficult for fans of the book to picture anyone as Edward because we all have a very clear picture of our own "Edward" in our heads, but for the movie Robert totally and completely became him. There were definitely parts to of Midnight Sun that shown through in his performance, especially his internal struggle during the kiss scene. That was pure perfection.



Also, Kristen and Rob portrayed the love story beautifully. I always knew Kristen would make a great Bella and she nailed it.



I especially loved the scenes between her and Charlie. Speaking of Charlie, Billy Burke nailed this part as well! I just wanted to reach out and give him a big hug when Bella lied and left him. I didn't know very much about Billy as an actor going into this so his performance pleasantly surprised me.








Jacob! I love me some Jacob. I had no idea how well Taylor would do as Jacob and he's a little too young for us older fans to swoon at but I have to say that he made a fabulous Jacob! I can not wait to see New Moon because of this one actor! But also, because of the scenes in Italy, Bella jumping off the cliff, the motorcylce scenes, the wolves and that yellow porche. And if they can get an awesome cast for the Volturi, then I think New Moon will go down as the least favorite book but the most favorite movie out of the series!







The baseball scene - one scene that was okay to read in the book but ten times better to watch in the movie! This really showcased their vamp powers well. Plus, Muse was playing during the scene which made it even that much funner!



There also has never been a better intro for bad vamps in all of cinema. That was pure rock and roll.



The intensity of the ballet studio fight scene was total movie magic. Especially after Bella gets bit and Edward's siblings are tearing apart James. Kristen did an excellent job making that vampire bite seems so painful! I love how Alice almost lost control and I love the beautiful video montage that played out as Edward was trying not to kill her as he was saving her. With Rob's song "Let me Sign" playing in the background it brought me to tears.




The prom scene was my most favorite. It was so gorgeous and having been to and stayed at the place they shot it at only made it that much more special for me (click for link). That whole scene under the lighted canopy was breathtaking and it captured the enchantment of Edward and Bella's intense love for one another.



I love that scene so much I had a jeweler I recently found on Etsy named Shielou make me a necklace to depict this scene. I told her the bricks on the Inn were a dark gray and that I wanted it to look like the little Edward and Bella charms were dancing under the twinkly lights. Didn't it turn out beautiful? I couldn't be happier!

It's called "Under the Starlit Canopy"



Here is her blog: http://shielou.blogspot.com/
and her etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6289058

The only things I had a slight problem with in the movie were some of the special effects. I thought the sparkle effect that ILM did was fabulous, but some of the leaping and running just didn't look realistic enough. I can totally overlook these things though since the movie was so good!

It has done so well with ticket sales that this morning Summit released a statement basically saying that New Moon is a go!



The estimated sales for the opening weekend are looking like $75 million which would make this movie the biggest opening for a movie with a female director ever! Go Catherine! She is one of the coolest people in the world (she walked the whole line of 200 camped-out fans the night before the premiere taking video footage for the DVD extras and signing autographs and taking pictures with everyone) and she deserves this honor.



This is not just a movie with a female director, but a screenplay written by a female and a female leading character all because of a book by a female writer. More power to the women!

After all, Joseph Campbell stated, "Woman is the sublime acme of sensuous adventure."

Twilight is a sensuous adventure indeed.


-Britten

Twilight Premiere!!!

I have lots of stuff I want to post about the red carpet and the podcast I was in, but I'm not sure if I will get time today and then I will be gone all day tomorrow for Kaiya's field trip and then the midnight showing of Twilight. So the long story will come on Friday. For now the short if it....

We got to be in the front row of the fan section of the red carpet. AMAZING! BEYOND A DREAM! Here are a few pictures and a video to prove it


Also, you can visit the TwilightMOMS blog for some stuff I did at the red carpet
here:

My little intro...



I'm a geek.

and pics HERE and HERE

Oh, yeah, and Rob came down the line. *** I got to touch him. ***

p.s. I am NOT the one talking in this video, i.e. not the one taking the Lord's name in vein, although it did constitute a big, fat "Oh, My Edward!") but I am the one recording it. =)

and screaming like a little fangirl... *headdesk*

I told myself I was going to stay cool, but the thrill of it all totally possessed me.



A few pictures....







The backs of Paramore





Ashley as she was being whisked down the red carpet by her manager. She was still trying to give the fans some love.





Alice-like fashion sense










Taylor got real close!






Cam being interviewed




**My pictures basically suck compared to the content that is out there right now, but we were so busy getting some video content (that we will feature later) that our pictures were just after-thoughts. Plus we were facing all the press lights so that didn't help. To view MUCH better pics, you can view Georgia's she took from the red carpet on Lisa's blog here.

And there are some of us and the cast on the red carpet here. You can find me if you look for my hand with all the rings...



Georgia, Kirsten and I at the TwiCon after-party.



Much more later!