Happy Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! 
I'm going to take my kids to the Church History Museum in Salt Lake.  They currently have a "hands on" exhibit of the Book of Mormon and I'm dying to see what they do.  I'm especially wondering if there will there be arms for us to cut off.  But I suppose that would make it a "hands off" exhibit, so maybe not. 
Anyway, for my birthday this year I am sharing a Christmas song arrangement I did a while back, a medley of We Three Kings and Amazing Grace.  It's one of my most favorite things I've ever written, and I'm quite partial to my own work :).  I've thought of a lot of ways to go about sharing it, and I settled on uploading it to the web (Scribd.com) and allowing people to download it.  It works when I try it, but please let me know if it doesn't for you.  I'm posting it to Facebook too but you're kind of my test group.  Take it as a compliment. 
Below is the explanation of how the song came to be.  I've also uploaded this to Scribd, but thought it would be a nice touch here.  Above all, have a very happy my birthday!


Guide Us to Amazing Grace: The Background


When I was eight months pregnant with my first baby and during a surprisingly sound sleep, I had a very vivid dream in which I was at a music conference where a man was playing the piano. It was very noisy and I had a hard time hearing the piece, but as I sat in my chair leaning forward to focus, I realized it was a blend of We Three Kings and Amazing Grace.

After I woke up, I thought about the two songs and how appropriate they were together. The reason the wise men were seeking the Christ child in the first place was because He is the source of pure grace and redemption! Of course Amazing Grace was their quest! As I worked to merge the songs, I felt that the melodies meshed together wonderfully. The original verses of "We Three Kings" outline the wise men’s gifts and their symbolisms. That didn't really go with the search for grace that I wanted to portray, so I wrote original verses to tie the meaning of the two songs together. The choruses fit beautifully with only minimal chord structure changes, and the words flowed together easily. The end result excites me more than words can tell.

I originally arranged “Guide Us to Amazing Grace” for SATB, and added an SSA version because I usually sing with women. My sister then asked for an SAB arrangement for her choir which for some crazy reason had about twice as many women's voices than men's. After a few years of not quite knowing what step to take next, I realize that the state of the worldwide web is such that it may be the perfect vehicle to share my song with whoever may want to use it.

Today is my birthday. In celebration, I would like to offer my song to the world. If you want to use it for church or school or family or anything, please do. Make as many copies as you need. Share it with your friends. I have the song (SATB, SSA, SAB, plus a separate piano accompaniment) on Scribd.com under “Guide Us to Amazing Grace” in a PDF file version. If you would like a clearer copy, please contact me at PaigeRLMoore@gmail.com. I will send you the mus version (currently, scribd.com does not support mus), and a link where you download FinaleReader, a free music-reading software program. My greatest wish is that the song will enrich your hope to guide you to amazing grace.

Paige Levanger Moore

1 September 2011

Family Pics 2011

My brotherinlaw Spencer recently took some Family Pictures for us. He's cool like that. Although he did say that our family was the hardest group of people to do.  Elijah just wasn't into it.  Here are some of my favorites! Oh, and if anybody is looking for some free pictures while he figures out how to be a photographer, he might want to talk to you :)

Not just reading... PERFORMING

Miriam has totally caught onto reading over the past few months. It was with Dick and Jane that she really figured things out. She had gotten to the point where she was reading most of the stories without help, then one time she was saying wacky words that I didn't recognize at all. I looked at what she was reading and said, "Honey, you know that word," meaning, "Quit goofing off and read it right." "But Baby Sally's saying it, Mama, and she can't talk very well." I but had to laugh. Sure enough, she created a different voice for every character. Jane talks high, Mother talks higher, and Father is deep. Dick is kind of like a beach bum hippie (kinda like Shaggy on Scooby Doo) and Sally starts all words with "N" (kinda like Scooby and the R thing he has going on). It kind of gets annoying, especially when Dick and Sally talk back and forth for two pages, but I'm totally impressed with her ability and desire to not only read the words but to own the characters. When she's tired, though, she tells me "I'm just going to read it all regular." Which she pronounces "reg-lee-ar." Gosh I love this girl! Anyway, here is Dick and Jane as performed by Miss Miriam. I looked for a story where the characters switch off pretty often so as to highligh the vocal personalities. I chose the one where Tim the teddy bear falls into the construction hole but (don't worry) the bulldozer brings him back to Sally. The first time we read this one it was kind of emotion. Remember, this is a pretty darn empathetic girl we're working with here.

When she saw I had quit recording she was a little worried that the story hadn't yet been resolved (refer to the previously mentioned natural abundance of emotionality). So we filmed the rest of it just in case you're trying to figure how exactly it is that Tim returns to Sally's loving arms.

Tootsie Rolls

I have been much more cute and creative with Miriam's hair lately. It helps that her 1970s-little-boy-bowl-cut has grown out quite lovely. My hair interest might have started when she took ballet last fall and I had to have an "updo" for her. See, for myself, it was pretty fancy to put a barette in rather than just leaving it down. Then I started putting cute little braids in to hold my hair back. Then with working with Miriam's hair, I've gotten suprisingly good. I have found it is most important to have something to do with the top of her hair, then to take it back into ponies. If I just do the ponies, the front and top fall out and are in her eyes. My cousin Eve (actually she's my cousin's wife, but I claim her) taught me how to do this cute little thing on top. We call them Tootsie Rolls and we love them. Miriam adores all the attention that she gets when she wears them and it's so nice to be able to keep her hair out of her eyes. We do these every other day at least. Anyway, I check out www.cutegirlshairstyles to get ideas, and I sent a little how-to to CuteGirlsHairstyles because I constantly get the "how do you do that?" and it would be nice to give them a place to see how I do it. But I haven't yet heard back yet, and since I already have the writeup and pictures, I figured I'd pass it along!

TOOTSIE ROLLS

Time requirement: 10 minutes
Materials needed: rat-tail comb, spray bottle, rubber vands if finishing into ponies

1. Partition off a thin section in the front. Wet down and divide into two.
2. Take one side and cross it over then under the other like you're tying a shoe.
3. Go over and under once more with the same strand.

4. Go over and under twice with the other strand.

5. Slowly cinch the hair down. The twisted part will go underneath the tunnel formed by the roots of the hair.
6. Pull tight to finish.

7. Continue with the second Tootsie Roll.
8. And as far back as you want.
9. You can stop here and wear it down.
10. Or continue into ponies.
11. Or add twists, braids, etc.

I find it is easier (and stays better) to work with damp to wet hair. Smaller portions also work better than bigger ones.

Thanks to my sister Erin for taking the pictures, and to Miriam for sitting through it (my favorite shot is her playing her Leapster. VERY common hair-doing activity), and to my niece Adelle for posing with the twisties. This is Miriam's favorite way to wear it right now because she likes to shake her head back and forth and hit her face with the braid ends. Whatever floats your boat. But I feel like a COMPLETE SUCCESS when we do these because she looks so good and everybody knows that her Mama did it for her. YAHOO!