How Many Kings…

Early this Christmas season, on a quiet Sunday afternoon I sat down in our little front room to rest and listen to some music. I flipped through the genre called “Christmas” on our Ipod (have I mentioned I married a wonderfully organized man who is also super-savvy about all things technical?).  Jay of course had each and every one of our Christmas albums neatly listed – and of course, each album had its own cover picture which correlated to the jacket on the original CD.  Except for one.

Under the heading “Various Artists” was a random assortment of songs from, appropriately enough various artists…but no jacket cover, album title or names of songs were noted.  Intrigued, I hit play on the album to see what was up with that, and was immediately taken with the first song. Really really taken. As it played I called to Jay who was in the next room, “Where did this song come from? Which album is this? I LOVE this song…have you ever heard it before? Wow, this is an amazing song!!”  Turns out he hadn’t ever heard it either…nor did he have any clue how the music appeared on our Ipod.  How it got there remains a mystery, but I’d like to think of it as a delightful surprise Christmas present, no matter where it came from.

The song is “How Many Kings” by Down Here. I think this was actually released a couple of years ago, but I have never heard it before.  The words were striking, and I loved the music and artistry. The content closely mirrored some of what our pastor had talked about in church just a couple of hours before. How beautiful and startling: this concept of the God of the universe humbling himself to the point where he becomes one of the weakest and frailest who dwell on this earth…completely dependent on ordinary, sinful humans for his very subsistence.  Though I know of no other songs by this Canadian band, I love this release enough to look into some of their other offerings.

I am no artist myself so my words do little justice to this beautiful song…which I why I am going to stop blathering and let you listen to it for yourself!  While I cannot find the exact recording that somehow magically appeared on my Ipod, I did find this video of a live performance. It’s live, so it’s not musically/technically perfect, but if you have a sec…take a listen!



Follow the star to a place unexpected
Would you believe after all we’ve projected
A child in a manger

Lowly and small, the weakest of all
Unlikeliness hero, wrapped in his mothers shawl
Just a child
Is this who we’ve waited for?

Cause how many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?

Bringing our gifts for the newborn savior
All that we have whether costly or meek
Because we believe
Gold for his honor and frankincense for his pleasure
And myrrh for the cross he’ll suffer
Do you believe, is this who we’ve waited for?
It’s who we’ve waited for

How many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?
Only one did that for me

All for me
All for you
All for me
All for you

How Many Kings Lyrics- DOWNHERE Song words

Single Song Words by Artist / Band : DOWNHERE
Lyrics Title : How Many Kings
Taken from Album : –
Single Released : 2007

All He Wants…

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for Christmas are his

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Gee, if he could only have his

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Then he could wish you MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Now…as to what his Momma wants for Christmas: after seeing the difference in the pictures from my camera (top shot) and Auntie Jamison‘s camera (other two pics, both of which I cropped from a MUCH bigger shot of 6 children, so it’s pixillated to the max!! <Classic Peg>….or however you say it in fancy camera speak), my wish is clear: I want Santa to bring me Auntie Jamison’s camera!

Let There be Lights!

It has felt like a heavy week: Abigail lost her surviving gerbil, Mittens exactly two weeks after Muffin died. This was a very hard blow to her.

A good friend of our family’s spent much of the past week in the hospital with serious health concerns that appeared out of the blue; I am reminded that God is not surprised by these incidents, yet we in our humanity do feel shaken by such things.

And there are other rather serious concerns that weigh on my heart and mind…which makes this entry feel a bit frivolous truth be told.  But in the midst of various concerns, we continue to celebrate Advent, the Coming of Christ, and it has been wonderful to share this season again with our children, all of whom now cherish our Christmas traditions, and are excited about new ones.

One new tradition this year is the addition of lights outside to “festivize” our home! Little Josiah was adamant that he would like “Colorful Christmas Lights along the Roof of our House!” But Jay has not had much spare time to make that happen.  Aside from the fact that ladder-climbing is usually a precarious proposition for him given his physical constraints.

So we set our minds to decorations NOT involving Jay or the roof…and my little red-headed helper braved the freezing cold with me yesterday to finish out the lights lining the walk to our front door. Why we chose to string lights on the coldest day of 2009 I do not know…

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Maybe it was because of the gorgeous sunset we got to enjoy while we worked:

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And here is the finished product: I give you House of Horne Christmas 2009!

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Snow Day!

On Wednesday morning, we woke up to see SNOW pouring down from the sky onto our Texas backyard! What a wonderful surprise! The children bundled up in coats, hats and mittens…some of them didn’t even bother to take off their stripedy jammie pants, they were in such a hurry to play in the white stuff!

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The Christmas Gift

A few days ago, we got our Christmas tree put up, and the other boxes of Christmas decor out. As we have put touches here and there around the house, Josiah has been more interested than in previous years about this thing called “Christmas”. I field the question, “But Mom, when is it going to be Christmas?” about 7 times a day. Each time he is disappointed to learn that no, today is not yet the day.

But on Sunday night, his grandparents brought over a little present for us all to open…inside were ornaments for each member of the family, including one for Jay and I. Taking his cue from Grammy, Josiah must have decided that even though it was not yet Christmas day, at least it was high time to start the giving and receiving of gifts. The next morning I found him hard at work trying to tie a piece of string around the same box Grammy’s ornaments had been packaged in.

“What are you trying to do?” I asked him.

“I need to tie the string on this box. It’s a present for you, Mommy!” he replied.

Of course I helped tie the string, which pleased him greatly. Beaming from ear to ear, he held out “his” present to me…

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“Here you go, Mommy…it’s your Christmas present from me!” he said.

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I opened the box to find these treasures:

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A beautiful pointsettia ornament (strangely similar to the one my in-laws had given me just the night before).

A drawing of a turtle, done by Josiah himself.

And a magnetized chip clip.

“The clip is so you can hang my turtle picture on the ‘frigerator” Josiah explained to me. Well of course it is…how clever!

I love my present from my littlest guy! I love even more that at his tender age, he is learning that part of Christmas is about giving gifts to others, just as our Heavenly Father gave the greatest gift to us more than 2000 years ago.

Kitchen Fire!!

What do you suppose happens when on a totally innocent whim, the lady of the house puts an ordinary bag of tortilla chips:

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into the microwave to warm them up before serving them to her family??

What happens at House of Horne is that you get Chips (and Bag!) Flambee (shout out to our good buddy Dave!)

Here is what it looks like after you stamp out the impressive-looking flames and douse the still-glowing embers:

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Unfortunately, I cannot properly share with you the incredible smell that is created from such an occurrence happening in your very own microwave. You will just have to take my word for it: it is hideous!

Next time I’d like warm chips with our fajita supper, I will carefully place all chips into a microwave safe bowl before heating.

‘Nuff said.