The Saddest News of the Day....

It has just been announced via press release that the third movie in the Hobbit trilogy, "The Hobbit: There and Back Again," has been moved to a December 17, 2014 release date.  Originally planned as a summer film, the move now mirrors the three Peter Jackson directed Hobbit films with is also-directed "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy.  The second movie, "The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug," is scheduled for a Dec. 13 release this year.

The shift makes the release consistent with the pre-holiday releases of the previous films pitting it in competition with two family friendly films, one a spinoff of "Despicable Me," and the other from Pixar's Brad Bird titled "Tomorrowland."

The bulk of all three films has already been shot with planned "pick ups" set for May which are expected to last for several weeks or even months. The first film, "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," has grossed nearly $1 billion world wide at the box office and $300 million in the U.S. The three movies are based on the book "The Hobbit," by J.R.R. Tolkien, released 75 years ago.

Found here on The One Ring.

No, I didn't cry....  I just sighed.

~Eowyn~

Quite a Few Things I LOVE About Christmas!!

• The fact that it's actually CHRISTMASTIME!!!  ("Eowyn, dear, we have all apprehended as much."  Yes, yes, yes, I know, I've just been super busy.  First and probably last Christmas post, coming up!)
• Having Starbucks Holiday drinks... the Peppermint Mocha especially (or Peppermint Hot Chocolate or Peppermint Mocha Frappichino!!)
• Listening to Christmas music - old faithfuls like It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (which we have on a record, but can't listen to because a certain three-year-old brother broke the needle... again...), Marshmallow World, and The Christmas Waltz, and newer songs like All I Really Want for Christmas (I dare you to listen to it and not cry!), Welcome to Our World, While You Were Sleeping, The Christmas Can-Can (heehee...), and Oh, Holy Night (performed by The Voice of Chocolate).  I've heard people say that they're tired of Christmas music within the first week of December, but I never tire of Christmas music!!!
• Watching It's a Wonderful Life, our Christmas Eve movie!!  (Jimmy Stewart is ah.mazing...)

Donna and Jimmy's onscreen chemistry deserves an Academy award!

• Gathering with friends from church
• The cold weather!  Here in Georgia, it's finally gotten cold!  At my violin recital last night (I played the Bach Double Violin Concerto and loved it!), I nearly froze.  No kidding!
• Watching 'The Kid' - a Growing Pains Christmas Special.  Discovered it earlier this year after reading Still Growing by Kirk Cameron (great read, by the way!) and really liked it!
• Watching White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby!  Arwen started it for my little brother this morning before I got up and now we're going to watch it again.  : )
• Getting together with family members that I haven't seen in ages!
• Watching The Shop Around the Corner,which isn't a Christmas movie per se, but whatever.  Like I said - Jimmy Stewart....  : )

Alfred Kralik (Jimmy Stewart): There might be a lot we don't know about each other. You know, people seldom go to the trouble of scratching the surface of things to find the inner truth.
Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan): Well I really wouldn't care to scratch your surface, Mr. Kralik, because I know exactly what I'd find. Instead of a heart, a hand-bag. Instead of a soul, a suitcase. And instead of an intellect, a cigarette lighter... which doesn't work.

• Watching Holiday Inn.  No, it's not a Christmas movie, but it's got snow in it, which automatically makes it a Christmas movie.  Me loves it.  : )
• Eating candy and cakes and cookies and fudge and every good thing!
• Watching Little Women!!  (If I think a movie should be classified as a Christmas movie, who are you to argue with me?!  Need I pull the its-my-blog-I-can-do-whatever-I-want-with-it card?)
• The fact that The Hobbit and Les Miserables will now forever remind me of Christmas!!  WAHOOO!!!
• Watching Miracle on 34th Street!  Love that movie....  : )
• Teaching my little brother about Christmas.... : )  I love listening to his reasons - "Jingle bells and presents!" - then helping him find the real reason - "Jesus when born!  And Santa Claus!"  (Well, sort of....  We're still working on it.)  (Bunny trail....  Let me just tell you guys that he. Is. Adorable.  The fortunate few of you that have met him know how much personality he has!  Just the other day, he went out to eat with my mom and one of her friends and her husband, and this adorable little evangelist was asking the man, "Did you know that Jesus died on the cross?  And Christmas is about Jesus when born?"  And then, at a Christmas party after my violin recital, he stared at an older man for a long time, then told him, point blank, "You... are an old man.")

My absolute favorite reason why I love Christmas, however, is the fact that it's actually Christmastime once again.  I've heard that Christmas is when the world falls in love, and I know that's been true when it comes to my relationship with my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I could go on and on about how He didn't have to be born in a manger - He's the King of Kings! - or how many things I've learned this year, especially in the past month, that make me love Him more....  It seems like everything in my life is drawing me closer to Him!  From questioning why people don't do certain things I'm involved in, like watching The Hobbit or actually celebrating Christmas and asking God to help me find the reasons why I do those things and not just settling for the easy answer ("Just cuz..."), to just learning about Him through church events, the Anger Resolution Seminar by Bill Gothard.  No, I'm not perfect (far from it, as you hopefully know!), but I can see myself slowly growing in my relationship with Him.  I'm forever thankful for what He did for me, for which, despite all the awful beating this holiday has taken from the media and marketing and millions of other sources, I'm forever reminded of this time of year.  It's something I'll still be thinking about a lot and I hope you'll take the time to do the same.

Merry Christmas!!!

~Eowyn~

*inane giggling*

(I can't look at that poster without smiling!!  "Incineration...?")

Quick post just to say that I saw The Hobbit last Saturday and, needless to say, absolutely loved it.

I'd love to do a longer post/review (complete with quotes and pictures and what have you!!!), but that'll have to wait 'til I have more time on my hands.  : P

So I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from The Hobbit.

Ready?

(Well, I can't find the entire quote....  All I can find is from TV Spot #6....  Oh, well.)

"I know you doubt me.  I know you always have.  I often think of Bag End.  That's where I belong - that's home.  You don't have one.  It was taken from you....  But I will help you take it back if I can."

~Eowyn~

A Sort-Of Expected Party

Or, 'The Post in Which I Include Tons of Pictures.'  (This is when Haley grins and greedily takes in all of the pictures.  Heehee....)

My birthday festivities started a few nights before the big day.  Like I said in my last post, I cleaned two houses, then came home and made my cake, staying up much past my bedtime.  But it was well worth it, as you'll see from the pictures!!

I literally threw my party together driving to piano lessons with my mom, which is also when I came up with the idea for my cake.  My mom said something about us going to go see The Hobbit and I said if it came out a week before, I'd totally go see it for my birthday.  But, sadly....  I remembered that I'd wanted to have a hobbit-themed party when it came out, but, due to Christmas parties, now thought it was impossible.  Not so!  Hey, even if my birthday was like a week before The Hobbit came out, that doesn't mean I can't still have a hobbit-themed party!!  Instantly, images of hobbit hole cakes flooded into my mind and I grinned.  "Mom!!" I giddily exclaimed.  "I can have a hobbit hole cake!!!"

(This is when I say, "Non-Ringers/Hobbit fans: Beware of the abundance of hobbit-y pictures to follow.")

Yes, I baked all this!  And all gluten- and dairy-free!  : )
Now, how does most of this make a hobbit hole cake?  I'm glad you asked!

That's how.
(The two little circles flat on the cooling rack were for the windows.)

The windows and (adorable!!) door in the freezer.

This is how I did the top of the cake.  Messy-looking, right?!  I was a little disappointed and hoped it'd still work!

Almost done!  I think I took this picture right after I was ready to put the green-food-coloring-dyed-coconut-flakes on the wet icing, but realized they were still soaking!  Whoops!  I spread them out on a cookie sheet and stuck them in the oven, then tried to work on the cake while they were speed-drying.

The completed cake!  Ain't it so cute?!  Not quiiiite like a real hobbit hole - everybody knows that hobbit holes don't have vines hanging down from the grassy top - but I liked it.  Everything I made the cake out of was edible - and no fondant or marzipan!!  I don't like fondant at all and all of the (five) pictures of hobbit hole cakes (very few - I had very little to base my cake off of!) were made out of fondant.  Yuck!

My green door with a knob right in the middle.  (At least that part is accurate!)
I'm very proud of it.  : )

Torn-up marshmallows and homemade icing-covered flax cereal.

My chimney!!  I made it out of Nutella, which I added powdered sugar to.

A hobbit-sized wood stack.  : )



My sign I put on top of the cake in the refrigerator.  At one in the morning, I thought it was very witty.

The morning of my birthday, my parents went out to eat breakfast with another couple.  "Us kids" had the house to ourselves and we made use of it.  : )

One of the best things about having a December birthday is the fact that my family can put their presents for me under the tree!!  I love it.  : )  (These are strewn out because my little brother and I had to feel and shake each one.)

The present that my littlest brother said was a bomb.  (It turned out to be an Avengers ball.)

Cutie-pie brother and I!

Me LOVES my Gamgee Landscaping shirt!!  (Take notice of the words around the 'G'.)
You can buy your own on Etsy here.

Of the three scarves I got for my birthday, I'll have to say that this one's my favorite.  My younger sister knit it and even let me try it on a few times to see if it was long enough , then stashed it away.  The deal was that she'd keep it til Christmas, but then she found the movie at Goodwill and Mom said to give it to me.  : )  I got to wear it to church on Sunday and enjoyed being subtly geeky.  XD

This, apparently, is the face Arwen gave my little brother when he said he was going to tell me what he got me for my birthday.  A little blurry, but I love it!

After opening presents, we just hung around and watched Horrible Histories videos.  : )  This one's my favorite.  (Special thanks to Anne-girl, who first posted the video on her blog!  One play and I was hooked!)  This is about the time that something occured to me....  I had an apostrophe epiphany and told my sister, "HEY!!  Rapunzel got a guy for her eighteenth birthday...."

My parents got home a while later and then we went to my grandparents' house, where some friends joined us for more present-opening, games, dinner, half a movie, cake, and the other half of the movie.  (Ever After, if you were wondering....  If you haven't seen it, hie thee to Netflix or some such entertainment-provider!)

Me opening presents.  So embarrassing with everybody staring at me....
(Sunday at church was much worse, however!  Everybody sang while I was up front after playing the final song with the rest of the the worship team!)

I'm planning on making some sort of sign to hang below it so that the "carry on" part is covered out.  It'll be dry-erase or something so that I can write different ones depending on my mood.  I'm seeing, "Longbourn is lent at last!" or "and Call Sir Percy" or "Enjo has a Red Vest of Power and Awesomeness" or "Bilbo has joined The Company" or even "Hey, it could be worse - NJ could be Marius!" 

All the kids playing ImaginIff!  So much fun!

Our awesome P-A-R-T-Y plates that can spell a lot of different things (like 'pray' or 'tar' or 'rap') and are very useful for a great many varieties of candy.  : )

 

Sticking those candles into my work of art was one of the hardest things I had to do all day.

(But it could be worse....  See below.)

The Scouring of the Shire.  *sniff*

And that was pretty much my birthday!

Expect the next post I do to be a long, gushy, fangirlish post about The Hobbit.  Sadly, I'll be cleaning a house, then going to two back-to-back Christmas parties on Friday, so I can't see it opening night....  *sob*  But we're going to the first available showing on Saturday!  (Right before a Christmas party at our house... which kind of means I can't watch it twice in a row....)  I'm also really glad Les Miz isn't coming out on December 14th....  I couldn't handle the overload of awesomeness!!  : )

Still wondering why My Guy missed his chance to proclaim his love for me....
~Eowyn~

"These babies are FANTABULOUS! Absolutely indispensary."

I don't normally do my nails, but in this case, that's right.  They're absolutely indispensary.  Check 'em out!!

First, for your viewing pleasure, my The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings inspired nails.

               They're

just practice nails, by the way.  I think they turned out pretty well for a first time!


And my Les Miz-themed nails.  I'm especially proud of my '4'.  : )

That's what my hands look like right now, by the way....  Seriously.  One hand is for The Hobbit and the other is for Les Miserables, the awesome movies that are coming out in December (which is the best month of the year).  I did them while listening to the completely awesome and very creepy, yet still awesome three part Adventures in Odyssey episodes, "The Labyrinth."

And it just so happened that the things I've been wanting to post about are Hobbit and Les Miz-themed, too!  How's that for spontaneous planning?  : )

I'll start with Les Miz.

Check this out!!  I nearly flipped when I saw it on Ally's blog.  Remain calm - and don't watch it more than three times in a row.  It's not pretty.  (I may or may not be speaking from experience....)

So, yeah.  Pretty awesome, right?!  Amy did a second-by-second rundown of it, which I heartily enjoyed reading.

Aaaaaand... there are some pretty awesome posters floating around the Internet!  I found a few more the other day, available here and here.  Javert looks a little weird, but that's okay because the red 'Javert' below him totally makes up for it.  This one has to be my favorite, though.  Uber cool.

On to The Hobbit!!

This video came out today and I've already watched it a few times.  Sure, it's only thirty-three seconds long, but the dialogue between Bilbo and Thorin is sooooo awesome.  (And I can't see Thorin without saying, "It's Thornton!  Look back at me....")

I knew there was a place where you could watch the trailer with alternate endings, but we were never able to get them to load.  And I just found them!  Huzzah!



But the thing about The Hobbit that I'm most excited about is the music!!  I just listened to the entire soundtrack today.  In it's entirety.  The whole thing.  All. Of. It.  And It. Was. Ah.Mazing.  Here is the link for you.  It's an hour and forty-five minutes long and the pause button doesn't work, so I'd suggest you find something good and looooong to do - like math and chemistry and Greek - and listen to it.  A few times, if you want to.  And let your school take even longer because you're thinking about what the track titles mean.  ('My Dear Frodo'?  Wassup with that, PJ?)  My personal favorite songs are all of them, with an emphasis on all of them, but especially 'My Dear Frodo' (First the Hobbiton theme, then it's creepy!  Whaaaaaa?), 'The Adventure Begins' (It's so fast-paced and hobbit-y!  "I'm going on an adventure!"), 'An Ancient Enemy' (Whoooooooaaaaa....  Deep and ominous - that's how I like it!), 'RADAGAST THE BROWN'!!! (This one is SO COOL!  The electric violin takes the stage and it equals awesomeness.  If you don't want to wait to listen through all the other songs, just click here.  It's awesome.  And amazing.  And awesomeness sauce.  All rolled into one.), 'Roast Mutton' (Again, so hobbit-y, but with a dash of foreboding), 'The Hill of Sorcery' (Looks like I need to read the book again...  And the Radagast the Brown theme is in here a little - awesome!), 'Warg-Scouts' (There's a great John Williams-esque brass part in here, with another pretty awesome cello/bass/timpani solo.  So cool!), 'Riddles in the Dark' (Which I can't wait to actually see!!  Anyway.  This song captures Gollum to a 'T'!  All those tremolos in the string section totally add to the creepiness!  And the really long, gradual crescendo at the end - chills, y'all.), 'Brass Buttons' (The Warg-Scouts theme in the middle is awesome!  I'm dying to see the footage and dialogue during this one!  Plus, the end is so awesome. All those grand pauses, then the continuation of awesomeness....  Golly Pete.), 'Out of the Frying-Pan' (Golly, jeepers!), 'A Good Omen' (Great song!  And a really creepy ending - here's hoping we'll see Smaug!), then the extended scene song, 'Dreaming of Bag End' (The pennywhistle did a little bit of the Hobbiton theme, but a lot of it was new, which I loved!), which was right after 'Song of the Lonely Mountain,' the credits song.  (And boy, is it worthy of some kind of award!!  It totally embodies dwarves and Thorin and The Company.  I loved it!!  I won't tell you how many times I listened to it....)  You can listen to 'Song of the Lonely Mountain' here, by the way.  It's got to be one of my favorite songs on the album.  That and 'Radagast the Brown.'  If you only have time for a few songs, go listen to those.

Wow, that was a lot.  I hope you guys take the time to listen to that music, though - it's totally worth it!!  If you've already listened to some of the songs, whatd'ya think?!

And all this news about Les Miz!!  Goodness gracious.  The month of December is already awesome enough (what with Christmas and parties and concerts and recitals and *cough*my birthday!!*cough*) and now it's going to be even greater.  Wow.  I can't wait.  I'm going to be reading The Hobbit and probably (hopefully) Les Miserables during my month-long Christmas break (I'll shout it from the rooftops, I don't care - I love homeschooling!), so that'll keep me busy until all these awesome movies come out.  Sighhhhh.....

What about you guys?  Are you as excited as me?  Or is it just me...?

Hoping I'm not the only one REALLY EXCITED about this December....

~Eowyn~

(Oh, yeah....  Bonus Awesome Points if you can correctly guess where the lyrics in the blog post title come from.)

On The Three Hobbit Movies...

So. Peter Jackson just dropped a bombshell - The Hobbit, first two movies, is now being split up into three movies. Think of the changes that have to be made! First all of the publicity stuff, then the movie novels, then the wait for all of the fans... the list goes on and on.

However, my only problem with The Hobbit being split up into three movies now is....

I don't know if I can handle the awesomeness!!

SQUEEEEEE!!! SO happy over here!!

Here's a great article that any Hobbit fan should read. Enjoy and think about three awesome movies in three years. (Argh - the suspense!! *evil laugh*)

~Eowyn~

Good to Know...

The Journey is Coming Soon....

Well, here we are, less than a year until the release date of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey!!

 

Needless to say, I'm excited.  Very excited.

 

~Eowyn~