a first: GIVEAWAY!

apparently something that mommybloggers do is giveaways. you have something that people want and you let them try to get it from you for free! since i am selfish, anything cool that i come across stays with me, so i never thought i would do a giveaway. then i had a dream. and i am not even kidding it was on MLK day.

.

caressing the ears of our wedding guests.

.

backing up: these are our good friends the kiesshauers, ryan and bethany. they sang at our wedding. jesse sang in theirs (i got snubbed!) bethany has known jesse fuh-eva and even dated him in 2nd grade (temptress!). i think ryan is hilarious and enjoyed a pretty deep conversation with him on a retreat in 2004 while i was still kind of creeped out by the rest of CCF. ryan and jesse played worship together lots of many much times at CCF in college and i think ryan taught jesse a thing or two about guitar. i lived in mexico with bethany for 6 months and count her among my favorite conversationalists (we are so good together). ryan and bethany's voices were made to sing together and their vocal chords made sweet, sweet music together before their, er, hearts ever did (though i think ryan always knew). we love them.

.

in our house. we're tight like that. they drove from ACWORTH!

.

after MLK had his and before i had mine, ryan had a dream. he wanted to use his RIDICULOUS musical talent to make a CD of his own. as in write all the songs, sing them, play the guitar in them, get together all the other musicians, record the songs, pay to produce it, and countless other things that go into it. well, he did it all and his CD is now out. bethany sings harmony on almost all of the tracks (i have NO ear for music so don't hold me to that) and it's pretty amazing. it has been in our car CD player since the day we got it.

.

so doy of all doys i am giving away one of ryan's CD's: Hope Lost/Found. in my dream i was animatedly telling ryan about the virtues of cross-marketing his CD with my blog through a giveaway. considering i had never thought of this during my waking hours, upon conscious examination, this was a pretty good idea. i told kiesshaur about it and he was all for it. (nothing else was discussed in that conversation...NOTHING).

.
here's the deal. i think 99% of people who read this already know ryan and bethany and would buy the CD anyway. if this is you, i would rather you actually buy one from ryan yourself from his website (which everyone should do if you aren't the winner!). you can also preview the CD here and learn all about his experience of writing the album.

.

seconds after ours arrived in the mail! the same kitchen jesse and ryan posed in above...cool!

.

but if you don't know the kiesshauers OR couldn't afford the CD, then now's your chance. to enter, all you have to do is post a comment here on this post. you can post one comment per day and each will count as a separate entry. i will pick a winner randomly (using random.org) and then announce who it is next friday. all the comments need to be in by thursday, february 4th at midnight EST (that's up to 10 entries...hello, stacked deck). if the comment thing is messing up and won't let you post then just email me your comment at keight8@gmail.com and i will post it for you. i am not sure about international shipping, so let me know if you're from far far away and we'll figure something out.

.

here is my description of the CD in case you were wondering what you might be getting. it's music about jesus that doesn't suck. the lyrics don't make you want to rip your ears off with rusty tongs and the musicality is better than lots of christian music you may have had the misfortune of hearing on the radio (bless your heart). i hesitate to even call it christian music because that usually means: lame-ass. this is not, yall. it's really solid. it's thought-provoking, praise-inspiring, hand-crafted, finger-licking-good music. grab yours now because one day these will be collector's items. this isn't ryan kiesshauer's CD, people; it's ryan kiesshaur's first CD.

.

*if you already have a cd or plan to buy one and you just want to comment on your love of kiesshauer and the greatness of his music or some other random topic, feel free (ahem, lena). i just wont count it as an entry*