Our great friend Aaron Strumpel (writer of the songs Twenty-Three, Centuries, and co-writer with us on Trouble Won’t Go, Too Proud, and Sweep Me Away) agreed to co-produce the project with us, and we love the flavor that he brings to our work. Aaron challenges us in the best ways to stretch the boundaries of our music, to really push ourselves creatively, and to fully understand our vision for the album. And we do know this for sure: this is an album of songs of worship.

We’ve tried not to put many limits on ourselves and on the work–and the work has been so fun as a result. Tim has been living out quite a few of his secret dreams, in fact. The latin percussionist, the Bruce Springsteen, and the crazy goat-hoof shaker guy all thrive within him.  And with this project, they finally have their outlet!

And I get to pursue some secret dreams of my own.  No, I haven’t gotten a Shakira moment yet, but yesterday I put a string section on Whisper Your Love that involved “Sugar-Plum Fairy” strings. High, flitty, and super fun to play. That’s almost as good, right? I also get to continue my foray into the wonderful and frustrating world of the cello. Most of the time, if I keep it simple, the cello does what I tell it to.  Yesterday, however, it almost got itself thrown off the back deck because of its disobedience.

We’re recording in Aaron’s house here in Woodland Park–here’s the view heading up–

and we’re thinking about splitting the studio to be in our house, too, so that we can continue recording when the babies are in bed. It’s a completely different thing than our last album; we’re working around our kids, we’re recording in a home studio, and we’re having so much fun experimenting, drinking coffee, making pancakes, and then experimenting some more.

I’m not sure when the new CD will be available for you to hear and enjoy. I know we’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll be done tracking our vocals and instruments by the end of this month, but with our chaotic family life, we just have to hold everything loosely. Rest assured, though, you’ll have it before Christmas for sure!

There are lots of ways you can keep up with our recording process. The best way is to be a fan of us on Facebook. It is so easy to upload pictures and one-liner status updates, so we do that often.

You can also follow us on Twitter, which also has some one-liner updates.

I am also updating my new blog for mommies with reflections about how this process fits in with my life as a mom of two small kids. Those posts that are less about motherhood and more about the process will also be posted here, I think.

So there you have it! We’ll try to be updating often, but until the next one, we’ll see you on Facebook or Twitter!

One of our goals in 2009 is to eliminate barriers between you and the music we make. There’s lots of good new stuff to come too: we’re working on a full string-section version of the new song “Speak to Me” as we, um, speak. It sounds awesome. But I can’t wait until it’s mixed (hopefully just a few days though) to start giving you those free downloads we’ve been promising.

We just returned form Winter Park where we encountered a worshiping community at Timberline Lodge that got really fired up about music worship. It was so fun to be with folks who began to understand the value of each part of the body, and that when we apply that to worship, we get to be creative and free!

We’re so glad to know the folks at Timberline, and are grateful for Dan and Sarah putting us up in their house. Mary took this photo for us. I think I see Stefan and Spencer back there. I’m not sure who the lovely socks belong to.

In keeping with that theme (creative and free, not lovely socks), we thought we’d give away one of our original songs for worship together, “Spirit of Heaven,” from The Bluing of the Sky. Anyone can download it by clicking on the widget above, and you can pass the files along to your friends.

If you have any issues with downloading, unzipping, or if you experience anything weird or life-changing (like a surge of new worship-leader super-powers), please let us know with a comment on this post and we’ll fix it. Or be happy with you if it’s good.