Happy Mother's Day

From

Today is Mother's Day, and I wanted to tell my Mom how much I love her. I'm not so good at remembering to send cards or gifts, and one thing I like about Mom is that she seems to understand that. She has always done a great job of loving us just as we are!

Mom, I really appreciate all you did for me when I was growing up. You were a great example of working hard and always having a cheerful attitude. You are always quick to smile (like in this picture). I miss you and look forward to seeing you soon!

Love,

Susan

Daddy's Little Girl

Our homeschool group had their Spring Formal this past weekend. Rebecca took her Dad as her date, and here they are dressed up for the event. At the actual dance, Rebecca was too busy dancing to take any photos! And Terry was too busy talking to one of the other Dads. So I am going next year!

Our Easter

From Easter Sunday

We had a great Easter weekend. The weather was gorgeous! Terry's brother's family came up on Saturday. We had a Passover Seder together on Friday night and attended church together on Sunday morning. We had lots of great food and conversation, and the kids had a great time together.

We are blessed to have an extended family that it's so fun to be with, and it's fun seeing our kids build relationships. They can't wait for "Cousin Camp" this summer.
Noah even made a blurb book with the photos from last year's camp, and he gave a copy to his cousins this weekend. Here's a peek if you're interested:

Cousin Camp

By NOah Seaman

Book Preview

An Odd Day

Tuesday, April 7th, was a very odd day for us. Snows showers fell off and on all day. In between the snow showers, the sun would come out. It's always strange to see snow on the blooming spring flowers, and Rebecca got some neat shots.

From Corel Auto-Preserve

It was also a strange day because we were having lots of interior painting done at our house, so the furniture and everything was pulled to the middle of the rooms, and the painters were coming in and out.

But by far the strangest thing was when Terry called me at about 11 am to tell me that he had been laid off from Eastman where he has worked as a mechanical engineer for 22 years. We knew the lay-offs were coming, but we honestly did not think it would affect him. He works in R&D which took a bigger hit than the rest of the company.

We thank the Lord that His word has led us to be very careful with our money. We have no debt (including our house) and a good emergency fund. Terry's severance pay will continue until January, so we have a lot of time to think about what comes next in our lives. It is exciting in many ways!

Terry is excited about having the time to pursue several business/ministry ideas that he was already looking into. He had actually thought about requesting to be laid off but didn't. He is upbeat now, but I know he will really miss his friends and his routine. Plus it's just plain hurtful to be escorted out of a place without even a chance to collect your thoughts, much less your stuff!

The kids and I will be getting used to having him around the house during the day for awhile. He's a little bit like Major Dad, so there will be no more loafing!

The verse that came to our minds immediately was "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials." Then on Wednesday, my reading in the One Year Bible "coincidentally" happened to open with this same verse. I'll quote it here in The Message" version:

"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenge come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors."

So we are looking at this as a gift - a strange gift for a strange day! We will keep you posted as we unwrap the future.

Great Minds Think Alike

I've been meaning to blog about pizza night for awhile, but the Pelletiers and the Calandros beat me to it!

I used to make homemade pizza quite often. We would make one pizza for the adults and another for the kids. Then it got to where the kids couldn't agree on what toppings they wanted. I got a little frustrated and we just quit doing "pizza night" (which led to "quesadilla night" so it wasn't all bad!).

Now "pizza night" has returned! To get around the topping arguments, each kid gets their own "personal pan" pizza. Rebecca usually has just garlic and cheese, the older two boys like just tomato sauce and cheese, and Noah is a meat lover! Terry and I have tried all kinds of creative toppings.

I start with a homemade crust. Here are the ingredients:

From Pizza Night

And no, I don't use quite that much garlic and salt! That would really be over the top. Here is the recipe I use:

6 c. flour (I sometimes use a little whole wheat)
2 T. sugar
1 t. salt
2 t. minced garlic
1/2 c. oil
2 c.water
2 T. yeast

Mix. Knead a few minutes and let rise one hour before rolling out for crust.This makes enough for two very large pizzas or an assortment of sizes. I usually make 4 pie-size pizzas for the kids and two more large pizzas.

The crust is really quite easy and very good. I love the garlic!

From Pizza Night

Here's a finished pineapple and peppered-bacon pizza. It got a little overdone. The stones work best for pizza, but I haven't found them in the "personal pan" size, so the kids just stick with pie pans.

Terry and I have some favorites:

Thai Chicken pizza (peanut sauce or just a little peanut butter spread on the crust as a base, Thai BBQ chicken, bacon, green pepper, onion, and extra red pepper flakes)
Chicken & Spinach Alfredo (alfredo sauce, leftover grilled chicken, spinach, onion and mushroom)
Sausage & Spinach Alfredo (same as above but with sausage)
Pineapple and Ham or Bacon

When I have to make a little alfredo sauce for a pizza, I make what I call 3-2-1-1 sauce:

3 T. butter, melted
2 T. flour
1 c. milk
1 c. parmesan cheese

Incidentally, this is the same sauce I use for mac&cheese - I just use Velveeta in place of the parmesan.

Our pizza night isn't always on the same night of the week - but the kids always love to hear "pizza night!" because they know it means good food and usually a movie or cool sporting event watched in HD.

Happy Anniversary!

Terry and I were married nineteen years ago today!

I decided to celebrate by finally get our VHS wedding video transferred to DVD! I've got our old Panasonic (wouldn't you know?) VHS player hooked up to our computer with a "Dazzle" attachment. It's working great, and I'm looking forward to transferring all our old movies now. I can even bring them in to Pinnacle and edit them if I wish.

Carol - just to let you know: When going through our home movies, I found that I have footage from your wedding made with my camera. So hopefully all is not lost!
The only problem would be if I taped over it for some reason.

We are celebrating tonight by having steak on the grill with the kids and then subjecting our kids to watching our wedding video!

Thursday night Terry is taking me out to dinner and the Barter Theatre.

Blurb Books

We've been having lots of fun doing books on blurb. We have eight so far. Three are just family books, five are books we've done as part of our new business - Funfolios! Rebecca is meeting tonight with a local theatre company to discuss doing a book for the cast of their latest production - "The Phantom Tollbooth."

The Jonesborou...

The Lion The Witch...

By Dramatized by Jose...

Book Preview

This book featured above is one Rebecca put together for the production of "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" that she and Nathan were in last spring. It contains lots of collages of characters and scenes, program information, a short bio of C.S. Lewis, information about the local theatre and even a recipe for Turkish Delight!

All the kids tried out for "Alice in Wonderland" at Theatre Bristol this week. None of them were cast - which may be a good thing as the boys had to read for the parts of the rose and the daisies in the Queen of Heart's garden. I don't think they would have been too thrilled with those parts.

I am considering letting Noah try out to be a flying monkey or lollipop guild member at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon. They need kids between 4'2" and 4'7". If not, the next production they're hoping for parts in is "Cheaper by the Dozen."

Sweet Sixteen

From 16th b-day with family

Rebecca turned Sweet Sixteen last Sunday! Of course, a car might seem like the obvious gift, but besides the fact that we're a practical and frugal family who would rather just give her the keys to the family car, we also wanted to make our gifts a bit more sentimental. So we asked her Papa to make her a hope chest. It's made of cherry wood, and he's doing an incredible job on it (it's not quite finished yet, but we all went to the shop to take a look). Rebecca was really surprised. She has always enjoyed keeping her treasures in a box, so I thought she'd really appreciate something like this. My Mom and Terry's mom gave her some heirloom gifts to go in it. She now has a quilt and an afghan made by two great-grandmothers that she never got to meet. She has a sterling silver tea set that was a wedding gift to my mother. I told her that the sterling represented the beauty and preciousness of her character. All the gifts together represent the legacy that her family is blessing her with. Thanks to all of you who wrote letters for her birthday! Papa is making a lift-out drawer for her hope chest where she can keep things like these letters.

I told Rebecca that if she had gotten a car, it would be out-of-date in the near future, but she'll probably still have this hope chest when she is an old woman.

We thank God every day for the blessing He gave us sixteen years ago!

Here are some more pictures from the family birthday party.



Rebecca will still have a party with her friends in a few weeks. She's going to do a Murder Mystery party (The Last Train from Paris), and Terry and I are going to cook and serve the dinner for her and her friends.

Hanging Around

From Swinging

I love this shot that Rebecca took of Noah swinging. She got lots of great pictures of the boys goofing around. We had some wonderful weather this week and were all glad to spend some time outside.

From Swinging

From Swinging

From Swinging

From Swinging

From Swinging

From Swinging

Who is that Masked Girl?

From Winter Formal

From Winter Formal

Here are some pictures of Rebecca when she attended a Masquerade Ball last weekend. She's both beautiful and practical as she bought this dress at Goodwill for $10!

Snowman Committing Suicide

From 2009-01-19

I didn't get this at first. The kids tell me they got it from "Calvin and Hobbes."

"Help Me Make a Dummy of Myself"

These were the words Rebecca came to me with this morning! Turns out she was wanting to make a sewing dummy using a process she had seen on the internet. She wore an old shirt (actually two of them because she needed it to be long AND she needed it to be a turtleneck, and she didn't have any long turtlenecks she wanted to sacrifice). I wrapped her in duct tape and then cut a slit up the back when we were through. Before it was over, her hands were starting to turn purple and she nearly fainted. I guess I wrapped a bit too tight! Here are some photos:

Before:

From Jan. 22nd

Getting started:

From Jan. 22nd

Before cutting - oh, to be this skinny again!

From Jan. 22nd

After I cut her free:

From Jan. 22nd

Now, she just has to stuff it! I'm glad I have a daughter that likes to sew and can make her own formal gowns!

Christmas Review

OK, I know it's been a long time since Christmas. I haven't blogged in over a month now. I was thinking I had an excuse of being out of town for two weeks, but then I realized that I blogged while I was out of the country, so that's not an excuse. I guess the main excuse is that I was actually WITH the folks who usually read my blog, so there didn't seem to be much point.

We were fortunate to be able to spend lots of time with family over the holidays. We always have lots of fun moments. Here is a favorite picture of a silly moment:

From 2008-12-29

These are my sister's kids. And some folks think homeschoolers are weird! This picture just proves that we don't have a monopoly or anything.

Here's another interesting picture that came from having lots of cameras lying around. It's a picture of hands from oldest to youngest (Dad, Mom, Ann, Carol, me, Katie and Lisa). A few observations - first of all, Lisa has really pale skin! Secondly, it's obvious that no one in the family uses any nail color or wears jewelry beyond wedding rings! I never realized we had that in common.

From 2008-12-29

These next two pictures summarizes what my house looks like after a Christmas of Lego and nerf funs.

From 2008-12-29

From 2008-12-29

I'll try to make sure it isn't a whole month until I post again!

Happy Anniversary, Jingle!

Here's what Jingle looked like a year ago:

From new puppy

And here's what she looks like now:

From new puppy

In a way, we all still wish she was small, because she really was the cutest thing!
But now she's housebroken and trained to the electric fence, so she's not much trouble at all. She also knows how to come, sit, stay and roll over (her favorite).

Break A Leg!

From Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Rebecca, Caleb, Noah and I have been performing in the "Best Christmas Pageant Ever" this week in Kingsport. Today Terry's parents and his Great Aunt Josephine came to watch.

I get to play a middle-aged church lady. Do you like my gray hair?

From Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Here's a cute picture of Noah:

From Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Rebecca doubles as an angel and a fireman. Quite a combo:

From Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Happy Thanksgiving

Hello everyone!

Since we aren't with any extended family this Thanksgiving, here is our Thanksgiving greeting! I put a different version on the Panasonic website (www.livinginhd.com) that has audio provided by Jim Fickley (one of our pastors at Redeemer Community Church). His audio is higher quality and totally original, but I kept the low-budget hymn on this version because I know my family appreciates hymns.

Fall Leaves

From Fall Leaves

Most of our leaves came down during a rainstorm last weekend, but there are a few left, and we wanted to take some more pictures before they were gone entirely. These pictures were all taken a short walk down the street from our house. We've tried to take lots of fall pictures because we are putting together a Thanksgiving video for Panasonic. It has been a fun project so far. It's always good to reflect on what you're thankful for.

From Fall Leaves

From Fall Leaves

From Fall Leaves

From Fall Leaves

From Fall Leaves

Learning About the Election

We've been having fun these last two weeks learning about our government and the election process. To me this is one of the most important subjects to learn about because some day they will need to VOTE! I can't believe how many people vote but know nothing about how government works, the issues, etc.

We've spent some time in our Bible lessons discussing what makes a good leader. We've also read about the Constitution, the Capitol and the White House. Hopefully, we'll get to visit Washington, D.C. in the next year and they will remember some of what we've learned. We've also had fun watching Schoolhouse Rock videos about the government and excerpts from Saturday Night Live. Here are some pictures of the kids with their projects, at our county Republican headquarters and with our yard signs. We've got a lot more to learn between now and next Tuesday.

From HS for GOP

From HS for GOP

From HS for GOP

From HS for GOP

From HS for GOP

It's been said that we have the kind of leaders that we deserve, so we should pray, "Lord, make us deserving of better leaders."

Our Evening in Puerto Rico

OK, so we really didn't spend the evening in Puerto Rico! But we had a real treat last Friday night when Lillian and Raymond Isaac (natives of Puerto Rico) invited us over for some traditional food. I had been talking to Lillian about how to cook plantains, and it seemed a little complicated. I told her she'd just have to demonstrate, and I'm glad she took me seriously! Caleb was also very interested in the cooking process.

We had sweetened plantains (you use very ripe ones for this):

From Puerto Rican Food

And we also had double-fried plantains (made with green ones and served with a sauce for dipping):

From Puerto Rican Food

We also had a salad made with avocados that Raymond had actually brought from Puerto Rico (you can legally bring in certain kinds of fruit):

From Puerto Rican Food

We had roast pork:

From Puerto Rican Food

and rice with "pigeon peas":

From Puerto Rican Food

We also had pina coladas:

From Puerto Rican Food

and pineapple flan:

From Puerto Rican Food

We also had a little birthday cake that I brought along since it was Terry's birthday!

From Puerto Rican Food

Besides all the great food, we had a great time visiting with our new friends. We have known the Isaacs very casually for years, but this year Lillian and the boys are participating in the TEACH Co-op, so we've been able to get to know each other much better. They live less than five minutes from our house. We are trying to figure out what to cook for them. Any suggestions?