It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

I got to thinking that none of my family has ever seen my house decorated for Christmas - because I'm always at their homes for Christmas. So consider this a Christmas tour of the Seaman home - minus the free cider and cookies.

The kids usually get the tree down from the attic and put it together. I'm sure it's not as fun as going to a Christmas tree farm, but it's what we've always done so they don't know any different. This year, as soon as the tree went up, the boys left to go to Knoxville for a game, and Rebecca and I did the rest of the decorating.

Rebecca puts the lights on - following my random method instead of her Dad's meticulous all-day method. We had some fun watching "Love Story" while we decorated. I thought it was cool that I was able to get a picture of Ryan O'Neal working at a Christmas tree lot in the background with our tree.



Here's the tree with lights. You can tell by this point we had moved on from "Love Story" and were watching the Arkansas football game.



Here is our mantle. I always put a basket of Christmas books on the hearth along with the "Wise Guys" that Aunt Barbara made years ago. One of them has lost his gift, and one has actually lost his head a few times. Notice how the faces are interchangeable.





I've got a sofa table behind my loveseat now. Don't you love how you can still see the football game?



And last, but not least, here is our advent wreath. We are rebels, so we use green and red candles instead of pink and purple. I loved how I got the bokeh of the tree in the background. It's a technique I've been working on.



I really don't decorate much of the rest of the house. We spend most of our time in this room and the kitchen, and since you can see the tree from the kitchen, I usually don't bother decorating in there. Or you might say I decorate it with cookie dough, icing and sprinkles. In other words - a big mess.

I do have three special manger scenes in the house (which I'll save for a later post) and occasionally buy a poinsettia (this year's has already met an untimely death - watch for a post on that as well).

Thanks for taking the tour! If you ever visit in person, I promise I will provide cider and cookies.

Sweet Potato vs. Pumpkin Challenge

A few weeks ago, I told Nathan that I might make a sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving this year. He refused to believe that someone would "make a pie out of a vegetable." I told him I didn't think he could tell the difference between pumpkin pie (one of his favorites) and sweet potatoe pie. He bet me $10 that he could! Well, money's been a little short lately, so I decided to accept the challenge.

Nathan started to get nervous. He reduced his bet. He reduced it again. Last Sunday I baked some pies. I used the same recipe except for the pumpkin and sweet potato. All my boys took a blind taste test. Only Noah could consistently tell the difference. I won a whole dollar from Nathan!!!

But what really made me a winner is that all the boys agreed that sweet potatoes make a good pie. A can of pumpkin costs $1.50. An equivalent amount of sweet potato (if you're willing to peel it, cook it and mash it), costs about 30 cents. So we'll be having sweet potato pie this year. The money we save will be used to help subsidize the apple pie for Rebecca and the pecan pie that we just had to have to round out our meal.

Here are my two pies. I will give my $1 to the first person who can correctly guess which one is pumpkin. Sorry I can't let you taste it. Both of the pies were gone in about 24 hours. Since sweet potatoes are a vegetable, the boys could justify eating some at every meal.

True Colors

Recently, we did a little project involving tree identification that involved taking lots of photos of leaves, trees, and bark (this was supposed to be one of the educational projects that I was going to do as part of my work with Panasonic).

I think it's interesting that the green in leaves is just chlorophyll - the true colors of the leaf are what we see when the green is gone.

That's a great metaphor for life. For us, the "green" is gone - quite literally since we have had no income for a 10 months now. I feel like we are being given a chance to show our true colors! It is a comfort to me to know that God knows me - He knows my true color, and He can identify me without a field guide of any kind.

May our true colors bring glory to the Lord!

On Being a Good Audience

There's a reason they call it performing in front of a "live audience." Have you ever been to a play or a performance where the audience was dead? My kids have seen both sides this year- audiences so good that they make a mediocre performance seem worthy of an academy award, and audiences that were so dead that performing in a morgue would have been more exciting. When they come home from a performance, I've learned that the best question to ask is "How was the audience?"

I've trying to apply this to my life in all kinds of ways. What kind of audience am I? At a soccer game, I want to learn the kid's names and encourage them from the sidelines. At a play performance, I want to be one of the ones that laughs and claps loudly. When I'm reading a friend's blog, I want to take time to leave a comment now and then. Romans 12: 15 tells us to "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." I want my friends to know I am in the audience of their lives, I am sharing in their victories and sorrows, and I am rooting for them.

Now Showing at Kingsport Theatre Guild

Rebecca, Caleb and Noah are currently performing in "Once Upon a Mattress" at Kingsport Theatre Guild - the musical based on the story of the "Princess and the Pea." I thoroughly enjoyed getting to see them sing and dance on stage for the first time.

From Once Upon a Mattress

From Once Upon a Mattress

Interestingly, we did our own version of "Princess in the Pea" several years back that proved that Terry is of royal blood. Terry is a little picky about how the bed is made, how his pillow is adjusted, etc. So almost ten years ago now, Rebecca and I put a few very small dried beans under the sheet on his side of the bed to see if he would notice. He passed the test. So I guess he really is my Prince Charming!

Running Around

Like most families, we do a lot of running around - especially when school starts back in the fall. Recently, that running has been literal.

Caleb has joined the recently-formed homeschool cross-country team. They don't have cool matching outfits, but they managed to do well at the recent Bristol Cross at Steele Creek Park. Caleb is easy to spot in his orange shorts!

From Running

From Running

From Running

From Running

Noah also decided to try some running. He recently ran in the Eastman Road Race. he didn't prepare at all for the one-mile race, so he found it fairly brutal.

From Running

From Running

Noah has declared that his running career is over. Caleb is going to be in another cross-country meet this next Saturday.

Noah's Birthday

Noah turned 11 on September 21st. It was a pretty low-key birthday. He started out with breakfast in bed (his request). Then after a short morning of school, we took our bikes and headed to the Greenbelt Trail in Kingsport.

From Sep. 2010 - Birthday

We turned it into a field trip that fit pretty nicely into our history studies lately.

We saw the site of the Battle of Kingsport - a Civil War battle that the Confederates lost in 1864:

From Sep. 2010 - Birthday

From Sep. 2010 - Birthday

We also saw this interesting monument that was created to honor the Indians. The land that the monument is on was given back to the Indians about 200 years after the white men first took it from them. It seemed like a fairly empty gift as there was nothing but a monument in a vacant field. I guess it's the thought that counts?

From Sep. 2010 - Birthday

Anyway, it was a beautiful day, and it was fun to get outside and enjoy it. Noah had a sleepover a few days later to complete his birthday celebration.

Into Each Life a Little Rain Must Fall

From Sep. 2010 - Damage to House

We woke up Saturday moment to a "shower" in our basement. A pipe had burst in the half-bath on the main floor while we slept and was flooding the floor below. There was about an inch of water on the basement carpet and the ceiling had collapsed in several places:

From Sep. 2010 - Damage to House

From Sep. 2010 - Damage to House

I started to cry when I saw the damage, but then somehow I just started to laugh. "When it rains, it pours" was all I could think of. Terry and I woke up the kids, and we had the basement room emptied in about an hour and started trying to ShopVac the carpet. Now, five days later, the old ceiling has been removed, the carpet pad has been pulled up and discarded, the carpet is dry, and best of all - the mildew smell is gone! Terry is a great do-it-yourselfer, so we may even come out ahead when the insurance pays up!

This is just another opportunity to ponder Matthew 6:19-21:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

This is the verse that kept coming to mind when I accidentally erased my computer hard drive in June and then dropped my external hard drive (with all the back-up data) just a few weeks later. I realized that so much of the treasures of my life are stored in photos, video, and documents of various kinds. These things are important, but I realized that I had too much of my time and effort stored in something that was not eternal. It was a good reality check.

The College Search

Rebecca has started looking for colleges, or rather they have started looking for her. She is getting phone calls, letters, and emails every day. Our favorite has been the solicitation she got from the University of Oregon. They mailed her an "O" decal and encouraged her to take a picture of herself at a Tennessee landmark with the Oregon "O". I thought it was a pretty clever attention getter and was even funnier because it came just a few days before Tennessee was to play Oregon (and after the game, it really wasn't funny anymore).

Anyway, right now Rebecca is mostly interested in Milligan College because it's a good, Christian, liberal arts school that is only twenty minutes from our house. They also give great scholarships so that it won't cost much more than a state school.

But another school in Tennessee, Bryan College, has already offered her a full scholarship - tuition, room and board, the works! We went to visit it on Labor Day.

Bryan is in Dayton, Tennessee. It's a very small town which is famous for the Scopes Monkey Trial that was held at the courthouse.

From Bryan College

William Jennings Bryan tried that case and died just five days after it ended. The college was his vision and was named after him. They had quotes from Bryan all over the campus, and I liked the one in the library that said "The incomparable benefit of the valuable experience of others."

From Bryan College

From Bryan College

From Bryan College

From Camping on South Holston

We recently spent a week at one of our favorite spots - Little Oak Campground on S. Holston Lake. We had clear skies, a full moon at night, and absolutely no rain - a rarity when we go camping, it seems.

From Camping on South Holston

One of the highlights of this trip is that Noah finally joined the "slalom club" - ahead of his older brother, Caleb, which was part of the fun of it for him!

From Camping 2010

From Camping on South Holston

From Camping 2010

From Camping 2010

Another fun thing was Rebecca getting up on skis while wearing the 1920's bathing suit from the play she was recently in:

From Camping on South Holston

More photos:

Appalachian Fair

From Desktop

Rebecca and Noah both recently entered some items in the Appalachian Fair. Today they went to pick up their ribbons and prize money! Rebecca won a blue ribbon for her pencil drawing and several blue ribbons in photography. She had a very limited amount of photos to work with as I recently lost our hard drive with lots of her photos on it.

Noah won several ribbons in photograhy as well and also won an award for his bar cookies - made with no help from anyone!

Pretend Parade

While the other three kids have been rehearsing for their show, Caleb did a little acting in a music video that is premiering tonight at the J4 concert. First, he was in a scene pretending to be a high school student clowning around in the hallway (not too much acting ability required here). This past week, he was in some small-town America parade scenes shot in Bluff City ("city" is just a name here - it's definitely just a town, but "Bluff Town" just doesn't sound the same). He had to wear a band uniform and alternate between carrying his trombone in some scenes and a clarinet in others. Noah and I came along to take some photos and be "part of the crowd."

From August 2010

From August 2010

From August 2010

How Does My Garden Grow?

From August 2010

Not too well these days. For the first time, I decided to try growing a tomato plant on our backyard patio. It was not lack of water that killed it but Terry getting a little too aggressive with the fertilizer. Once we realized the problem, it was too far gone.

They're Back!

From Belles

Rebecca, Nathan and Noah return to the stage tonight for the sequel to "Cheaper by the Dozen" which they performed in last summer. They're a little older (and the boys are taller). Rebecca designed the artwork for the cast t-shirts both years.

From Cheaper by the Dozen

This year's show is "Belles on Their Toes" and features Rebecca wearing a two-piece bathing suit on stage:

From Belles

Yes, those are their two-piece suits because one-piece suits were simply scandalous in the 1920s. Since you can't really buy these off the rack anymore, Rebecca sewed them herself without a pattern. After the play is over, we hope to get some photos of her water-skiing in this get-up!

Rebecca also gets to dance in this play:

From Belles

And go through a break-up:

From Belles

Nathan and Noah have more minor roles (since they aren't one of the "Belles"), but they are doing great. Noah is just so darn cute in his knickers, and Nathan loves it that he gets to drink root beer every night on stage.

Here's a link to the write-up in the local paper, and below is a slide show with a few more photos from the play:

Class Reunion

From July 2010

Last week our family traveled to Arkansas to attend my 30th High School reunion. Can it possibly have been 30 years? Here are me and my BFF from the FHS Class of 1980 today:

From July 2010

And here we are almost 30 years ago:

From July 2010

I guess it's true that growing old beats the alternative!

I really enjoyed the reunion this year - though it would have been even better if more of our classmates had been able to make it. It's so strange to go from seeing folks every day to seeing them at 10-year intervals. I have no idea what this whole concept will be like for my homeschooled children. They do have a group of friends their age, but I doubt there will be any organized reunion effort.

Anyway, it was refreshing to see that after 30 years, it didn't seem to matter who was in band or choir, who was a cheerleader, who was an honor student, etc. The only thing we really needed to have in common for conversation was that we were still around.


My favorite part of the reunion was a conversation with a classmate whose life had been totally changed by trusting in the Lord. He was far from God in high school, and I used to pray for him. I got to hear the story of how the Lord pursued him for over ten years and brought him to Himself. What a change! I needed that reminder of how God's grace changes lives . . .

A bittersweet event of the weekend was also the funeral of Don Wright, our high school choir director. Many of us were privileged to sing at his funeral the morning of our reunion. And all of us gathered around to sing "Sweet, Sweet Spirit" at the reunion as well.

From July 2010