Down on the Farm

Luke's preschool had a fall farm day instead of having any "Halloween" festivities.  They got to go on a hayride, pick out a pumpkin and see some live animals. 

I've never seen a cuter farmer!

We are going to a Not-A-Halloween party tonight.  The kids will still wear costumes and we will eat pizza and have a bonfire.  There were a few families who decided to get together instead of trick or treating this year.  Some people around here go all out in trying to scare the little kids to death and we just didn't want to have to deal with that.  Our friends live in one of those neighborhoods where the houses are acres apart so they never get trick or treaters out their way.  The kids will have a blast.  Pics soon! 

The Big Reveal

Family Room - Before

(Bought the chairs off of craigslist knowing that I was going to have them recovered.  We've had that denim sofa for almost 12 years.  I love the style and the height and the comfort of it, but the denim was looking very worn and faded.)

 Another angle.  The walls look green in this picture, but they are really just a beige color. 

 The beloved purple chair in the playroom.  Made by Ethan Allen.  Again, the perfect size and comfort level, but the embossed purple palm tree pattern didn't go with our playroom.  The kids love that chair (I do too) so I knew we had to keep it. 

 Some friends of mine gave me the name and number of a guy who reupholsters furniture for a very reasonable price.  I got in contact with him.  He came and loaded up all of my furniture and the fabric I picked out.  Then brought it all back four weeks later. 

Drum roll please.....

Ta da!!!  (I didn't get the job taking photos for House Beautiful or Southern Living.  When you see the pictures, you'll know why.)

The furniture guy made the ottoman based on a picture I gave him.  It is huge - 4' x 4' and covered in a chocolate brown faux leather.  We love it!  I found the sofa table against the window at a consignment store. My friend Teresa helped me find the accessories for it.   I'm taking a risk putting breakable items on the sofa table.  The book ends are wooden fleur de lis - a salute to my Louisiana heritage.  The balls in the bowl each have a word and scripture verse on them - a reminder of our spiritual heritage.   (Don't look too closely.  I still haven't taken the price tags off of everything). 

Since Kevin likes playing his electric guitar and leaving all the equipment out, I found the smaller chair by the fireplace to be a perfect accent. The fabric goes great with everything else. 

I love all of it, but I think my favorite things are the chairs.  The fabric is just so fun and funky and bold.  We played around with the arrangement of the pieces which is why these chairs are in a different spot.  Kevin was just thrilled when I asked him to move them back to their original position.  (See Luke having his snack in the background and the bags for all the accessories on the kitchen snack bar.)  My friend is painting the little accent table for me.  It is a little too gray. 

 

This is the playroom chair.  It is now covered in denim which will work great in the playroom!  I found the fun pillows at Pier 1.  They remind me of giant hacky sacks.  Can you tell Luke loves his new chair?  Fletcher and Kevin decided that the chair would still be referred to as "the purple chair" even though it isn't purple anymore.  The ottoman was taking up too much prime floor space in the playroom so we moved it to Fletcher's room.  I think it does double duty as a boat, stage, Star Wars battle ship and kung fu platform. 

Breathe On Me

I had a flashback in church on Sunday morning.

We sang the hymn "Breathe On Me" during the service.  Fletcher was standing right next to me.  I was wearing a knitted sweater.  Suddenly, I felt some warmth near my side through my sweater.  I looked down and Fletcher has his entire face in my side.  I whispered as I pulled him away, "What are you doing?"  He giggled and said, "Breathing on you." 

I was immediately transported back to the church I grew up in.  It was easy to get distracted in church any time my older brother David stood or sat next to me.  When we would sing that same song (which seemed like every other week), he would blow on me.  Drove me nuts.  He tried to be very discrete when he did it so mom didn't see.  But I could feel it (and smell it - it always smelled like wintergreen Life Savers because mom would give us those in church to keep us quiet).  I would tell him to stop and he would keep doing it.  Then I would get in trouble.  It was a vicious cycle. 

Luke doesn't come in "big church" with us yet.  I'm sure Fletcher can hardly wait. 

Growing Up

The firetruck and firemen came and visited Luke's preschool last week. 

Luke:  Mommy, guess what I want to be when I grow up?
Me:  What do you want to be?
Luke:  A fireman! 
Me:  Wow!  That would be really cool.
Luke:  Mommy?
Me:  Yes, Luke?
Luke:  What do you want to be when you grow up?

Let My People Go

Let me start by saying that I am truly blessed to be able to stay home with my children and not work outside the home.  Kevin and I came to that decision early on in our marriage long before we had kids.  When I did work when Fletcher was a baby, it was only part time and I did most of it from home so he was never in daycare

Kevin has always been very supportive of our decision.  Although there are probably some days when he comes home and the house is a wreck, dinner is not on the table and I still haven't showered and he wonders just exactly what it is that I do all day. 

Why is this important? 

Well, we've been reading through the Bible during our Bible time at night.  We started in Genesis and are going through the major stories (Creation, the fall, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, etc).  We've been reading the story of Moses and the Israelites and the ten plagues.  Last night we read about the plague of locusts and darkness.  We try to ask Fletcher (and Luke when he is cooperating) questions about what we've read.  Here was a snippet of last night's conversation. 

Kevin:  Why do you think Pharoah kept changing his mind and saying only the men could go but the women had to stay in Egypt.  Or the livestock had to stay.

Fletcher:  Ummm...

Kevin:  What would have happened if all the men left to worship in the desert and the women and children stayed in Egypt?

(Kevin was trying to get him to see that Pharoah knew the men would return because their families were still there.  If they all left, they would never return.)

Fletcher:  (still not getting it)

Kevin:  If the men left and the women stayed, what would happen?

Fletcher:  The women would have to go to work???

Kevin and I exchanged a very brief glance in that moment and it was all I could do not to laugh.

Apparently, in Fletcher's mind the Israelite slave women didn't have to work either.

Prank Calls

I've done my fair share of prank calls in my lifetime.  Of course, most of that came to a screeching halt once Caller ID was invented.  Caller ID takes the fun out of everything...sometimes. 

Last Monday was Columbus Day and our area public schools had the day off.  Fletcher was at school (since they don't have school on Fridays, they don't take all those Monday holidays).  Luke and I were at home just hanging out doing our Monday stuff like laundry.  Around noon my phone rang.  I didn't recognize the name on Caller ID, but it was a person's name not a business or telemarketing name so I answered it.  After I said "Hello", no one said anything.  Our home phone number is unique in that the last four digits are all the same number (easy for our kids to remember).  However, because those digits are all the same, we get wrong number calls all the time because people dial incorrectly. So I figured it was just a wrong number so I hung up. 

Not even a minute later, the phone rang again.  Same person.  This time when I picked up and said "hello", I heard girls giggling on the other end.  One of them said something like "your butt's on fire".  (I checked, it wasn't.)  It was then that I realized these girls were home from school and bored.  Mom or Dad was probably either at the office or working upstairs not paying a bit of attention to what the kiddos were doing.  My guess is that they were trying to call a friend/enemy of theirs.

Obviously, these girls knew how to dial a phone, but they didn't know about Caller ID. 

They called one more time.  More giggling.  More silly talk that I couldn't understand.  And they hung up. 

I happened to be at my computer.  I'm really not sure what came over me.  If they don't know about Caller ID then they certainly don't know about reverse phone number look up on the computer.  I looked up their number and found their address.  They live in a neighborhood not too far from us. 

They called again.  This is the fourth call in less than 5 minutes.  This time I answered and said in a freaky, menacing voice, "You live at 2204 Magnolia Drive* and I am COMING TO YOUR HOUSE RIGHT NOW!  I am coming to 2204 Magnolia Drive NOW."  I hear them stop giggling and suck all the oxygen out of the room they were in.  Then they hung up. 

I know.  It was so wrong.  I shouldn't have done it. 

I hope they totally freaked out.  I was imagining them cowering in their bedrooms terrified of every car that drove by.  They really were in a bit of a dilemma.  If they told their parents, they would have to admit that they were prank calling people.  If they don't tell their parents, a deranged housewife might show up at their door any minute. 

I think they must have told their parents.  The next afternoon I got a message on my answering machine from a little girl.  This time she was calling from Dad's cell phone.  She said very nervously, "I'm sorry for that calling we did yesterday.  Wrong number."  She sounded a little tired, like maybe she didn't sleep much the night before. 

Let that be a lesson to you, little girl.  I know where you live!

*I changed the address to protect the innocent.

One Final Surprise

Our last surprise for the weekend was a trip to the NC Zoo in Asheboro.  We've never been to this zoo before and we had no idea how spread out it was.  There are two sections:  Africa and North America.  We didn't get to the North America section.  Of course, I forgot our stroller so Luke got a little tired of walking.  He never rides in a stroller anymore, but this would have been a time where we could have used it.  It was a gorgeous fall day.  There were so many people there.  It was hard to get up close to the fences and glass to see all of the animals. 

Both boys wanted to wear their Lego nametags from the night before.

 Poison frogs.  I've never seen blue ones before.

 All throughout the zoo there were these metal animal sculptures.  Fletcher and Luke thought they needed to climb on every one.  These are the elephants.

 The rhino.

 They called these the "swamp ghosts" - albino alligators.

Giant (man made) beehive.

 Giant bee.

 Giraffes - always one of my favorites. 

 We took this picture as we were leaving since we forgot to take a group photo when we got there.  I think we all look a little worn out. 

We really enjoyed the baboons.  They were putting on a show.  I think their mom got tired of all the antics.  Notice what she does at the   minute mark.  Guess they won't be playing in that hole anymore.

 

More Surprises!

When we knew we were going to be in the Raleigh area on Saturday, Kevin thought it might be fun to go to a work site and let Luke drive a real excavator.  He is still fascinated with big machines.  He loves playing with his dump trucks, bull dozers, skid steer loaders and tools.  One of his favorite things to play is "worker" at the "working site."  Kevin's friend knows how to operate the big machines so we met him there.  His son got to go first and Luke was mesmerized watching this other little boy drive the track wheel excavator up the hill through the dirt and then dig a hole.  Since it was somewhat loud, I wasn't sure if Luke would want a turn.  But as soon as Kevin asked, Luke was ready to go.  He loved it.  I couldn't zoom close enough to see his expression on his face.  Let's just say that he thought the Lego Fest was cool, but driving the excavator was way cooler in his book!

But we had one more surprise before we came home!

Surprises!

I love a good surprise.  Well, let me rephrase that.  I love planning a good surprise for someone else.  I think it is fun to see someone else's reaction when something happens that they are totally not expecting. 

This past weekend was full of surprises.  Kevin had to go to work in Chapel Hill on Wednesday and was going to be there through Friday.  The boys know he has to be out of town periodically for his job, but they just don't like it when he's away.  I asked Fletcher if he thought it would be fun to drive to Chapel Hill on Friday and surprise Daddy.  Fletcher loved the idea.  He said we could wait until 10 pm and sneak into his hotel and knock on the door and yell, "Surprise!"  I tried to steer him in a bit of a different direction while trying to maintain his enthusiasm (I am sure the other hotel guests were glad we didn't go with his initial plan).  We opted to surprise him at work. 

Now in order to pull this off, I had to get Kevin involved.  Otherwise, he would be driving home as we were driving to Chapel Hill.  Fletcher didn't want to tell Luke because he was afraid Luke would spill the beans if we talked to Kevin on the phone.  He finally told Luke and Luke thought it sounded really fun. 

Kevin was in a meeting and played along perfectly when Luke yelled, "Surprise!"  Fletcher was so excited and flustered that he couldn't do anything but giggle.  We left work and headed to Kevin's hotel.  I asked if Kevin knew how to get to the Raleigh Convention Center....for another surprise.  I told the boys that there was a conference going on there.  Fletcher wanted to know what a conference was. I told him about the math conferences I used to go to when I was a teacher.  He was not impressed.  And a little less than thrilled at the thought of going to a "boring conference." 

He saw the Lego logo when we drove up and his attitude changed.  He had no idea what awaited him inside the Convention Center.  Lego Kids Fest goes to five cities each year.  There's so much to do and so much to see.  We had a blast! 

All of these structures were built out of legos.  Notice Fletcher's Lego Star Wars shirt.  I suggested he put that on in the morning because I knew what was coming later that night.

 C3PO and R2D2

Captain Jack Sparrow

 Lightning McQueen from Cars.  It must have taken forever to build this one.

 Darth Vader

 Boba Fett (?)

Storm Trooper or Captain Rex or some other Star Wars character.  You would think I would be better at naming these. 

 Droid?  Clone fighter?  Star Wars thingy.

 Indiana Jones

Buzz and Woody (and proof that I was actually there with them since I am usually the one taking all the pictures)

 Mystery Mural.  Each person gets a small tile with colors on the front and a number on the back. Here in this picture they are making their tiles based on the colors they need. 

Then they get to put it on the big mural wall according to its number.  By the end of the weekend, the huge mural will be complete and we will get to go to a website and see what the surprise mural is.  My guess is that it will be the city skyline of Raleigh. 

 Luke felt like such a big kid putting his into place.

 Just a giant pile of legos to sit in, sift through, build, etc. 

 We buried Fletcher and Luke. 

 This was the Duplo area.  Duplo blocks are the lego brick that are for smaller children. 

They built a tower taller than Kevin.  Kevin got reprimanded by the Lego Staff guy.  He told him we had to take it down after our picture.  Since this area is for smaller children, they didn't want anything to fall on them.  We had to laugh because Kevin deals with building codes and Homeowners Associations all the time for work.  Who knew Lego had a building committee. 

 This was an outline of the United States.  Each person could build a scene with anything they wanted on it and then tell the worker what part of the country to put it in.  We'll get to go to the www.legokidsfest.com website this week and see the completed US. 

 Here's what Fletcher built.  He chose to put it by a tall tower near Georgia so we could (hopefully) find it in the completed picture online.

 Build A Story.  This might have been Fletcher's favorite area because he especially likes creating different characters.  There was a little town built with football field, soccer field, movie theater, sidewalks, lighthouse, etc.  Kids could come and make their own minifigures to be part of the story.  There seemed to be lots of skeletons and zombies in this town.

 Luke liked the lighthouse.

 These were bins of heads and hats and accessories. 

I took this video as we were leaving.  Notice all the bins and crates and boxes behind the curtains.  I can only imagine how many legos they have to bring to each city to pull off this event. 

As we were leaving, Fletcher said, "This was so awesome!!! This was a great memory!!!" 

But there were more surprises to come.....stay tuned for the next surprise (besides getting to sleep at Daddy's hotel which they also thought was very cool and fun).