Code Green

This year the fifth grade received money to do an art project for the school. It was titled "Paint Like Pollock". Each class splattered paint on canvas, Miller Lumber Company framed them, and they were hung on the cafeteria walls. One child said they looked like a food fight, and the title stuck. We attended a program Monday evening in honor of the "artists" given by Mrs. Smithson (the art teacher). She also got a company to take their pictures and put those on canvases as well. It really looks great in the cafeteria now.
As we were leaving, S dropped his cake on the floor in the hallway. Landon scooped it up, and popped it into his mouth in one huge bite. Wyatt caught a glimpse and said "DADDY! Did that hit the floor?" "Yep", replied Landon trying to act cool, possibly regretting his decision. "Do you know how many people BARF on this floor every day?" stated Wyatt. "They call it a Code Green!" We all laughed and left.

(back story, there is a fierce stomach bug going around both schools right now, Levi was at home with it during the program)
Yesterday the school nurse called me at 3:05. "Mrs. Barrier? S threw up walking to the bus. We decided to go ahead and load him with a bag to barf in." Great. Poor boy got off carrying his bag, it had been used. Enough said.
Wyatt said they announced over the intercom, right after they said load buses, "CODE GREEN in front of the office." He said his class busted out laughing, then he saw the bag on the bus. "S....was that you? The Code Green?" "Hahaha, I wander if Daddy wished he hadn't eaten that cake now?" said Wyatt. Touché.

Office after

If you know me on Facebook, you already know that I painted the brown in one day and started the trim. Then the snow/sleet started falling and school was cancelled for two days and the trim took me forever. You simply can NOT paint with kids at home. Every time I climbed up the ladder World War 3 would ensue and it was just completely pointless.
Landon said he wanted it "dark" and "cavelike", so here we are. This paint was leftover from the stairs last year, and the trim color is leftover from the mudroom. I planned on painting one wall to prove a point (it is too dark) and fell in love with it. Thinking of doing it in the playroom also.
These shelves are the only new thing in the room right now. I have some more organizers, but am waiting to see where I want to hang pictures and such first. I like to hang out in a room for a few weeks, before I start putting holes in the walls. The plastic has been on those french doors since I was pregnant with the buddies! Can't believe I waited that long to poly them. Feels great in here. We even do homework in this room now. So cozy, and the kids don't have to move their stuff off of the kitchen table for supper time. I have some antique radios upstairs. Do you think they would look good on top of the shelves?

Office During

All of the crap pushed into the playroom. Amazingly, I stayed pretty calm during this one. I didn't have my usual meltdown halfway through the project. Being able to close the door on the mess helped.
Landon said he felt like he was living on an episode of "Hoarders". Everything was pushed into the middle of the floor with tiny paths around the perimeter for my ladder. The best part? I already had all of the paint from previous projects. I only had to buy tape and a brush.

Office Before

Okay, here we have the room that was formerly called the dining room when Landon's grandparents lived here. We turned it into Landon's office. As you can see, when it was painted in 1971, hospital green was hot. So they painted it on the trim as well.
Here, you can see that the color before that was dark blue. This was was covered in fuzzy wallpaper that Landon and his father removed, before we moved in 9 years ago, and it stayed like this. That is also his grandparents "parlor" couch, don't even get me started on that one.
Here is the bulletin board, aka my attempt to organize this room somewhat. Yeah, this wasn't fooling anyone. I mean, sometimes it is hard to even get INTO this room. I know, hard to imagine, but this is Landon's domain. My friend, Angie, said I was "asking for it" if I tackled this sacred, stomping man ground.
Messy desk, enough said. Don't move ANYTHING, there is a method to this madness.
The filing cabinets with things stacked precariously on top. The table was my grandmothers table that she gave me, which in turn was OUR first table. Landon built a new top on it. You may think it is looking familiar. The bench (the one from the laundry room incident) goes with it. He built that too. Yes, he can be quite the handy man when he wants to be.

Stay tuned.

The Planter is Coming, The Planter is Coming

Well the planter was scheduled to arrive last Saturday evening. Friday, the truck driver called and asked if he could come earlier because you can't haul large loads in NC on Sundays. Who knew? Anyway, the hubs called me to come and take pics of it, and bring him some cake. So as I am walking up, he takes a pic of me with the bowl of cake. Like I am some kind of cake addict, when in fact, I rarely eat the stuff.
Here it is people. A Kinze planter, all the way from a farm in Missouri. Landon looked at me and asked,"What do you think?" "It's BIG", I replied.
Don't know what he is doing here. Just getting a good look at everything I guess. This is what it was like at the farm show in Georgia. I was standing around while the hubs climbed up, on, and under equipment.
Isn't this a cute shot? Like, how many men does it take to watch a semi back-up in the driveway. Shadow is even interested in this event.
The other day he installed the row cleaners that he drove up North to purchase for it. He even tried it out in a field yesterday. Just for fun.
I can't express how enormous this piece of equipment is. I will have to post a shot of the old planter and the new one. I'm thinking this one is going to always require a follow behind vehicle.
The semi unhooked and pulled forward, and the unloading began. The trailer lowered with hydraulics, and then Landon hooked it to the 48.
Ahhh, finally old faithful is getting the love and admiration it deserves. That is the first tractor we ever bought. We purchased it from Landon's uncle. We rode off into the sunset on it the day we got married. We pinched and scrapped to get the engine rebuilt, and buy new tires for it. The boys have taken many a nap in that cab. Y'all just don't even know how sad it has been to see it parked in the father-in-laws garage all these years.

SICK!!!

Monday when Wyatt got off of the bus, he told me that he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open all day at school.  He was a tad droopy, but that was it.  Tuesday morning he had a slight fever, so I gave him some Motrin and told him to try to make it until after lunch (since he was going to miss Thursday and Friday for his trip).  Around 1, the school nurse called and told me Wyatt was in her office with a temp of 102.6.  I called the hubs and he went to pick him up.  I gave him some more Motrin, and he told me he had been hot all morning, but the nurse was at a meeting and the teacher couldn't do anything until she returned to her office.  Thirty minutes later I took his temp again, and it had RISEN to 103.9..... on Motrin.  I called the hubs back to the house, to keep the buddies, and took Wyatt to the Urgent Care.  The doc took one look at him and said, "He has the flu".  What?  I was hoping for strep, you know, one shot in the rear and 24 hours later you are good as new.  Apparently it is just now going around NC.  While we were waiting on the doc to come back and give him a flu test, the middle school nurse called.  Levi was in her office with a temp.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!  I called the hubs and told him to go and get him before they loaded the buses, then called the nurse back so she could tell Levi not to get on the bus, but get in the parent drive line if his dad didn't make it there in time.  Levi said the same thing Wyatt had said the day before, he couldn't hold his eyes open at school all day and his head felt like it weighed 100 pounds.  Guess who was driving back to the Urgent Care two hours later.  They wouldn't call anything in for Levi without seeing him, because he has never been there before.  But, they didn't make him take the flu test (they stick a thing up into your nose for the swab).   So, if you are counting, that was two trips to the Urgent Care and two trips to CVS.  Oh, the best thing out of this?  We got a prescription card from the school at the beginning of the year.  I used it last night.  It took almost 30 dollars off of each of the doses of Relenza.  Awesome!

Trying to get Away

The hubs came home last week and asked me if I wanted to get away for the weekend for Valentines.  I was thinking to myself what was up, when he said there is an indoor farm show in Kentucky that he would love to go to.  I smiled to myself, it was beginning to make sense now.   We started trying to plan what day we would leave, who would drive us to the airport, and which kids were going where.   Then I remembered that the buddies were having their first Valentine Party at preschool and would be so disappointed if they missed it.  Wyatt was also looking forward to exchanging Valentines with his class.  Then the kicker, Levi had a Valentine dance Friday night at the middle school.  We had it down to the wire and ALMOST worked everything out, but had no ride for the buddies to get to and from their party.   The decision was made to wait until another year.  So, a few days later the hubs came in and asked if I thought we could go to Wyoming to see his brother, when the big boys go to Washington.   We started making plans, then I saw that the buddies have a field trip on that Friday.  One that they have been waiting for for weeks, because they get to ride the bus on this one.  The hubs looked at me and asked, "Is everything we do dictated by the kids activities now?"  "Pretty much", I replied laughing.  

Gold

Wednesday morning I ended up driving both older boys to school, because Levi had a project and had asked for a ride the evening before.  What I didn't realize was that I would also be making several more stops after dropping everyone off at their respective schools.  We loaded the car at 8:15.  Plenty of time to make the 8:30 tardy bell for middle school.  I had forgotten that I needed to take three bags of deer corn to one of the ladies at the FSA.  Across the street we drove to the mill house porch.  Then we were on our way.  Of course we got behind the recycle truck on 73.  I glanced at the clock, it was now 8:23.  I asked Levi what time the tardy bell rang.  He didn't know, but I could tell he was getting anxious.  He muttered something about staying on gold level and not getting any tardies for the year.  We all cheered when the truck turned at the next road.  Then we caught two red stop lights.  He then tries to tell me how to pull into parent drive at the middle school.  Seriously son?  Like I haven't been here before, I get that you want to stay on gold level and all, but don't tell me how to drive.  I smiled when I saw several cars pulling in the line in front of us.  "You're golden", I said as I dropped him off.  Cute, right?  

Valentine Box

Every year we have the Valentine Box dilemma.   The buddies were quite easy to please.  Slap some scrapbook paper, their name, and dog stickers on a shoebox..... and everyone was happy.  Wyatt wanted something different.
I found this on the internet, isn't it cool?  Very easy to make.  Just aluminum foil and typing paper.  Wyatt drew everything to look like Levi's iPod Nano.  I had Landon cut a very large hole in the top, so he wouldn't have to rip it open to get the treats out on Friday.
He chose the song title, it is his current fav.  Wyatt took it to school yesterday and his friends love it!  What do y'all think?  

What snow?

Last Wednesday morning my mom called.  

Mom- Hey, I guess school was cancelled in your county too?

Me- Yeah, but I don't know why... we have had heavier frosts than what we got last night.
Mom- Really?  Bethany, David and your Dad are out sledding in the snow.

Me- What snow?

Mom- We got several inches.  More than last last time.

Me- SERIOUSLY?
Mom- Yeah, are your boys playing in it?

Me- We didn't get anything worthy of donning three layers of clothes.  But, Levi did get to go to the Farm Show with Landon this morning, since there was no school.
Me- I might bring the boys over there to sled.

Mom- No, don't the roads are pretty bad around here.

Clearly we aren't going to get a good snowing this year!

Ya'll are NOT going to believe this.  My brother-in-law just called and told us to go look outside.  It is SNOWING people.  Snowing.  Last week it was 74 degrees and tonight it is snowing.  February in the South is CRAZY.