A Little Bit of Everything

Our weekend got off to a fun start. Last night after work we met the Stephen's family for dinner at Felipe's. It is home to the famous "Flaming Cazuela". It is a 50 oz concoction of several fruit juices and just about every kind of alcohol you can think of. Just before delivering it to the table it is set on fire. Jeff started off the evening by ordering one. Unfortunately in the picture I took you can't see the flames.

Grant and Alec finished off the meal with a yummy mexican banana dessert.

The boys all came back to the house to hang out and Becky and I hit the mall. Dillard's had some huge sales going on. Everything on the sale racks, including the shoes, were take an extra 40% off the already reduced price. I got 5 things and I don't think I paid over $13 for any item. That's my favorite kind of shopping!!!

This morning we cleaned house and then went over to visit my grandparents and their new puppy. It is absolutely adorable. It's a bichpoo just like our dog Spiro. They named him Tiger, although they keep calling him Baby most of the time.


















One of the benefits of being a teacher is having access to the gym. We took Grant and his friend Nick who came over to spend the night out to my school this evening to play catch and do a little batting practice since it was so cold outside. We all know Grant has a powerful swing and he proved once again tonight. While Jeff was pitching him whiffle balls he hit one straight down the center and it popped Jeff right in the mouth. Jeff's lip bled and bled. When we got home he put some ice on it to try to help with the swelling. Boy does he have a fat lip!!! Who knew a whiffle ball could do so much damage. Grant of course feels awful but Jeff kept telling him it wasn't his fault. Jeff had his hands full and just didn't dodge fast enough . . . poor guy.

Grant and Nick have stayed busy tonight making posters for their teacher.

We made ice cream in a bag for dessert tonight. If you have never tried this it is so easy and fun to do with kids. All you do is mix milk, sugar, vanilla and chocolate syrup together and shake it in a bag of ice.

They got a little wild during the shaking part. It's a good thing I sent them out on the deck to do it.

Grant's bag ended up with a hole in it. I wonder if punching it was a bad idea?!?!?!

The night ended much earlier than I imagined for the boys. About 45 minutes ago I came downstairs because it had gotten really quiet and they had both fallen asleep watching Gremlins.

New Cars

That's right I said cars . . . but don't worry, we only got one. Last week Jeff traded in his truck for a new car. We are now the proud owners of a silver 2009 Honda Accord. All week I was planning to take a picture of it but somehow I never got around to it. Come to think of it, I haven't even driven it yet either!!! I guess that gives me a few things to do this week, huh?

While Jeff was at the car dealership his grandma tagged along and she fell in love with a cute little bright red Honda Fit Sport that was sitting on the showroom floor. It's not really the kind of car that you would imagine your 80 year old grandma driving around town in, but she's not your typical 80 year old grandma either!!! She walked away without getting it but then when Jeff went back the next morning to get his windows tinted she decided to go back with him and trade her car in. I did get a picture of her new wheels.


I think Scholfield Honda is loving the Bumgardner family this week.

It's All About Grant

Since my last post Grant has really been keeping us busy. On Sunday afternoon he had his first baseball practice of the season. This is going to be a big year because we are finally at the kid pitch level. At this point it's really looking like he may be getting a lot of action in the catcher's position. There's still lots of practice before our first tournament at the end of March so we will see if my prediction holds true.

On Monday night he had his final basketball game of the season. As you can tell from the happy faces in the pictures . . . they won. The final score was 37-25. We were playing one of the best teams in our league so everyone was very excited. Unfortunately due to some bad officiating at Friday's game we came in 3rd place instead of 1st place.

Here is Grant getting his medal.

Patrick, Grant, Joey & Kaden

Grant & Patrick

Grant and Cole

Last night Grant had his school music program. It had a patriotic theme. The lighting wasn't great on the end of the stage where he was standing so we didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked.

Here he is at the other end of the dimly lit stage doing his special speaking part.

Valentine's Day Party

Today I got the chance to feel like one of those regular non-teacher mom's. I took the day off to stay home with Jeff, which meant that I was free to go to Grant's Valentine's Day party at school. This year with him being in a different building it's not so easy for me to sneak down to his room for a few minutes during the parties. I always have a party of my own going on in my classroom!!!

Grant with his gal pals (Kaitlyn and Riley)

Grant with a few of his buddies.

They had a fun relay race with those little conversation hearts and chopstix.

He even posed for a picture with mommy!!!

Bursitis???????

Today Jeff had his shoulder surgery. Luckily when they got in there it wasn't as bad as they thought. There was a chance they might have to repair his rotator cuff . . . but as it turned out his only problem stemmed from the bursitis he has been suffering from.

If you don't know what bursitis is don't feel bad because I had to look it up . . . You have more than 150 bursae in your body. These small, fluid-filled sacs lubricate and cushion pressure points between your bones and the tendons and muscles near your joints. They help your joints move with ease. Bursitis occurs when a bursa becomes inflamed. When inflammation occurs, movement or pressure is painful. Bursitis often affects the joints in your shoulders, elbows or hips. But you can also have bursitis by your knee, heel and the base of your big toe. Bursitis pain usually goes away within a few weeks or so with proper treatment, but recurrent flare-ups of bursitis are common.

So here's the happy patient in the recovery room. He's going to be so mad at me for posting this picture. I don't think he actually feels quite as bad as he looks here. Along with the pain meds they sent home, they also gave him a pain block on the left hand side of his body. So for the next 24-36 hours he won't be feeling much at all.

Warm Weekend

The weather was gorgeous here yesterday so my sister took Grant to the zoo. She has been promising she would take him as soon as it warmed up. As you can tell by the pictures it was warm enough for shorts in February. We sent along our digital camera so they could take some pictures.

I thought this one that Grant took of the camel was great!

Earlier in the week we had also promised Grant we would take him to Sedgwick County Park to play on the new play equipment. It wasn't quite as warm today but we went over and had a little picnic lunch and let him and his friend Patrick play.

We were out of bread so we stopped by the store and picked up a couple of cheap loaves on the way to the park so we could feed the ducks. Several of them are so tame they will eat right out of your hand.

This little guy followed me everywhere I went and would just sit down right beside my feet. I would try to feed him but he didn't seem very hungry. The longer it continued it became pretty funny. When we headed back to the car he even followed me.

Grant had fun throwing the bread up into the air and watching the gulls swoop down and catch it before it hit the water.

Gettin' Crafty

A few weeks ago my friend Julie sent me the link to website that had a cute football craft project that she thought Grant might enjoy making. While I was looking at other projects on that same site I came across directions for how to make cute decoupaged journals. So last weekend I ran to Michael's and bought some Mod Podge and decorative brads and picked up a few composition notebooks at Target (which were only 97 cents a piece) and came home and got started. I also bought a few 12x12 pieces of fun scrapbook paper but they weren't big enough to cover a whole notebook so I ended up just using some paper I already had here at home.

Here is a picture of how they turned out.

Grant loves to write and draw pictures so yesterday when I was at Hobby Lobby with my mom I grabbed some fun stickers and paper and thought I would let him make a few unique journals of his own. He had so much fun applying the stickers, and as you can see he used every single one. Last night he started writing lyrics to songs and drawing cute pictures of "rock stars" in this one.

He's saving the baseball themed journal until the season starts to write about each game.

I even made a Valentine's Day one for my secret pal at work.

This project is so simple and inexpensive to do. I'm thinking I may let my kids at school make these as mother's day gifts.

Health Scare

I had a little bit of a health scare this week. At the time it didn't seem so little . . . It all started on Monday night after going to bed I began having the worst pains I have ever experienced. The pain was in the lower left side of my stomach and felt like someone was just stabbing me. I became super nauseated feeling and got that cold sweaty feeling you get right before you pass out. Jeff really wanted to take me to the hospital but the pain was so severe that I didn't think I could move. He was afraid it was my appendix or my gallbladder. Luckily after about 45 long minutes the pain began to somewhat ease up and I was able to go to sleep. On Tuesday I was extremely sore when I got up, but managed to go to work. Throughout the day the pain would come and go but nothing like it was the night before. I spent the majority of the evening on Tuesday laying on the couch with the heating pad and by Wednesday I was feeling back to normal. My mom was still worried about me so I made an appointment to see my doctor. After a pretty thorough check-up he is convinced that I had a cyst on my ovary that burst. I had never heard of anything like that happening . . . and hopefully I will never experience anything like it again. Just to be on the safe side I am scheduled to go in next week for a sonogram to make sure that there are no more cysts and nothing else to be worried about.

On a brighter note . . . we had parent/teacher conferences this week. Jeff and I met with Grant's teacher yesterday and she told us what a great job he is doing. We are so proud of how hard he works both at school and home. He really loves to read and write. Just tonight he spent hours writing letters to his favorite Disney stars . . . it was so cute!!! I bought him a BOP magazine several months ago and it had a page with addresses for fan clubs and he found it in a backpack tonight and was so excited. He has already taken two letters to the mailbox. I really hope he gets an autograph or something little back in the mail because I know he will be so disappointed if he doesn't.

We have a basketball game tomorrow and my parents are coming up to visit so hopefully I will have some fun photos to post. The weather is pretty nice here today and the forecast looks good again tomorrow so we may try to go to the park.