My First Scrapblog

I did it!!! I finally finished my first scrapblog page. I love all of the backgrounds and stickers that are available. I may have to buy some credits though because there are so many things I saw that I would love to buy to add to other pages.

Now that I've got soccer season done I need to get busy and make pages with all of the basketball pictures I took this winter. There's only 5 more days until our first baseball tournament of the year and I would love to be all caught up and ready to start making baseball pages.

Here's the link to my pages. I thought I had them posted here but after typing a message it disappered????? I'll have to figure that out later.

http://www.scrapblog.com/viewer/viewer.aspx?sbid=1647375

Winter Is Back

It looks like winter is officially back here in Kansas. Yesterday it started sleeting around 10:00 am. and was it was still going strong when I went to bed around 11:00 pm. Now the snow has started coming down this morning along with winds and the conditions outside are blizzard like. That didn't stop Grant from wanting to get all bundled up so he could go outside and play.

Notice the tree in our front yard behind Grant. I really hope it doesn't snap.

The fun lasted for about 10 minutes.

My Bionic Man

I seem to have my very own Bionic man here at home. Jeff underwent yet another surgery today on his arm. This would be the same side that he had his shoulder surgery on back in February. This time it was for carpal tunnel and anterior transposition of the ulnar nerve which is just the fancy way of saying they opened the underside of his elbow (about a 6 inch incision)and moved the ulnar nerve to the other side of his arm. So now he has his arm in a cast for the next 2-6 weeks. We are all crossing our fingers that this will be our last visit to a surgery center for a long time.

He definetely has his appetite back. On the way home we had to stop off a Burger King for some mini burgers ????? I don't know where that idea came from because I can't remember the last time we ate there. He has also had most of the cinnamon streussel bread I made last night and ice cream with lots of fudge topping poured all over it. Luckily with a little help from the anesthesia earlier today and the Percocet that he came home with he is already sound asleep.

Grant's New Improved Room

Welcome to Grant's "new improved" room. Come on in and take a look around. After a few days of hard work it is finally finished. My mom and I worked ALL day yesterday painting and then I spent most of the day today getting his room put back together. So much for a relaxing Spring Break!!! He loves it though and keeps giving me hugs and kisses so it was all worth it.

The paint color is alot darker than what he had before. We ended up choosing a Valspar color called "hemp" from Lowes. It seemed like a pretty dramatic change of color when we first started but the more we got up on the walls the more I loved it. I like the warm feel it gave the room.

When I began moving everything back in the room I rearranged the furniture and wall hangings somewhat. It made the room feel like it was "brand new".

One of the new items in the room are the shelves. We bought them at Lowe's for him to use to display all of his basketball and baseball trophies on. One of my favorite things in his room is this dresser. Jeff's mom bought it at a garage sale at least 10 years ago and refinished it with fun bright colors. Miles used it for several years and then Grant finally inherited it.

One of the unique things about Grant's room is that he has his own full bathroom. It took us nearly 5 hours to do this little room. There were so many things to trim around. We probably should have started in there first because by the end of the day we were getting tired and the little hot bathroom wasn't much fun.

Thanks again mom for all of your help. There's know way I could have done it all in one day!!

Before

I have always loved watching those home improvement shows and seeing the before and after pictures of rooms that have been redone. This is my attempt. Here is Grant's bedroom "before" picture. Hopefully I'll have some fun "after" pictures to show later this week.

My mom is coming up bright and early in the morning to help me with the painting. I'm having a really hard time deciding on a color. Time is running out so I need to just pick a color and move on. I think I have just about every color card from Lowes and Sherwin Williams. If Grant had his way one wall would be red, blue, green and yellow. Luckily, he's not in charge.

Check back for our big reveal later this week.

Shiny Red Shoes

The latest get REAL challenge is about an item I would like to add to my spring wardrobe. After alot of consideration (it was hard to pick just one thing) I think I would really like an inexpensive pair of red shoes. I have a new leopard print sweater that has red lining and I think shiny red shoes would look so cute with it. I will end of wearing them to school and probably out on the sandy playground so I don't want to spend a fortune on them. I was at Target earlier today and couldn't find exactly what I was looking for. Then tonight I did a little browsing online and found this pair at Payless.

Tomorrow Grant and I may have to head out and do a little shoe shopping. He could use some new flip flops for spring too!!!

Class Pet

Grant has been waiting for this day for weeks now and it has finally arrived. He won a drawing at school to bring home their class pet over Spring Break. I'm convinced this contest must have been rigged by his wonderful teacher. I'm wondering just how many pieces of paper had Grant's name on them in the drawing!!!!!

This is Nibbles.



















Grant hasn't had alot of experience with gerbils (or other rodents) outside of school so this should be an exciting experience for him. I think he is under the impression that he is going to play with Nibbles ALL day long. He has already had him in the ball several times and requested a big storage container to put him in so he can crawl around. He even placed several of Spiro's toys in it for him to play with and climb on. What is he thinking?!?!?! Maybe the better question is "What was I thinking letting him sign up?"


There is another funny story about Nibbles that I think you might enjoy. A few days before school starts we have "Meet Your Teacher Night". Jeff was out of town so I took Grant to meet his teacher at his new school and that is where we first met Nibbles too. My sister met me afterwards to pick Grant up and watch him so I could go to my school to meet my new class and while he was with her he told her all about his teacher and classroom. He also told her about their class pet named "Nipples". My sister was pretty sure (ok, most certain) that this was not the gerbils name but Grant was convinced that is what his teacher told him. After thinking for a few minutes my sister asked if he thought maybe he misunderstood and she really said "Nibbles". He thought that might be it. We all got a laugh out of that story!!!

Good Luck Hawks

We've got spirit, yes we do!!!

We've got spirit, how about you??

Today Grant and I wore our favorite KU gear to show our support for the Jayhawks. They are playing Baylor in their first game at the Big 12 tournament. The game begins at 11:30 so several of the teachers in my building are ordering pizza and planning to hang out in my classroom to watch the game on my Promethean board. (Thank goodness for technology at school.) Hopefully we will get to see most of the first half. I'm still trying to figure out a way to watch the rest of the game when my kids come back in the room. There's got to be a way to make it educational. Maybe we could practice making tally marks every time KU scores!!!

get REAL

So I've decided to jump on the bandwagon and join my blogging friends in the getREAL picture challenge. Each week there will be a new question posted so that fellow bloggers can get to know each other a little better and get a peak into each other's lives.

So the question for this week was...Where do you blog?

Here is a picture of my living room. The majority of my blogging is done right here in my big oversized comfy chair. Usually I'm wearing my sweats or pajama pants (which I usually change into as soon as I walk in the door after school, unless we are headed to baseball, basketball, soccer, etc . . .). From here I'm usually right in on all the action and I don't miss out on anything going on. My family will tell you that I am a very good multi-tasker. I don't think I ever just watch tv. Usually I'm either working on school stuff, grading papers, playing Bejeweled on Facebook (which I'm totally addicted to right now) or blogging all while watching one of my favorite shows.

I thought it was also important to share a picture of my desk at school because I do a fair share of blogging here too. Don't worry it's not during the school day because with a room of 23 first graders I usually don't have a spare minute to catch my breath. I started a class blog back in October and it has been a big hit. I can't believe how much the kids and parents enjoy looking at it. ( http://www.mrsbumgardners1stgradeclass.blogspot.com/)