Sunday Afternoon Project

I've always got a list of things that I would like to do around the house so today I decided to tackle one. I made the mistake of getting new kitchen furniture with cloth seats when we moved into our house 4 years ago. Needless to say the fabric isn't as clean as it once was. So today I ventured out to the fabric store and found two coordinating upholstery fabrics on the clearance racks. For less than $30 I bought a little over 8 yards of fabric.

As soon as I got home I used the screwdriver to pop the cushions out of my chairs and barstools and with the help of a staple gun I spent most of the afternoon recovering almost all of my seats. I say almost because I of course ran out of staples with one barstool left to go. That's how things seem to work out for me most of the time.

So for tonight we have one old and one new barstool left in the kitchen.































After I finish recovering the last barstool my plan is to use the other fabric to make a runner for my table and maybe even a few pillows, we'll see!!!

Another Famous Jayhawk

Grant got to meet and shoot around with one of his favorite KU players today at camp. Here he is with 6 f00t 11 inch Cole Aldrich.

Future Jayhawks

Today was Grant's first day of basketball camp. The camp is put on by Bob Chipman, the head basketball coach from Washburn University and it is in Garden Plain, KS. (Garden Plain is a small town just west of Wichita.) Coach Chipman is originally from that area and every year he comes back to town and brings in well knows players from KU, K-State and WSU to work with the kids. Miles did this camp 3 or 4 years in a row and now Grant is working on his 2nd year.

One of the featured players today was future Jayhawk Xavier Henry. He was the top high school recruit in the country, who has signed to play for KU. It's always so fun for the kids (and the parents) to get up close and personal with the players. They are always so willing to answer questions, sign autographs and pose for pictures.
























"Future Jayhawks"

Grant also got autographs today on his shirt from WSU player Garrett Stutz (who is 7 feet tall) and Kari Kincaid who plays womens basketball at KSU.

Ridiculous

Grant's baseball game tonight can be summed up in one word "RIDICULOUS". Not only was the weather ridiculous (it rained off and on all night), but Grant said his coach used the word about 50 times at the quick team meeting after the game. Needless to say it wasn't a good game. They lost 4-1 against a team they really should have beaten. Grant struck out his first two times up to bat and then managed to walk to 1st base his last time at bat. I had my camera out every time Grant was up but unfortunately there wasn't much to get a picture of . . . maybe next time I should keep my camera in my bag!!!

Grant was all smiles in the car on the way to the game.

Here's my big kid before the game helping the boys field balls.

"My Boys"

Last Day of School

The last day of school came and went for me yesterday and as usual it was a little bittersweet. I'm always excited about the prospect of having 2 1/2 months of vacation but it's so hard to say goodbye to the kids in my class. If you think about it, I spend more time with them than I do my own family. We become our own family at school. I also get to see them grow so much over the year. Most of them come to 1st grade not knowing how to read and by the end of the year they can pick up nearly any book and read almost every word. It's amazing how much growth really does happen right before my eyes. Teaching first grade really is a rewarding job!!!!

Starting my classroom blog last year in December made me take so many more pictures than I have in previous years. It was so fun to sit down this week and go through all of them to make an end of the year video. Believe it or not I had a hard time narrowing it down to only 300 pictures. I wasn't exactly prepared for the response it got from the kids. Within the first 15 seconds (literally) I had kids crying, which of course makes me cry. Crying in first grade is kind of a domino effect because once one child gets upset they all do. We ended up with tears on and off all day. I wish I could have gotten a picture of all the teary eyes on the way out the door to the bus. It would have broken your heart.

Needless to say the last day of school was an emotionally exhausting day!!! So, to unwind we met our friends the Cronk's at On The Border for some yummy mexican food and drinks. Then we all ended up back at our house on the deck to have a few more drinks while the kids played outside. It was the perfect end to the end of the year!!!

Tanganyika

Wow . . . last week absolutely flew by. Jeff's sister and her family were here all week and we managed to stay busy every night. On Friday Grant and I took the day off from school so we could go to Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard with everyone. It's a privately owned zoo that has just recently opened to the public. A few years ago Grant's kindergarten class went there on a field trip and my has it changed. The facilities all seem to be brand new, there are several exhibits where you get to walk amongst the animals and feed them and there are so many more animals than I remembered. We had a perfect day!!! We will definetely have to go back this summer.

Grant got to feed the lorikeets nectar from a little cup.

We were all shocked when this one landed on John's arm.

And even more shocked when one landed on Melissa's shoulder. Lorelie was really checking it out. She even tried to grab it!!!























Grant's favorite part was feeding the lemur's. We spent quite awhile feeding them and watching them play.


















By the end of the day Maggie was hot and tired from running around and cute little Lorelie still had a big smile on her face!!!

Yesterday (Saturday) Jeff and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. Our day began with concession stand duty at the baseball park from 9-11 am and then we went home to shower and change clothes before we headed over to Buhler for Nick's graduation. We missed the ceremony itself, but got to have lunch and see everyone back at Debbie's house. There wasn't much time for us to celebrate with all of the other stuff that was going on. My sister did come over this afternoon to visit and we snuck out to see the movie Angels and Demons. Thanks Aunt Karen!!! It was good . . . but seemed awfully long (2 hours 20 minutes).

Mother's Day

What better way to spend Mother's Day than watching your son play baseball. We spent the majority of our weekend camped out at the ballpark. Grant had two games on Saturday and two games again on Sunday. All of our sitting and cheering paid off because his team won 1st place.

The Cardinal's with Coach Dreifort

Luckily I had my camera with me this time because Grant hit another homerun in his first game on Saturday. Here he is up to bat right before his big hit.

There was another runner on base so here they are rounding third base heading into home.

I love the looks on all the boys faces as they cheered Grant on from home plate.

Grant also got a little action pitching and playing in the outfield. Most of his time however was spent behind the plate as the catcher, which somehow I didn't get any pictures of.

In other exciting news . . . Jeff's sister Melissa and her family got here on Saturday. They live in the San Franciso area. It's been over a year since we've seen them. They are We were so excited to see the girls. Maggie is 2 1/2 and Loralie is 9 months old. They are going to be staying with us all week. I was so happy tonight when I got home from school because both of the girls, who are super shy, seemed to finally begin warming up to me. Maggie and I have been outside countless times with a cup watering all the flowers on the deck and front porch and as long as mommy is not in view Loralie seems to be pretty happy with me too. They are loving Sprio and seem to think almost everything Grant does is funny.

Here's Miss Loralie.























And here's Miss Maggie giving me a super cheesy smile.

Home Run

Tonight Grant hit his first home run of the season. Everyone was so excited!!! Unfortunately I forgot the camera so I wasn't able to capture the big moment. We did get the ball and I got a picture of him as soon as we got home. He's already signed it and dated it.

Field Day & Spring Party

Today was a big day for Grant. He had Field Day this morning and then his Spring Party this afternoon. Jeff and I were able to split the day up. Jeff went this morning and got to watch Grant compete in all of the events at Field Day, we met for a quick lunch at Taco Bell, and then I went this afternoon to his party. He of course still had to make me feel guilty for not going this morning :)

Jeff took the camera and got some great pictures of Grant. I especially loved this action shot!!!

Here's Grant picking himself up after he fell on the balance beam. After seeing myself on the balance games on our Wii Fit I've decided he must take after me!!!

One of the events was the softball throw. The record for the day in 2nd grade was in the 50 foot range and then Grant shattered it by throwing the ball 97 feet. Everyone was amazed!!!

The Spring party had a garden theme. I was in charge of drinks so I made "Bug Juice" (lemonade). The kids all got personalized flower pots filled with a yummy snack mix, flower shaped cheese, and a piece of a caterpillar shaped cake. It was adorable. Then they went outside to the playground and got to dig for buried plastic bugs in the sand with their own shovel. It was a big hit!!!

This is Grant with his teacher, Mrs. Hobbs, who we absolutely adore. She pulled me aside this afternoon to tell me how much she has loved having Grant in her class this year. She told me he is so focused in class is so well behaved and is a real leader. She told me that watching him this morning participating in the field day events amazed her because on top of doing so well in school she got to see how athletic he is. She told me she expected great things from him. It was so nice to hear such wonderful things about our little boy. We are so proud of him!!!

Movies & Farkel

This weekend we spent a fairly quiet "family" weekend together at home. Despite running a few errands, we managed to squeeze in a few movies, play a couple of games of Farkel, do some yardwork, and I even got to catch up on a few of my DVR'd shows.

On Friday night Jeff drove to Emporia to pick up Miles and I went right after school to a suprise birthday party for my assistant principal at Players. Grant spent the night at the Bontrager's house so after Jeff and Miles made it home we watched a Dateline mystery (which I always love) and then Jeff and I finally finished the movie Milk that we had started two nights earlier. Unfortunately it was pretty late each night when we would finally sit down to watch it and after about 30 minutes, and 1/2 of an Ambien, I could hardly hold my eyes open.

Saturday somehow went by extra fast. Grant had a birthday party at All Star Sports and I ran all around the west side of town trying to get all of the supplies I needed for the gifts I am going to have my kids make this week at school for Mother's Day. Finally Saturday night we all settled down and watched the new James Bond movie Quantam of Solace and played Farkel. The boys were so silly the whole time we were playing. It's a game my family has played for years. I have so many memories of sitting at the kitchen table with my Nana and Mick and rolling the dice trying to be the first one to get 10,000 points.

Grant was the winner, twice!!!

This morning since it wasn't raining Jeff was mowed the yard, the boys played basketball and I worked on getting all of my winter clothes put away and all of my spring/summer stuff out. What a job!!!

On a bright note . . . only 14 more days of school left!!!