EASTER 2014

Hi all!  We had a wonderful Easter this year!  My parents and little brother got to visit for the weekend!  I have a lot of pictures to share, so I tried to put them in order!  On Good Friday, Aaron and I drove to the Wichita Airport and picked up the crew.  We had to make a pit stop at Braum's for an ice-cream snack!  Friday was a beautiful day so we decided to grill out!  I have the best grill-master around!!!  He made delicious teriyaki chicken and asparagus.   

Friday evening we got out the song books and did some guitar pickin' :)  The mandolin and electric bass made an appearance as well!

My family loved meeting Casey Boy!  He also loved all of the attention and extra walks (2 a day)!  We walked around the Hesston Arboretum a few times over the weekend.

My little brother has a hobby of climbing trees, so of course, if we couldn't see Phil anywhere we could just look up!

Saturday we woke up, had breakfast, and jumped in the truck to tour Hesston and Newton.  We bought Marigolds at the Nursery, visited my Preschool, stopped at Walmart for curtain fabric, checked out the Hesston and Newton library (Hesston was the favorite by far!), had Wendy's for lunch by the river, and toured some of the Billings' properties. Vesper was a hit!  Good job Billings men!

I had to add a picture of our Sugar Snap Peas!  Ahh!!!  I am so excited to eat these!

Phil found the painting supplies in the office, so Aaron joined him and we now have 3 new paintings in our home!

I put mom to work on hemming our guest room curtains and making new curtains for our newest guest room.  I had the tiniest tape measure and sewing machine (that was missing pieces) and so we had to borrow a machine from a friend in town.  Thanks Rachel! :)

My classroom door!  

Tiny furniture! ha!  Do you see the hand-print bumble bees in the background??  They are so cute!

Easter Sunday we attended Whitestone Mennonite Church.  We enjoyed seeing the church's newly renovated sanctuary and letting dad play the "Mennonite Game".  

Oh, we did a lot of baking and cooking!  Mom made us two loaves of bread, cookies, cake, and she helped me make Easter dinner!

I had to add a picture of the front of the house with the pot of Marigolds and the pretty bush that is blooming!!  We love Spring!

On Monday morning my Mom came to help me out at school!  The kids just loved mom and had her read books during center time, and she was so kind to hold their hands and love on them a little!  They asked about her on Tuesday.  "Where is your mom today?  Why didn't she come back?"  Melted my heart!  My  dad and Phil studied at the Hesston library Monday morning, on their own will.  Phil had exams this week and so we thank him for traveling even though he was busy with the books!  Dad always has history projects, books, or school work to work on.  I think libraries are his favorite place to be :)

Needless to say, we LOVED having the Yoders here and wish we could have visitors more often!  Happy Easter everyone!

Final Kitchen Remodel Pictures!

OUR KITCHEN IS COMPLETED!!!!  

It turned out just like we imagined with new appliances, countertop, sink, and finally our AWESOME backsplash! Check out the UGLY wallpaper that was hidden in our kitchen.  The stone is called, Air Stone, and it is just applied with adhesive.  We liked this option because it really does look like real stone, and we didn't have to grout it!

It was like putting a puzzle together.  

The goal was to keep the seams from meeting, and we succeeded!  

My husband is an excellent carpenter, electrician, plumber, and all around handyman.  I'd say that he could come fix up your house, but I'm gonna keep him around here :)

-Maria

Guest Room Remodeling

Hi everyone!  We have been really busy getting our guest rooms ready for the Yoder family to come visit us!  Upon the purchase of a new bed spread, we decided to paint!  I'll first start by showing you the old pictures of each room.  Here's the old guest room.    

Casey's room (the blue room) once stood empty and lacking attention, and has quickly become a cute little room!  Casey's room was very blue and the picture on the left didn't do the color justice, so I put the picture on the right up so you can see more of the blue color. ha!  We desperately needed to spruce this room up!

We decided to paint both rooms light gray, named "nimbus cloud".  I love how it turned out!!!  Aaron picked out the beautiful art piece above the bed.  It fits so perfect!!  The sunflowers add the perfect color of yellow!

Next up is Casey's room remodeled!  I seriously can't decide which room is my favorite!  

Here's a close up on the art in Casey's room!  DIY maps of each of our home towns - Hesston & Harrisonburg.  We love these maps!  

A special thanks to the Billings parents for some great looking furniture that we found in the B & B garage :)  We were looking for ways to cut the budget a bit and this totally helped!  Also, new curtains for each room are coming soon!  My mom will hopefully whip something up when she visits at Easter.  Stay tuned for pictures of the new (stunning) backsplash in the kitchen!! 

-The Happy Home Owners :)

Colorado Springs, CO Trip!

Hello :)  Aaron and I planned a 3 day trip to Colorado Springs, CO!  Full of fun sight seeing, good restaurants, and gorgeous mountains (that I miss so much)!  First stop was visiting the Garden of the Gods.  We visited here with the Billings Family before and it was fun to go back and take our time!  Below is a picture of the famous "Balanced Rock".  There were people gathered all around, but I think I ended up with a cool picture of the rock glowing.  

This tree was growing so weird.

Next stop, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!  

I have to say that this zoo is, by far, the most beautiful and natural looking zoo I have ever visited!  The animal cages and walking paths are tucked into the mountains, which makes it feel like you're taking a hike and seeing some pretty exotic animals along the way :)  I was told that they are well known for their Giraffe feeding area.  I LOVED THIS!!  We paid a few bucks for some lettuce and the Giraffes came right up to the walk way and we fed them!!!!!

  

I just want to pile my entire class of preschoolers in a bus and bring them to feed the Giraffes!!  Someone please fund this amazing trip idea :)

Mom, this one is for you....ha!

Oh, by the way, the entire time you are walking around the zoo you have this incredible view of the valley below!  It is breath taking.  My phone pictures are incredibly terrible, and it was cloudy, but can you imagine?!

Next stop, Manitou Springs!  Whoa, blue sky.  This is a little town tucked at the bottom of Pikes Peak.  I took this picture so that you can see how the houses are set right up above all the shops.  

We ate at Sahara Cafe and had gyros!

Okay, my husband did a great job finding a hotel that had a mountain view!!  The snowy peak is Pikes Peak, which was gorgeous to wake up to each morning!  Colorado Springs sure is beautiful.

Other activities during our trip included shopping at some great outlets and visiting Jenna!  Jenna is Aaron's sister.  She has a very cute house, which is just perfect for her and her dog.  We had a great time getting away from Hesston for a bit and relaxing!  Now...how many days until summer??  This teacher wants another break! 

Count Down until the Yoders fly to Kansas = 21 days!!  Get excited people!

Happy weekend!

Love, Maria

Preschool & Med School!

Hi everyone!  It's spring break this week!  I am loving the extra time with family, getting to travel, and catch up on things around the house!  However, I need to back track and post some Preschool pictures!  Preschool is so fun and is full of celebrations...including Dr. Seuss!  The kids love the rhyming and the stories are so silly.  We of course had to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday, so I had the kids help make a colorful cake!  We mixed the eggs, batter, water, and oil in a bowl together and stirred it up!  Then each kid got a small dixie cup of batter with a little squirt of food coloring!  This is how the cake turned out!  The kids are so engaged when we cook together.

We also enjoyed a whole day of GREEN EGGS & HAM!  Whoo hoo!  (We cooked a lot together this week!)  I just noticed how small that piece of ham is...I promise the kids tasted more than that!  :)

And...I even let them watch the Green Eggs & Ham movie while we tasted our food!  Some of the kids were still a little unsure of the green stuff. ha!

Finally, we made a fun craft!  Does the egg look real??  The egg white is a mixture of Elmer's glue and Shaving cream with a green pom-pom on top!  The ham is just a piece of foam that they got to cut out.  They looked pretty cute!

The week before Spring Break we explored everything about a Zoo!  The Sedgwick County Zoo also came to give a presentation to the kids!  Our letter of the week was "Z"! Every monday the kids have a new letter to decorate, and this week they got to cut out the capital Z, glue a zebra picture on, and paint black zebra stripes!  They had so much fun!  (cutting out letters is a lot harder than it looks)

The Blocks center was full of animal cages all week!  The kids are learning and growing so much every week.  I really like teaching this time of the year because the kids have grown-up a little, they know the classroom routine (most of the time), and we can do a lot of fun projects together.  The beginning of the year seems so rushed and crazy and then after Spring Break it goes so fast while we count down to the end of the year!  

Okay, lastly I have to boast....this is my brother AND sister-in-law!!!  They are graduating May 10, 2014!!!  The last 4 years, have felt long to them...but WOW, they are going to start residency soon!  I am so absolutely proud of them and have full faith that they will enjoy the next 4 years of life (while finally getting paid!).  Aaron and I love them so much and miss seeing them!  We secretly wish they would've gotten a placement out West :)  Love you Nate and Maggie!!

More Remodeling!

I have to boast about Aaron's handy-work.  He is amazing!!!  In one evening he took off the old blue countertops, tore out the old backsplash, leveled the new (tan) countertops, and installed the new sink and faucet.  And this was all completed after working a very long day and driving many miles.  He is so determined!  Also, the very next morning the plumbing was completed and the new garbage disposal installed!  Ahhh...our kitchen looks great!

Newly installed and looking fabulous!  (New STONE backsplash to come!!)

The sink is beautiful!  It's quite a bit bigger than the old one.  

Here is a picture of the old stove, and countertops so that you can compare.  I think our red kitchen theme looks much better.

Here's something fun for you to look at!  A couple weekends ago we made pretzels for the first time together!  They were so fun to make, and very easy.  (I guess this was before the renovation)

And lastly, here is Casey enjoying some shadows.  He is a shadow chaser fanatic. ha!

As I mentioned before, the new stone backsplash is coming soon!  Currently there is some not-so -lovely wallpaper and paint.  I'm sure the stone will change the look of the kitchen even more!  Overall we are very pleased!  

Love, Maria