End of the 2013-2014 School Year!

Hi all!  I am happily enjoying my summer vacation already!  Newton's last day of school was Thursday, May 22.  

I am so thankful for my classroom para, Vi!  This was her first year working in a school classroom so she had a lot to learn, but she learned quickly and we had a GREAT year!!  Hopefully I get to keep her in my room next year.

Whoa, furniture stacked for the summer and I am happy to have the kids out the door!  I wish I could post their cute preschool graduation pictures.  Goodness they are cute and grew so much this year!  

I received these sweet roses from one of my dearest students on the last day of school!  The student's mother came in to pick her up early and brought these with her.  I was very surprised and the mother was very appreciative of my work.  Teaching is very rewarding!

Okay, so now that school is over I always have plenty of time to bake and cook yummy recipes.  I tried snow-covered chocolate cookies.  Yum-O!  

My second hobby over the summer is gardening.  You might be getting tired of seeing all of my plants and flowers.  Ha!  (Can you see that banana pepper!?)  Oh and we mulched everything around the house!  It looks and smells awesome outside!

Okay, on to my next topic.  Over Mother's day weekend my brother and sister-in-law graduated from Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine.  Woo hoo!!  Aaron and I didn't get to attend but I just HAD to post my dad's pictures.  (photo credit:  Elwood Yoder)  Dad, I got these off your Picasa account!

On June 10th, Aaron and I will fly from Kansas City, MO to Washington, DC and meet our Yoder family.  First, we plan to spend some time in Harrisonburg seeing friends and family.  Then, over the weekend we will take a trip to see Nate and Maggie's new home in Bethlehem, PA!  I am very excited to see where they are living and hopefully we'll get to see the hospitals they will work at!  Bethlehem, PA is about 1 1/2 hours from New York City, so my dad has planned a trip for our family complete with a Broadway Musical (Mamma Mia), ferry boat ride to the Statue of Liberty, and a 1 night stay in a hotel (with a communal bathroom).  (We aren't too sure about this....but I guess it is the only thing available in the midst of summer travel season.  We can do anything for 1 night, right?!)  

We hope this blog finds you well!  Love you all!

-Maria

Trucks & Preschool

Hi!  Today I am writing about model trucks and preschool art.  They don't have anything in common.  ha!  Aaron put together a model semi truck!  It took him 4 days.  He got to paint and assemble all the parts.  The decals and chrome pieces made it look so real!  It's 1/25 the size of a real semi.

The glue comes in an "oil can" looking shape.

Okay, now on to my preschool world.  During our "Q" week we made a hand-print quilt.  It turned out really cute!  There is a quilt for the morning and afternoon class.  On the first day we did our hand-print and let it dry.  The next day I taught them out to use a black pen to make their hand-print into 3 different animals:  Octopus, Fish, or Chicken.  They loved getting to choose!  They had to follow my drawing directions, glue on the goggly eyes, add some sequences for the fish scales (even the chickens got scales glued on them...just because they were sparkly and the chickens needed the decorations!) AND write the animal name somewhere on the square.  They did a great job! 

Do you know of the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom?  I think most Preschool and Kindergarten teachers use this book at some point during the year to review all of the alphabet letters.  The song is so fun and it sticks in the kids' head ALL week.  We made coconut trees with our hand and arm for the art project, and during snack!  Yum!

If you don't know the story you are probably wondering why there are random letters on the tree trunk. In the story all of the alphabet letters climb up the coconut tree!

4 more days left until I get to clean out my room and move to another classroom next year!  

-Maria

Garden Time!

Hi!  Wow, we are just loving the warmer weather these days!  Aaron and I have been working hard since Easter to keep our garden watered because there hasn't been a whole lot of rain.  Just this week we did get a HUGE thunderstorm, which helped everything grow like crazy!  

MARIGOLDS!

Tomato plants :)  These will take awhile to enjoy, but I can't wait to eat fresh tomatoes from the garden!

Next up... two banana pepper plants, 2 nice rows of radishes, and 2 rows of basil that just started to sprout this week! 

Here is our yummy spinach and lettuce!  We have enjoyed a few fresh garden salads already!  

Our pride and joy....Sugar Snap Peas!!!  Ahh I can't wait to eat these straight out of the garden!  The rain made these babies shoot straight up and I am in need of a strong support system.  Aaron helped to shimmy up these nice boards and some fishing wire across, but they just got so huge!

This past weekend we took a trip to Garden City.  We did many fun things including shopping, playing games, dancing and swimming with our niece and nephew, enjoying yummy meals together, and celebrating Mother's Day!

Sweet, sweet Makenah was searching for toys for her little brother.  She found this huge princess hat instead! :)

Playing with the Stucky kids is always a highlight!

Bryan made some yummy cappuccinos that look professionally made!  Thanks for treating us Bry!

Oh, and when we decided to pack up and leave Casey wanted to just lay in the front yard and not get in the truck.  He loves taking trips to Garden City!  But I just had to take a picture of what Aaron has to do to get Casey in the truck...ha!  He can't get up by himself.

Like I said earlier, there was a HUGE thunderstorm system that went through this past weekend and we drove straight into as we were driving home.  It is so erie to see bright blue skies to the right and MASSIVE thunder head clouds to the left, along with completly black skies ahead.  Yikes.  Thank goodness the storm was moving fast enough (40mph) that we never had to drive through the hail.  I am getting used to these Kansas thunderstorms, but they just seem to come up out of no where!  There aren't any mountains to slow them down.

Okay, so on another note....I have 7 more days with my class!  Ahh!  It is crazy how fast this year has gone.  I am sending 20 out of 30 of my kids to Kindergarten!  We asked them this week what they wanted to be with they grow up and we got some pretty crazy answers.  (cowgirl, chef, spiderman, doctor!, mom, spy)  Ha!

Love you all!

Maria

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