Student of the Week and a Couple House Guests

A week ago Friday, Yaya was chosen as Student of the Week for her preschool class.  This meant she got to make a poster about herself, her family and the things she loves.  She was so excited she couldn't stop talking about what she wanted to write on it all weekend.  Daddy, Yaya and I planned it out together and then she wrote each and every word all by herself.  First, she wrote them with a pencil and later went back and traced over them with a Sharpy marker.  Her favorite part of the project was looking through all my scrapbook stickers and choosing the ones she wanted to use.

She said it was a lot of work and hard to do at times but once it was all done she beamed from ear to ear with pride.  Her smile and giggle was so big her nose even crinkled up. 

As the Student of the Week she also got to take care of the class mascot, "Froggy" all week.  It was a bit rainy and cloudy but we managed to get out for a walk and hit the park anyway.

She loved pretending Froggy was her baby and pushing him in her stroller all the way to the park and back. 

She introduced him to everyone we met along the way. 

She couldn't believe his friends and family lived so close.  We had fun peeking in on them at the creek and saying hello.   

Froggy and Yaya were a perfect pair.  They were both hungry all the time.  Yaya couldn't understand how  Froggy could enjoy eating bugs and Froggy couldn't believe Yaya liked to eat cheesy noodles called Kaeses spaetzle (recipe included click on the highlighted words to view).  I made the Spaetzle noodles at home in honor of her German heritage and we took German cookies, German sausage and German marshmallows covered in chocolate to her classmates on Wednesday.  Her classmates and teachers ate every last bite it was all so good.

If being Student of the Week and having Froggy visit wasn't enough we also got to host friends from Bird's childhood.  Wallace was Firechief in the Panama Canal Zone while Bird and his family lived there.  He  became part of their family during their 20+ years together serving our servicemen and women.  These days Wallace is retired and drives with his wife Beverly from Alaska to Florida all the way down to Panama to watch birds and help people in need in the Canal Zone.

Yaya and Froggy had so much fun playing together around the house.

They even talked Bird into hiding.

They played so hard during the day that every night Yaya quickly fell into bed and drifted off to sleep in seconds from exhaustion. However, poor


We said Good-bye to Froggy this morning.  He's off to spend the week with a new student and family.  We sure will miss him around here.  Nevaeh was so sad to hear she's no longer student of the week and that Froggy had to move on.  She said, "I just don't know what I'm going to do now."