Ultrasound pics

5 little toes on her little foot :)

Profile... her chin is resting on her chest

Another profile

This one honestly freaks me out... alien baby

Our little girl :)

Love my girls!

So, when I told my kids that I was having a girl, the reaction of ALL of the 4th grade girls was, quite literally, to scream, squeal, jump out and down, and run around. It was quite a sight! Apparently we are still in the "Girls rule and boys drool" stage, ha!

Here are a few examples of just how excited and just how adorable my students truly are:

9 year old girls LOVE to write notes....

"Dear Mrs. Jonkman,
I'm glad you are having a a girl I hope we get to see her I hope she is as pretty as you.
Love, Sadi"

This one was a card.... which they made before they knew what the baby was...

The cover:
"To: Mrs. J You will love it inside!!"
Inside:
"10 things why you should have a baby girl instead of a boy
1. They are more pretty
2. They are not as dumb as boys
3. They are more brave (instead of embarrassed)
4. They are more responsible
5. They're smarter
6. They have better personalities
7. They are more quite in school
8. They make quicker friends
9. They like animals more
10. Because they are girls!"
On the back:
"Your two favorite students, Sarah and Georgia, best friends forever"

My reading that was following by much laughter and excitement, along with a small talk about being nice to boys, too :-P.

I hope those made your day!

One More Week of Chaos...

Chaos seems to be a fitting word right now. I feel like I am treading water some days in every area of my life... doing just enough to get by in most things, but not doing a really great job in anything. Somehow once Thanksgiving was approaching, those few blissful weeks of less work, getting home by 5/5:30, and making dinner for my hubby each night were long gone. There has been so much to do with Christmas coming up, lessons to plan, science fair projects and papers to plan out for after Christmas, CPR training all day last Saturday, and only very minimal planning for Baby J lately. There have been many late nights, oatmeal or grilled cheese type dinners, and weeks with Matt running the errands and taking care of the house lately. He has been doing a fabulous job with all of that though!

This weekend was finally a weekend home with no plans. I was going to finish Christmas shopping and decorating, get Christmas cards out, bake Christmas cookies, get ahead on schoolwork, and have some time to relax and appreciate my hubby. But, I guess with all of the hard work and long hours... I was just asking to get sick instead. It has truly been a miracle that I lasted this far into the school-year without even a minor cold, but boy am I getting my fair share now! My voice has been going in and out since Tuesday or Wednesday, and the rest of the cold symptoms and soreness came along with that on Thursday, blah. I have been trying to take it easy this weekend so I can just make it through this one last week, ugh! But it's such a bummer that I can't get to all of those things that I had wanted to. Oh well, it should be a fun (but crazy) week either way, I just hope I have a smidge of a voice and energy to get by :/.

It's a Girl!

That's right! Baby J is a sweet little girl! I am SO excited! I am excited for bows and headbands, for hats and booties to crochet, for hand-me-downs, and everything sweet and cute that there is for little girls :).

The ultrasounds was the best one yet (as they each will probably be...). We saw her open and close her fist, kick all over the place, stretch her feet past her head, get the hiccups, and counted 5 fingers and 5 toes on each hand and foot. Everything still looks perfect!

I went out this weekend and exchanged a couple of boy and gender-neutral items for girly ones instead, yay!

***Ultrasound pics to come soon!***

4th Grade Goodness

Now that I don’t have to be on my kids all the time to work on their mission papers and the group work of our history unit on missions, I find that I am enjoying them so much more! We have had the best last week and half of simpler, more low-key lessons, with plenty of fun ones thrown in there too. They really do have a lot of energy and can be so very exhausting… but that also makes them so much fun! They get so excited when we do something fun, or even if I let them cross off math problems from their homework, lol!

They had the best day on our half day on Wednesday, even though it started out with a geography quiz! However, that was only 1 of 2 scholastic things that we did that morning. We just finished a chapter on the rancho days when Mexico took over control of California. So after recess, we played a game outside where they got to “lasso” a “cow” by tossing a hula hoop onto a cone, while the other team pulled a rope on the cone to move it. Many of these kids live on dairies too, so they were very interested in this unit when we talked about cattle ranchos, rounding them up, and branding them. Then we went inside to the Mexican feast that awaited us (thanks to their wonderful moms!). They were again, SO excited just to be able to eat good food and choose who to sit by while we ate and watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movies. I had more than one student tell me at the end of the day, “Mrs. Jonkman, this was the best day, ever!” One of my students helped his mom make cupcakes to bring and had to make sure that I got a special one that he made for me with extra candy on top! How can that not melt your heart?

One more sweet, sweet, thing that my children do daily, is pray for Baby J. When we are sharing prayer requests, at least one of them never fails to pray for Baby J and myself to stay healthy. We have had several days lately, in preparation for Thanksgiving, that I only allowed them to share praises, or thanks. And each one of those days, someone always gave a big thanks for the baby as well. When you work with children, you have to treasure and remember these sweet, loving moments. There is no other way, sometimes, to keep on loving them through the all too frustrating times. And boy did I need a lot of these moments to remind me, after a good month of paper writing frustration (for both them and myself).

Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks Matt said on his facebook that Thanksgiving should really be a week-long celebration, because we have so much to be thankful for that one day really isn’t going to cut it. I found this very fitting! Now, of course, we ALWAYS have things to be thankful for, because God has always provided for us, etc... but some times in life just seem to be overflowing with blessings, while other times we are left patiently (or trying our best to be patient) for what good things we know God has in store for us LATER. We have done a lot of said waiting, and although there were times of frustration, yearning, and loneliness, I feel like we handled it pretty well. And I firmly believe that God builds us and our trust in Him in those times of waiting. He shows us that it is by His will and His timing, and that every good thing truly came from Him and not by our own accord. Our life still has its ups and downs, and things are far from perfect… however, when it is usually all too easy to leave God behind when things are going well, to not call on Him for much until we are in need… I am determined to keep remembering what He has done for us and praising Him for it every day. That being said…

Here are the top 10 things that I am thankful for right now:

1. Little Baby J who is growing and growing and for everything looking perfect so far. We get to go in for the good ultrasound in just 2 weeks! They should be able to tell the sex by then too, so excited! (After wanting a baby so badly for so long and not allowing myself to hardly think about it for the last 3 years… this baby is truly a gift from God with how quickly and easily we got pregnant)

2. Feeling about as good as possible while being pregnant… the little bit of morning sickness is gone, I have very few food aversions or things that make me nauseous, I am a bit extra tired but it’s manageable, and I am able to continue teaching and doing what I love without much of a problem. I know how bad so many others have it, and I thank God every day for this blessing!

3. My amazing husband who has been doing so much for me this year. Matt has really taken on a lot more of the workload at home when I haven’t been able to, whether that’s due to lots of schoolwork to do, or exhaustion. Our home lives would be such a mess this year if it weren’t for his help with cooking, errands, cleaning, etc…

4. A full-time job that I love and enjoy, feel competent and fulfilled at, and that helps support us and relieve some of the financial burden. That whole over-worked and under-paid line definitely had first year teachers in mind! But despite that, and all of the frustrations that come along, I LOVE my kids and the reward is so much grander than any of the rest of it.

5. A new car that is newer, nicer, and bigger, with less miles, and air conditioning J. Another huge blessing at a great price, and in plenty of time for Baby J!

6. The awesome families that we have who are so supportive and caring. We do miss them, tons, and that’s hard… but we can still be thankful for having them in our lives, even from a distance.

7. Good friends, both old and new. I have so many friends in different places now. Wherever I live, I am always going to be missing MANY of them, but they are still great to have. I have at least a handful of treasured friends in Seattle, Grand Rapids, Merced, and other sprinklings across the country J.

8. A house with plenty of room for Baby J. We weren’t exactly thrilled to have to move last year. We really liked the house and neighborhood that we were in. However, it would have been kinda cramped with a baby. We now have plenty of room for a baby, while still having a guest room, and our utilities are much cheaper too (although rent is a bit higher, so I guess it evens out a bit…). It is also so nice and easy to live so close to both of our schools (with the one car at least).

9. Sunny California. I do miss Michigan, quite a lot more than I thought I would, I will admit. And I also love and miss Seattle, and still hope to live there again someday. Merced may be small and not have a whole lot going on, but it has its definite up sides! We are so spoiled by all of the sunshine. We have do many great places to go to…. If we want to drive a couple hours. We love going to Yosemite. It is a fun place to live at this point in our lives, that’s for sure.

10. Samson, who is going to be 2 around Christmas. Having a dog (especially one with so much energy) does tie us down quite a bit, but he is really a great dog. Believe it or not, he has calmed down a lot for us at home. He is full of excitement when we first get home, but then he mostly just lays around. He has a blanket he lays on in our room, and he drags it out to the living room to lay on out there too! And I really do love puppy cuddles. I am curious to see how he reacts to Baby J… he does really well with and loves little kids so far… we will see how much he likes one that sticks around!

Samson and his blankie that he brought from the bedroom…

Baby J’s sweet little profile! 14ish weeks in this pic

Missions, Check!

Not a whole lot new to report... I have been pretty busy with school the last couple of weeks. My kids had their first research paper due this past Friday on a California mission, and we were also wrapping up our history unit on the CA Mission System. I don't know who will be more glad that those are both finished, the kids, or me! It'll be nice to move on in our studies and not have to be on them all the time about deadlines! But I also have tons of grading to do now... 22 mission papers, 22 history workbooks, and 5 folders of history group work, yikes! That might have to wait until next weekend :-P. Those little troopers worked so hard! We had a party on Friday afternoon to celebrate, complete with a movie, popcorn, and chocolate. They get so excited anytime we do anything special, love it! I am working hard to plan a more low-key next week and a half, filled with plenty of fun lessons and activities, because boy do we all need a break :).

Goodbye Iron Stomach....

Well, I used to be able to withstand just about any kind of blood and gore, windy car rides, or crazy roller coasters (minus those darn spinning tea cups...) without the faintest hint of nausea creeping up. I could watch hospital shows on tv, gore-filled movies, and even live surgeries. It was fabulous to be able to read or do whatever I wanted in the car. My body has been telling me that I no longer have the same stomach! Although the minor "morning sickness" I had is pretty much gone (as in, unsettled stomach actually in the morning), things are just not the same. Windy roads make me a little woozy, reading in the car is more difficult to do, I must eat when I am hungry (and when I am not hungry, but haven't eaten in a couple hours...) and I definitely cannot watch those gross bloody injuries and surgeries on those hospital shows (or so I learned this past week as I got all light-headed, hot, and clammy during Private Practice...).

I am at 13 weeks and on my way to the second trimester!

Big News!

Yep, that's right! Most of you have probably already heard, but we are expecting our own little bundle of joy in the middle of May! Also known as Dutch baby (I posted on facebook that I had a dutch baby in the oven... I had been waiting for weeks to post that!), and Baby J (short for Baby Jonkman, of course).

Apparently we really surprised most people and did a good job of throwing them off to think that we weren't trying to get pregnant yet. Here's the story... I have not allowed myself to think about babies since we got married because in GR, I was working and bringing home the bacon while Matt was finishing school and working part time - this was NOT a good time for a baby. Then we moved to Merced and Matt was working full time for not so high of pay, and my job was unstable and part-time at best. That combined with no family nearby to help out, still meant no babies! However, once I knew I had this teaching job last spring... the discussion began :). Knowing it takes most people several months to get pregnant, we decided that we would try for 2-3 months to get pregnant, to aim for a summer baby so I could be home for longer before going back to work (unfortunately, 2 teacher's salaries combined with college loans still doesn't make for a stay-at-home mom possibility :( ...), and if it happened it happened and was in God's plan, otherwise oh well. If it didn't happen, we would wait until next year to try again. We were surprised ourselves when I was pregnant after the first month!

That's the story... I am 12 weeks along and feeling as good as can be expected I think. The morning sickness (which was not very bad at all) is pretty much gone, and I don't feel any extra tired than the school day makes me anyways. I cannot wait until around Christmas time when we find out what sex the baby is!

Another little story of God's provision for you... although we were very disappointed to have to move last spring, our current house has plenty of room for a baby room (while still having a spare/guest room) and space for playing and toys in the living room. I am excited to see how God will keep providing for us and blessing us in the next several months :).

That's all for now... must get back to all that school work! Here's a little something to leave you with...

Meet Baby Aurora

Last weekend I flew to Seattle for a few days to visit my family and meet Jordan and Allyson's newest little one, Aurora Christine. She was born on October 20, and is 2 weeks old. I had a wonderful time, even though it was a super quick visit. I got to spend a day at Jordan and Al's, cuddling with Aurora, playing with Evangeline, and loved every minute of it (even all the diapers I changed... I must say, newborn diapers are much more pleasant to change than 2 year old diapers!). Aurora is so sweet! She looks a little bit like Evangeline did, but definitely different at the same time. I just can't get enough of her red hair, it's gorgeous. I am so glad I got to see her when she is so tiny and new yet. She will be so much bigger by Christmas!



Dustin and Jenae and Lucca came over to my mom and dad's one night for dinner, and Carissa and Brandon, and Jordan and Al's fam came over another night. I was only wishing Matt was there with us too, but I love him just as much for letting me go and staying home to take care of Samson and keep working.

My mom was watching Lucca on Friday, so I got to play with her a bunch there, lots of auntie tea party time! That little girl is ALL girl! So funny! We took her to Target and she wanted to look at, touch, or hold everything pink! She wanted to sit in the pin car seat on display, and even carry around a bright pink bra that she saw hanging on a rack!

I got to see my friends Tash and Christina very briefly, and had a nice morning of shopping and browsing in U-Village with my mom :). I can't wait until Christmas when I get to see everyone for longer. Although it is never long enough, no matter how long we're there, it seems.

It's the weekend! Still not sure what the weekend will hold, but I am fine with that. Yesterday my school had a half day because they had their big Family Fall Festival last night and needed to get set up for it. It was nice to get most of the week's planning done after school and be done by 4! However, we returned by 5:30 for the festival. It was so cute! We mostly visited with people, people watched, and I had to help out with the book fair a little, but the kids there were having a blast! There were big inflatable toys, a trampoline/bungie thing, dunk tank, and tons of booths with carnival games. It smelled AMAZING there! There was kettle corn that they made right there, cotton candy, snow cones, a bake sale, and dinner too.

This month has been flying by already! And next week I have a field trip to one of the California missions, and Book Character Day on Friday. That is our school's replacement for Halloween... the kids dress up like a book character and there's a costume competition, and then they put on a talent show in their cute costumes :). Then the week after that is a half week because of the ACSI teacher's convention, but I get to go to Seattle instead! And somewhere in there, Allyson will have her baby ;).

School has been going well. My kids are taking notes on note cards for research papers for the first time ever. It is SO hard to teach them to take notes well. I wish there was enough time in the day to just sit down with each of them one-on-one and guide them along... classic teacher's dilemma, I suppose.

Well, onto breakfast this morning, the farmer's market, and we'll see where the day takes us from there :).

Teacher Credentialing

I just found out today that my application was accepted to get a California teaching credential, using the Michigan one that I already have. I am now certified in both states... however I need to do some more research now and figure out/decide which one will be easier/more beneficial to get the necessary requirements to renew it/ get the next level one. I have less than 3 years left on my Michigan one to get the requirements and 5 years for California. However, I think the Michigan one may still be easier to renew... oh the joys of being a professional!

Camping In Yosemite

About a month ago now, we went camping for a weekend in Yosemite. We stayed at the Hogden Meadows campground and drove to Hetch Hetchy for a day to hike and explore. We had never been to this area of the park. It was very different from the valley and surrounding area. There is a huge dam and reservoir there, and in the spring and summer there are waterfalls. They were pretty much dried up by the time we got there though. Anyways, we had a very nice time while we were there, it was a nice break from school. However, we decided that we weren't sure we'd do it again on a weekend during the school year, because it was so much work to be able to go! Oh well :) Here is a link to my facebook album that has some pictures from Yosemite, amongst other things.

Proud Teacher Moments

The most teachable moments and the best lessons tend to be those impromptu decisions things I have added in at the last minute. Of course, it's never the parts that I sit down on the weekend and spend time planning for ;). Well, I had a few of those this week that I thought I would share.

We have been learning about plants and specifically flowers in science. We had an activity where I needed to find a bunch of different kinds of leaves for the kids to sort and learn about classifying. So Samson and I went on a walk and found the leaves, but I also came across a vine/bush-like plant with great leaves and great big open flowers on the side of the road (no, not in any one's yard...). I thought, "What a great example of petals, pistil, and stamen!" So I picked a few and brought them to school the next day. They LOVED seeing a real example, and you could actually feel that the pistil was sticky to catch the pollen on it. Fabulous! I also found a coniferous tree with needles on it to show the difference between deciduous and coniferous... my kids love learning about plants where there are real leaves, flowers, needles, and we are growing bean plants too!

In history we are starting to learn about the trail of missions along the coast of California. We are using a different curriculum then our normal textbook to do this, but our textbook has some information that is not in the new curriculum that would be helpful to understanding it. So... I thought I would just read to them the highlights of that history chapter. But how to get 22 4th graders to pay attention while I read to them from a textbook for 10-15 min? I thought, if they were older, I would just make them take notes. But we are only just learning to take notes. Hmm... dilemma. 15 min before that class, I decided I would give them a piece of paper and tell them they had to write down just 3 notes on what I read to them. They blew me away! A few hard workers wrote over half of a page. Even the kids who have a hard time paying attention or are slower with that kind of thing, they would zone out for a min, but then realize they still needed more notes and pay super close attention. Several kept asking questions, even, for clarification so that they wrote it down correctly. What?! Seriously?!

Anyways, the good moments are always intermixed with the not so great ones (both by me and them!). I guess I needed that moment in history... right before we made flower models in science with tissue paper and pipe cleaners. They turned out well in the end, but they couldn't follow directions for the life of them! Ha ha, oh well, you take what you can get :)

Happy Weekend :)

Keep On Keepin On

Nothing too exciting happening around here lately. Last week I had parent teacher conferences. My school does them kinda different, we had half days all week, and then conferences in the afternoons. I ended up having one entire afternoon off from conferences to get some planning done, which was very nice! And half days made for less grading last week too. The conferences themselves also went well. I have some great kids and great parents. I love it when parents know (and admit) when their children aren't perfect and can work with me to help them improve! Very supportive parents certainly makes things much easier on teachers :). My kids also did fabulously in dealing with half days all week. I was a bit worried because they usually don't handle schedule changes very well... every Wednesday they still get thrown off by having chapel.

We have moved on from learning about the California Indians to explorers, and now we're starting on our big fun mission unit! Which also means we're starting on researching for our mission research reports, yikes! It's hard work guiding and teaching kids to take notes, make an outline, write a draft, make improvements... pretty much to go through the writing process, but for the first time ever! We practiced with the writing process to write a narrative a few weeks back, so hopefully they will remember a thing or two still! We have another field trip coming up in a few weeks to Mission San Juan Bautista as well.

We have been having wicked hot weather lately around here. Last week was in the high 90s and low 100s all week, yuck! That's even out of the ordinary for around here when it's almost October! Someone must have clued the weather into October's approach, however, because yesterday started the big cool down to 70s for the coming week :). We even had a few rain showers, errr, sprinkles, this weekend (we haven't seen that around here since the end of April, I don't think, lol... I welcomed those drops with open arms, it was much more fall-like!). I am having an even harder time getting into fall this year with the warm weather, hopefully this week things will get better. I am just itching to be a little chilled and cozy up with something warm to drink (versus living in beaters and boxers and not wanting to keep using the ac in October!). I wouldn't mind at all if it were nice and cool when I visit Seattle at the end of the month :).

We had a nice productive and lazy at the same time weekend this weekend. Friday night we had a football game for Matt's school. Saturday, Matt had to help run a car wash at school while I stayed home and cleaned our disgustingly dirty house. Then we headed to Visalia to help celebrate Matt's G-parents b-days that evening. We got back kinda late and were tired from getting up early Saturday, so we ended up skipping out on church this morning, sleeping in, making cinnamon rolls, and having a wonderfully lazy morning together :). Then we both slowly got schoolwork done throughout the day, intermixed with catching up on tv shows, doing laundry, and making dinner, cookies, and yogurt, phew! i feel much more ready for this week though. And now it's time to snuggle up with a little more tv before bed!

First Field Trip

About 3 weeks ago, we went on our first field trip to Yosemite! I was a little nervous and didn't know how it would go, but it turned out well. We didn't lose anyone, that's a good start :). We went to a ranger program about the Miwok Indians that lived in Yosemite.

There is a mock Indian village they got to see and go into a ceremonial house.

After lunch we set off to walk the lower yosemite falls trail, which is only a half mile and paved. The falls, however, were completely dried up, but the kids LOVED climbing on the rocks and a big fallen tree. We decided to take a longer way back on a different trail to get to our cars... it ended up to be a bit of an adventure, but the kids loved it! Most of them said the hike was their favorite part :). We had a great day!

New Car!

We finally got a new car! We had been looking online for a while, and had spent one frustrating day a few weeks back looking at cars at used car lots and dealerships in Fresno. We really didn't want to go that route again, and had started looking more into private sellers on craigslist. We really hadn't been finding very much lately in our price range for the years and mileage we were looking at. What we ended up finding was so much better than what we had been seeing! It was better than we thought we were going to be able to get in every way... such a God thing! The man who sold it to us was super nice, brought it to get it checked out for us, and took $100 off when the mechanic found a small something that needed to be fixed. He had taken immaculate care of the car... and we love it!

Week 1, Check!

Well, I made it through the first week :). I have been having tons of fun with my kids, and we have been so very busy in class. Partly because they have so much energy, and partly because it takes them a long time to do everything right now. I am praying for a quick adjustment to our routine so that we can get more learning in, and if we get more learning in, then we have more time for fun things! I am not quite sure how I made it through the week without turning into a lump on the couch by the end... as I was up at 5:45 every morning, to school at 7:30/45, and didn't get home until 5 or 6! The excitement of everything must have kept me going. This week I am already much more on top of things, so hopefully, not quite so many late nights. The kids love the reading loft that I had our handyman build! And such a motivation for them to get their work done, too.

The reading loft is in the back corner

Backpack hooks (also new)
Front of the room

Today my school had their annual yard sale, pancake breakfast, and book fair. I was there bright and early at 6:30am to help with the yard sale (meaning... still had to get up at 5:45 :-P). It went really well though, and they raised a lot of money! A family at the school owns a furnature store, and they donated a few items from their store (that's right, new furniture, at a garage sale!). Most of it went in less than 5 minutes, but there were 2 lonely recliners that weren't selling. Matt and I said we'd take one recliner for $50 (was $100), and when still no one had claimed the other at the end, they said we could take both for $50, sweet! Now we have a chair in our office, and our bedroom.

Boring Blog Background

Somehow my theme/graphics in the sidebars are gone :(. And it is not working to put the same one or a new one on... hmm....

Hello Seattle and friends... the rest of our trip.

We were in town in time for Andrea's wedding :)

Went for a hike to good ol' Wallace Falls with
Dan and Christina, and Brian and Mallory

At the Millcreek street fair with Jordan, Al, and Evangeline!

Lucca's early b-day gift from Auntie and Uncle... pure 2-yr-old delight!

Auntie and Uncle play date at the park

One last time with the little ones before we had to say goodbye.
Endless entertainment with water, rocks, and a bucket!

This kid knows how to have fun!

The Fabulous San Juan Islands

While visiting my fam in Seattle, we went with my parents on their boat for a weekend in the San Juans. I haven't been to the smaller islands that I grew up camping on most summers, for like 7 years and 11 years. It's one of my most favorite places I've ever been :).

Going through the Ballard Locks

We stayed the first night on the boat in LaConner.

Day 2, a visit to Sucia Island!

As kids, we would climb in these wind caves.

Looking from crabs and other little creatures on the beach
This crab was my fav :)
Crabbies!
Sea anemones under the dock at the marina in Friday Harbor (San Juan Island).

On Saturday, the rest of the fam came on the ferry to join us :)
Lunch with the fam!
Lookin at the fishies
Love these 2 so much!
Sunday visit to Jones Island

Carissa and Brandon (who are now engaged!)
Tide pools!
My wonderful parents who gave us a great weekend :)
The ol' picture taking tree (we have many a nostalgic pic on here as kids)

It was a little cloudy the day we left, but by that evening it was crystal clear blue skies with abundant sunshine for the rest of the weekend :).