Moving Home

Well, I did it! I finished the semester and moved everything home! Well, not everything, but mostly! I left all of my kitchen stuff (microwave, tupperwear, pots and pans... etc.) the T.V. and desk up at my apartment because I know I won't need those things so I want to leave them for the girls to keep using next semester. I got really lucky with my finals all being on Monday! That gives me a little extra time off before I go student teach.

After I loaded my car up, I parked it at the Mattoon exit and rode with Emily and Allison to Champaign for a little Christmas shopping. We had a lot of fun and got a ton of shopping done in a short amount of time. We left Champaign about 2:15 thinking we'd get back around 3:30... well we were way off on that timing. We found out there was a semi-accident and there was a dangerous chemical spill. So, when we were about 3 miles from Arcola we got completely stopped on the interstate and we were stuck in traffic for 2 hours before we got moving again. We did have quite an intertaining ride though! We saw this semi up ahead waving for everyone he passed to roll their windows down. Of course, no one would do it. So, after awhile he made a sign and stuck that out the window. We were really anxious to get up and see what the sign said, it said "Road Closed Ahead." When he showed us the sign we all started busting up laughing.. because we knew the road was closed! Then, a lot of cars got tired of waiting and decided to drive on the shoulder, meanwhile passing everyone who is just sitting there! So, the SUV in front of us got ticked and pulled in the shoulder and half in our lane so that no one else could pass. It was pretty funny as well. Later, I dared Allison to do a chinese fire drill around our car. For 2 bucks she said she'd do it. So she did, and then I handed back the 2 dollars, ha ha. Well, the van behind us had 2 younger guys in it and one of the guys did a chinese fire drill around our car! It was sooo funny. We were laughin so hard, and when we looked back at them, he showed us that he got a dollar for it, haha. Well that was almost the end of our adventures. We finally got off the exit in Arcola and then we had to wait for about half an hour there before we could get back on the high way. While waiting, we heard a honk behind us and when we turned around it was our semi friend again. This time he was dressed up as Santa! Wow, the stories from this trip won't be forgotten!
Needless to say, we finally made it home at 5:45. That was a long trip!

My last semester of college classes!

I can't believe this semester is a week short of being over with! It seems like this semester just flew by! It was a very stressful one, but I actually feel like I managed my stress very well this semester. Instead of letting all my projects get to me, I spaced them out. I made a list of everything I knew of that was due and put them in order of what was due first. This really helped me focus on one thing at a time! I ended up doing really well in all my classes. I overloaded myself in order to be able to student teach in the spring. Normally, a full time student is considered one who is taking between 12 - 18 credit hours, and I took 20 this semester. It was challenging, but I'm so glad to have it over with! I am expecting to get A's in all of my classes, except one that I'm just not sure of. I got a B on the mid-term and that was the only grade except for a big project I just turned in and won't know my grade until after finals are posted. I'm pretty proud of myself though! I had some pretty rough classes and a pretty rough semester! From this semester alone I have a total of 10 binders! Those are from classes and projects that I've done... that's a lot!
I'm really excited that I'll be student teaching in the Spring. I just hope it's not more work than this semester. I really really really need to get going on wedding planning! My next thing on the list to get done is get address of all our guests... so I'm just hoping I have time to get this wedding planned in the midst of working and teaching too!
Oh well, I'm sure it'll be a challenge, but I'm ready to be done! 5 months from today and I'll be an Eastern graduate! It'll be well worth it in the end!

Christmas is near!!!

Christmas time is coming up! I'm so excited! We have most of our gifts bought, just a few more to buy! I'm loving the Christmas season so far! The main reason is for pretty decorations and lots of business at work :) I love when we are busy and I can make some extra money waitressing! We're going to be very busy this holiday season! Lots of family to go see and spend time with, it's my favorite! Here are a few pictures of our new house with the few Christmas decorations we have... love it!

In the kitchen, let it snow!

In the living room, a wreath of berries

I love our new plate! It's adorable in the kitchen :)

Kitchen table decor, so pretty

annnnnnnnd, our first tree!

Black Friday/Cyber Monday!

I was reading through my last post, and I realized that we went one more place on Thanksgiving! I forgot we went to my aunts house the evening of Thanksgiving. We just had some snack food and watched a christmas movie. It was fun :) We love them! Then after the movie, Allison, Jen, and I went to Walmart at midnight. I was hoping to find some good cheap movies but I didn't have much luck with them! There were sooooo many people over by the DVD's it was insane! I did end up getting a few for 2 bucks and then I got The Blind Side for 5 bucks and Grand Torino for Jared for 5 bucks too. I only got a couple other things and they were Christmas presents so I can't say what they were! But, I thought Walmart was crazier this year than any other time I've ever been! I think it was becuase it started at mid night and thats a more normal time for people to be up than the usual 3 or 4 am. So, it was a fun black friday, we ate at Denny's at 1 am :) yumm!

Monday was Cyber-Monday and I think I like this day better than Black Friday! Most places offer free shipping, which is awesome, and on top of that they usually have at least 20% off stuff! Even though I literally have no money, I couldn't pass up some of these deals! I got presents for my sister Jen, Emily, Allison, and something small for Jared's mom, granny, step-mom, and my mom! I also got Isaiah a DVD! I am so excited for all my packages to arrive and to start wrapping! Cyber-Monday is amazing :)

Thanksgiving Festivities

I told you I love the holidays, but this year was special to us. We have been very blessed to have met Jared's biological father and family this year. It has been such an answer to prayer! Jared met them earlier this year and I got to meet them shortly after. We've gotten to know them pretty well in a short amount of time! Everyone deserves a good dad, and I'm so glad he got to finally meet his!
We started off Thanksgviging with the whole Nuelle clan on Sunday (this is not normal for us... dad went to Georgia this year so we had it early). That was a fun time with about 30 people in our house! Then we had Thanksgiving at noon with Jared's mom and granny and papa. This is always a good time with Granny's cooking! After that we headed home for a little bit and then went over to Jared's dad's brother's house for about an hour. We didn't eat because we were stuffed from granny's but it was nice to meet Kenny's parents and some other family. Then Friday night we went to my mom's house to have Thanksgiving with her and Kevin. Jared and Matt didn't arrive till late since they both had to work that night but it was still a fun time. We had ham so that was a nice change from turkey! Then the last Thanksgiving we had was Saturday at noon with the whole Herboth family in Altamont. My what a large family! Kenny's mom comes from a large family of something like 18 kids! Then she had 7 kids of her own I believe... Needless to say, we didn't meet everyone!
We are so thankful for this year's Thanksgiving and for all the wonderful family we have! It seems like our family just keeps growing and growing! You can never have too many people that love you! :) We truly have so much to be thankful for: all our family, each other, our new house, our puppy Cash, and both being blessed with jobs! I can't wait for Christmas! We plan on being a little bit more busy around Christmas, as I'm planning a short trip to Georgia to see some more family! Love it!

House Updates

I know I've been slacking on the blog writing lately, but I've been soooo busy! I'm home this week for Thanksgiving break and it's been so nice! I have been very productive too! I got the kitchen painted (we re-did it), our bedroom painted, and the T.V. stand up! I am really really really tired of painting and we've only been here a month! There are just two rooms left in the house that need painted. Both are spare bedrooms so they aren't anything that has to be done right away. Oh and let me just say that I will never understand why people paint the ceilings anything but white! They are such a pain to paint over! It figures that we had to get a house where every single room has colored ceilings!

Here are a few pictures of the updated house :)

We repainted the kitchen.. it used to be blue up top and cream on the bottom. Now chocolate and white! LOVE IT!

I absolutely love our noew countertops! They match the brown and white so well, too.

No more pink bedroom for us! This bedroom was a 2 day

project- ceiling white one day and walls the next

Much better with the tan!

New rug and T.V. stand!

Next on the house to-do list is to get the dresser and mirror moved into our bedroom, and to paint the other two bedrooms. This probably won't happen until my Christmas break though! Jared wants to do the office room as a hunting theme since his gun cabinent will be in there. So hopefully he will get a nice big buck and maybe it can go up in the office. So, I will have to paint that room brown, green, or tan I think. I love our first home. It already feels like home to us! I can't wait to get Christmas decorations up!

Less than 6 months...

I can't believe it is already less than 6 months until the wedding! Time is flying by so quickly! It freaks me out to think I only have 6 months to buy and plan everything else we need for the wedding!  We still have to get addresses for all of our guests, make the invitations, make the programs, get the flower arrangments made and ordered, buy alllll the decorations for the church and reception hall... oh boy there is a lot!
I'm really excited about my bridal shower and bachelorette party though! I know my sisters will do a great job planning those! They will probablly wait till March or April to have the shower, and then the bachelorette party will be at the end of April I think we decided. Yay, it will all be here before I know it! :)

Holidays!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the holidays! I wish there were a major holiday every month :) I just love getting together with family, eating yummy food, playing games, and being off of school! I start my break Friday and won't have to go back to school until November 29! I'm SOOO excited, except for the fact that I will be working and doing homework the entire break. Oh well, it will still be nice to just be home. I love Effingham and all my homes there. I'm not going to let homework stop me from having a relaxing break! I am really sad about having to leave my first graders this week! I told them that my last day was Friday and they all got really sad! I hope I don't cry! :( It's better for me knowing that I'll be back in the classroom with first graders again in January! I just love first grade! It's become my new favorite grade to teach :) I'd be VERY happy to get a job teaching first grade!

I can't believe that I will be applying for jobs next semester! I'm so relieved that I'll be done with school in one more semester, but SOOOOOO nervous about applying for jobs!
Say a prayer for me if you think about it! I need some elementary positions to open up so I have a job to apply for!

Randi

Update on Cash

Cash waitin outside to go into the vet

Jared and I took Cash to get is 16 week shots on Saturday. The vet said he was really healthy and everything looked good! She said he was a really good rottie because he didnt even flinch or make a sound when she had to stick him with his shots! I was suprised! They also weighed him and he's gained ten pounds since we've had him! He now weighs 30.0 lbs. By the looks of his paws, he's going to be a huge dog!

We are having problems potty training him. It's really hard to do when no one is home during the day! We really want to get him trained so that he can come upstairs with us more and not have to be kept in the basement. So, on Saturday Jared and his grandpa Steve worked on building a dog cage for Cash. They made it big enough that he can walk around in, but hopefully small enough where he can be potty trained in. They have to put the finishing touches on it this coming weekend. It still needs a door and then they have to nail the chicken coop fence around the frame. It's going to be a pretty nice little dog cage! I hate to think that he'll be stuck in there all day, but I guess its what we have to do in order to get him potty trained!

Here is another picture of Cash being a good puppy at the vet.

Bulletin Board

One of my requirements for my practicum is to create a bulletin board. So, I decided to do mine as a Thanksgiving theme. I pulled off the old bulletin board and started mine off with stapeling up orange butcher paper. Then I brought home a bunch of construction paper and Allison helped me cut out feathers. We cut out a buch of these becuase my teacher didn't have any Fall/November boarders, so I decided to make my own. Then I had to figure out how I was going to get a turkey for the board. I thought about buying one but I decided to just try and draw one instead. So, I drew my own turkey and I made him look like a pilgrim turkey. He is so cute! I had to laminate him so that I can keep him when I'm done with this bulletin board. Then I had the kids write what they were thankful for on a feather. The feathers say, "Chloe is thankful for..." or whatever the child's name is, and then they wrote down and colored a picture of what they were thankful for. My teacher really liked how it turned out! :)

Babysitting Noah!

What a weekend! Jared went on a trip with the youth of our church to Chicago. They went to a conference called Acquire the Fire. He had a good time, but I missed him! Jen and Matt went too, so Kate and I babysat Noah. Babysitting Noah was sooo fun! It made me love him and miss him even more now that I'm not with the little man! He is just such a joy, anytime he smiles or giggles you can't help but be happy! I could kiss his little cheeks all day long!

On Saturday, Noah went through 4 outfits! He was up at 6am and so Aunt Kate and I decided to take him out for breakfast at 7am that morning, so that was one outfit. Then when we got back he spilt Kate's lemonaid allll over his clothes, so we had to give him a bath and change his clothes again. Then we went to feed him lunch and he had a mouth full of peas when he decided to sneeze and his peas went all over his clothes. So, then the next outfit just had to be changed because his diaper leaked on himself. So, it was an interesting Saturday! Oh, and right before we put him in the tub, he was standing naked on the bathroom counter and he started peeing alll over! We were dying laughing! Saturday Grandma Shelley came over to play for a little bit and then we went out to Grandpa John's house for chili and a movie. Noah slept in the pack and play while I watched the movie, so that was nice!

I was really hoping that he'd sleep good this weekend because since I started teaching I have been getting up earlier than I was used to. So, I got lucky Friday night, he pretty much slept all night, even though

he was up at 6am. Saturday night was a little different story. He was up a couple times just because he lost his passy. Then from about 3-4 he was whining/crying, so I went in there several times trying to soothe him, but he seemed like he wasn't tired! He was in there flappin his arms all excited to see me. So, I turned on his fishy machine (he has to have the noise) and then fed him a bottle at 4. I was happy after that because he didn't get up again untill 730. Sunday we had a full day of church, then lunch at Grandpa John's, and then he took a much needed nap before mom and dad came home and before trick or treating! Let me just say that he was the cutest duck I've ever seen! I just loved his little leggings that went with the costume!

Practicum!

Today I began my first day of my second practicum of the year. This semester I am in a first grade classroom in Paris, IL. I'm not really nervous at all this time around, partly because it's my second time, and partly because I'm more comfortable with first grade. My teacher seems really nice, I just don't know if she'll be as helpfull as I'd like. Today she just let me observe and I think I'm just more used to jumping right in. She didn't really tell me my plan for the next four weeks as to what I'd be teaching or anything, so I'm not quit sure what's going on yet. I told her my only requirements are to create a bulletin board, do a case study on a child's reading ability, and then just to teach as much as possible. So, I hope this means a lot!

Funny story of the day:
My first day in the classroom, right? I don't know any of the kids yet. One little boy sat by me on the carpet and slipped a card under my leg as he whispered, "here I want you to have this. It's my favoritest card ever." I didn't even look at it, and I tried to give it back quietly. However, he insisted that I keep it as a "present". Later, I pulled the card out from under my leg to look at it, and I realized it was a picture of basically a naked woman. She had small triangles of fabric covering her breasts, and her hand was the only thing covering her bikini. The woman in the picture was supposed to be representing wrestling in some way... not really sure on that part yet. I couldn't believe that this little first grade boy had a card like this! I would hope that his parents didn't buy it for him! Some parents really make me angry, and this would be the type!

busy busy weekend

I've been feeling so exhausted lately after the weekend is over. I think that some rest some is needed. It just seems like since we've gotten the house it's been go go go, nonstop! This weekend I did get a lot done on my to-do list for the house though! It was Jared's birthday on Saturday so I didn't make him help with anything, haha. I got the kitchen painted, the guest bedroom cleaned out, all his clothes hung up and organized, the guest bed is all set up, and I finally cleaned a little. I dusted and did all the floors before Jared's family came over on Sunday for a little birthday party. It was good to see some of his family that we don't get to see very often. We also went and bought new kitchen countertops this weekend! I was excited to go pick these out. We wanted to get them ordered before Christmas and then Jen told me that Menards was having a sale on them this weekend so we went ahead and got them ordered. I would have been happy with getting the laminate ones, but for 75 more dollars we could upgrade to the high resolution. So, that is what Jared wanted and that's what we got! Im excited about getting them installed. I just have this "thing" about putting food and stuff on the old countertops beacuse they just look so warn and old in some places. So, I'll be happy to have new in the house :) I'll be sure to take before and after pics as well!

I also got the trim started which I'm excited about getting that done because it will make it look complete I think. I bought one of those rolling edgers and it actually worked really well so far! I haven't made much progress because I tried it right before we had to leave and it did seem to work! So, I may try and work on that this coming weekend when I go home. BUT, I get to watch Noah all weekend so I'm not sure that I will really get anything done on the house, but that's okay :) I love that little guy.
Maybe it will be good to take a break for all the workin, paintin, and cleaning. It drains me!
I'm going to need my energy because this week Wednesday I start teachin the little 1st graders in Paris. I'll be doing that for my Practicum which is 4 weeks. So I'll finish right before Thanksgiving break. Then after break we come back to school for 3 weeks and then we're out for Christmas! It's all approaching SOOOOO fast! I better quit typing and thinking about all of what I have to do before Christmas break because I'm just stressing myself out. I'm doing quite well with taking my projects one day at a time, knock on wood...
Welp, thats about it for now. Have a great week everyone!

Carving Pumpkins!

This was the pumpkin I carved. I thought it was pretty cute :) We decided to carve pumpkins tonight and it was really fun! I carved a ring, Megan carved an Owl, Kayla carved a peace sign, and Abby carved a haunted house looking thing. We took some fun pictures as well. It was a nice stress reliever :)

tryin to show off my bling-bling to match my pumpkin, but the flash was too bright

Kayla's peace sign, so cleverly held together by toothpicks

cute pumpkins, cute friends :)

~Last year my pumpkin said NOAH. I can't believe that was before he was even born!

Birthday Week!

I like to celebrate birthdays for more than just one day, so I call it a birthday week, haha. Although this year I wasn't as excited about my birthday as I usually am. I think that means I'm getting old :(  either that or just too busy, one of the two. Well Monday the 18th was my birthday and I turned 22. On Mondays I usually have class until 10 am and then another one from 7-930 pm. Well since it was my birthday I skipped my last class so that I could celebrate a little bit. So, I went out to eat at Cody's for my birthday dinner with my mom and Jared. It was a nice dinner! Then Jared and I went to the movies and saw "The Town". It was a pretty good movie as well. We had a nice date. As far as gifts go, basically everything I got was for the house, which is okay because I don't have the money to go buy all of the stuff we got! And we needed it all!
From dad I got a purse (which was basically the only thing non house oriented) and an end table for our house. From mom I got an end table, and then my birthday dinner. From Jen I got my shower curtain and rod rings, along with a picture frame that spells out FAMILY. From Jared I got a visa debit card so that I could pick out something, because he said he wasn't sure what I'd want to get for the house. So I think I decided either a recliner or new counter tops is what I'll buy with that. From Jared's mom, we got a microwave and trashcan for the both of us. From his Grandma, we also got a joint present, which isn't in yet, but hopefully it will be soon, but it's our TV stand. From my grandma I got money. From Hannah I got a reed diffuser. And then I got our nice silverweart set from Emily and Allison and some box shelves from Aunt Carol. Overall it was a good birthday!
 Jared's birthday is this coming Saturday, and he'll be 21! We aren't sure yet what our plans are. Some of our friends were wanting to go to Champaign that night, but we were thinking of just having some friends over at our house for a bonfire, but if they all go to Champaign, that may be an issue, haha. So, we may go as well. Sunday we are planning on having Jared's family over after church for cake and icecream to celebrate both of our birthdays. So it will be yet again another busy weekend I'm sure!

The birthday kids! :)

Willow Street Home

We did it! We are officially homeowners! Jared and I purchased our first home Friday, October 15th! It was a long, stressfull process, but we did it! We got done with all of the closing stuff around 2:00 on Friday and then the painting began. We went to Wal Mart and bought all of our paint brushes and everything we needed to paint. With the help of friends and family (whom we can't thank enough!) we painted the ceilings in the living room and dining room, and the walls as well. The rest of the rooms can wait, but these were just horrible colors that I couldn't stand looking at!

Before

Before

After

After

This weekend was busy! I was so exhausted last night! Today is atually my birthday, but I told Jared it doesn't really feel like it because we were so busy with the house and stuff I haven't had time to think about my brithday as well! But anyways, I'm excited about our first home and I can't wait to go home and work on stuff little by little as the weekends come and go. I think our first home is suited for us very nicely. We have a few more things we decided we wanted to do to make it look better. We moved up counter tops to the top of our list along with another piece of furniture. We figured the counter tops won't be too expensive and we should buy them while we have extra money right now, same thing with the chair. The living room is pretty small, but we do need more seating than just the one couch we bought. Which by the way, is very comfortable! So we may go to Menards this coming weekend and look at some counter tops! We also want to stain the kitchen table a dark mahogony wood color to match the new end tables and T.V. stand. My parents got me some end tables for my birthday from Clarksons Furniture. They are so nice! I love them! We also can't wait to get our T.V. stand from Granny! Jackie (Jared's mom) got us a new microwave as well! Our birthdays fell at just the right time!



We are so thankful for our relationship together and our lives that we are starting together in our first home. We pray that God blesses our home and our family! Thanks for everyone who came over to share this special time with us this weekend!

Do you ever just have those days?

Today, I thought it was going to be a good day. It's Wednesday, which is almost my favorite day of the week! I only have one class in the morning and the rest of the day I have nothing! However, today was just one of those days. I went to bed last night thinking about my wedding and thinking of what a happy day it will be. Then I started thinking about the emotional parts. I am going to need some major prayer that I don't have an emotional breakdown that day. I know the hardest part for me to deal with on my wedding day, will be thinking about my parents and their marriage. I still can't believe it really happened... I know that divorce takes time for healing, and for me it just seems like it's a constant battle that takes away my joy. Anyways, I'll get through it with the help of God, Jared, friends and my family! So, that is how my day kind of started, and then it got worse, before it eventually got better...
I was feeling so out of the loop on everything going on with our house. I decided to call my loan guy from the bank and just ask him how things were moving along. He told me that he wasn't sure of a closing time yet, or even if we'd for sure get to close on Friday, but he did say we were to bring our closing cost money with us. This was a suprise to me! When I asked how much money it would be, he didn't know. So, I started stressing out and wondering if we would even have enough money to be able to close. He talked to me like I had bought a house 5 times already. It was just really frustrating! So, if you know me, I'm an organizer and a planner. So you can only imagine what is going through my head at this point. I'm soooo upset I can barely talk. So I have to text our realitor to ask him if he knows anything about these closing costs, because as far as we knew, they were being added into our loan, as that is the type of loan we went with. Our realitor told us that the closing costs should have been on our Good Faith Estimate that our bank went over with us. Well, BINGO! There was our first problem, our bank never went over these papers with us! Now you know why I was feeling in the dark. I pulled out the Good Faith Estimate and looked at them. The only thing I saw was settlement costs, which were nearly $7,000. I basically had a major melt down at this point. I didn't know how we were going to be able to afford this house anymore if we had to pay $7000 on Friday when we close!
So, luckily my mom answered her phone when I called her and she was able to calm me down, a lot! She went into the bank and talked to the loan guy for me. I am so thankful she did this, because I feel like he told her a lot of stuff that I didn't even know. Our bank has just not had good communication with us through this whole thing, and to me that is stressfull, especially when I am trying to finish school and focus on that! UHH!
So anyways, I decided to just get calm and say a prayer to God and ask him to comfort and ease us through this whole thing. I thought about this video, and it made me think. Wow, my problems really could be worse. I take for granted the simple things in life. Click this link to watch this video, and then try complaining about your life...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbX6mDnMwM

Big Weekend!

Well, the day is almost here! Only 3 more days until our closing date on our house! I can't wait to get in there and just look at it again! I've only been there twice, and one of the times was just to sign a paper so it was brief! Jared and Cash will be living there permanently starting on saturday. Jared asked a couple of his friends to be his room mate untill May, but none of them had any extra money to put towards the rent. So, it looks like it'll be just Jared and Cash! I know that It will pretty much seem like I live there when I'm home as well. I just wont be sleeping there. I'm going to want to go and make sure it's clean and he's finding stuff to cook/eat and that his laundry is being done. I gotta take care of him! :)

Here are some of the projects that we want to do before May:

Paint the interior of the house
Pull up the carpet in the spare bedrooms
Polish or re-finish the rest of the wood floors that still need it (bedrooms)
Get new cabinet doors for the kitchen
Stain the cabinets and the new doors a dark wood color
Maybe knock out a small wall in the kitchen to open it up to the dining room a little more
Knock out the wall between the living room and the dining room into a half wall with support beams

So far, everything is still looking good for closing this weekend! The bank called me today and they just need 2 more documents signed. We are waiting to hear back from the realitor so we know what time on Friday we're closing. Then our plans for Friday are priming the walls and ceilings (they're burgendy now), possibly starting to paint the living room and dining room, and cleaning the place from top to bottom!

Saturday we are planning on moving stuff in. Jared is supposed to be working on getting some guys together to help bring stuff over. Hopefully we can start that at 8 or 9 a.m. We really don't have a ton, but enough that we can't do it alone!

Wish us luck and say a prayer that everything runs smoothly this weekend! We are so excited!

Cassius (Cash) Conrad

Well, we finally got our puppy! Named after Johnny Cash and Muhammad Ali, our new puppy's name is Cassius Conrad Yager. We'll call him Cash for short. He already knows his owners so well! He follows Jared around everywhere! We love that he is playful and relaxed at the same time. He seems like the perfect puppy thus far! We've had him since Saturday and he's slept through the night both nights so far, and he hasn't had ANY potty accidents! I'm SO SO surprised at that, but definitely not complaining! He is 14 weeks old and weighs 21 pounds. He is going to be a big boy when he gets older.

As you may know, I was really nervous/worried about getting a Rottweiler. But, I feel much much better about it now that we have him and we've heard so many success stories with these dogs. It's the unsuccessful stories that scared me. Cash's previous owner gave Jared and I some really good tips on how to train him to be a friendly, loyal, and protective dog for our family. We were able to see Cash's mom and dad when we picked him up as well. That helped a lot with my nerves because they were really friendly dogs. The family had 7 kids and they were playing with the dogs without any fear. I just know that these dogs have a reputation of being mean. I also am more aware now that the dogs are only mean if they are neglected or brought up without human socialization. So, we plan on introducing Cash to many different people and children to get him used to that. I just know he is going to be a great dog for us!

More house stuff-12 days!

As we get closer and closer to our closing date, I get more and more excited everyday! I can't believe it's less than 2 weeks now! YAY! I have a feeling that I'll be living there on the weekends, just not sleeping there. I know I'm going to want to be there all the time whether it's to clean, decorate, paint, or just hang out with Jared. So, I've decided to make one of the bedrooms, the one closest to the living room, into an office. I'm going to put some filing cabinets in there, a desk, and I think that would be a good place for Jared's gun cabinet as well, unless I can talk him into putting in in the basement with the rest of the man cave-ish stuff.
We are planning on painting on the day we close; so Friday October 15th, if you're free, stop on by and grab a paint brush! I'm SO excited about the colors I picked out. I showed them to Jared and he wasn't too excited, but he could live in it with the pink walls and not care, haha. Jen and I went to Sherwin Williams the other day and got some paint samples. I've decided to go with Lemon Verbena (which is a light green color) for the living room, and then the dining room, which is connecting, will be Aqua-Sphere (which is a light blue color). I still can't decide on the kitchen. I think I may want to either just do a neutral tan color, or continue the blue into the kitchen. I just can't decide. The hallways and spare bedrooms will all be painted Hazelnut Cream, so just a light tan color. Our bedroom is going to be that Hazelnut Cream and Orange Sienna (copper brown orange color). We may wait to pain the bedroom though, because I'm not letting Jared put our new bedding on the bed untill I move in in May. So his bedding will be just a red comforter and brown sheets for awhile. So the orange won't exactly go with that, which is why we may wait.

Other than that, I've been looking at tv stands, end tables, and dishes lately. I really hope I can get these dishes. I've changed my mind 3 times already, but this time I'm stickin to these. I just love the colors and pattern! I really like how the big plates are circle and the small ones are squares! Soooo cute! I added them on a wish list at pfaltzgraff.com

Here is the tv stand we want. We asked for it for our birthdays from Jared's grandma, so I'm excited about getting it for our house! We want to get matching end tables as well. They are just so dang expensive! We may have to wait on those.

Nephew Noah :)





I've been wanting to blog about my sweet baby nephew Noah for awhile now. I'm such a baby lover I hate to see how I am when I have my own kid, because my facebook is already so full of Noah pictures and he's just my nephew, haha. I just love him so much though! He's the first baby of the family in my immediate family and in my whole family he's the first baby of his generation as well. I'm sure there will be more from my sister in a few years, and hopfully from Jared and I too!

Anyways, Noah was born January 11, 2010. I'll never forget that day! It was my first day of classes for the spring semester up at EIU. I remember that I had a morning class at 8am and then I had another night class at 430 pm. I was really nervous about skipping class the first day, but I figured it was a pretty legit reason!

So after my 8am class I sped home and arrived at the hospital around one. I don't remember the exact time Noah was born, but it was only a few hours after I had been there! I guess I was just expecting Jen to be in labor allll day and night but he came pretty quickly after the pitocin was given. Little Noah was not so little, he weighed a whopping 9lbs 3 oz. That was the biggest baby in our family so far! Hopefully it remains that way! He came out with chubby cheeks and we love them, they're still there today!

I wanted to share some pictures of the little budger (as my dad has nick named him, because since the day he was born he's always been such a grunter and a squirmy little guy). He is now 8 and a half months old, so the pictures are from months 1-8.



Month 2



Month 3

month 4

month 5

month 5



 I might be a little biased, but I honestly think he's the cutest little guy ever. As he gets older I can't get over how much he looks more and more like a little man every day!



month 6- Aunt Randi didn't do well feeding him plums!




month 7




month 7



month 8

month 8

month 8- little screamer, haha so happy!

month 8- he loves uncle Jared

Needless to say, I love taking pictures of him. He's one of a kind, that's for sure! He's getting so big though! Jen (my sister, Noah's mom) is already excited about planning his first birthday party. I have no doubt it will be amazing!