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!