Let the shopping begin!

Since I found out, I couldn't help but start shopping online. I started by looking at bedding...had no luck for the longest time. When I type in neutral, I don't want green and brown because it looks too boyish! I looked at Target, Walmart, Babys R Us, and even tried typing neutral bedding onto google!! I had seen a really cute owl bedding when I tried google, but it was pink and black. I decided to go to etsy and type in baby owl bedding. I found one that I LOVED! I had it in my head that I was going to make it. It was just a skirt and a blanket...so when I went to Fairview Heights this week shopping, I looked at 4 different fabric stores and they were sold out of all their owl fabric... the lady just kinda laughed when I showed her the fabric I was looking for. She said owls are so popular for babies right now and I probably won't find that fabric. SO I decided to just buy the one I liked on etsy. I know its early, but its the only one I've seen that is cute for either sex, and since I couldn't make it, and she only had ONE left... I just bought it. I don't like that its only a skirt and a blanket, so I'm going to just try and add "tree's" to the theme. I have a cartridge for my cricut with an owl and a tree on it... I'd like to get a large tree decal for the wall and do vinal owls with my cricut to put on the tree. How cute will that be! Besides the bedding, I had no intentions of buying anything else until we start getting the room together. We have to paint before we can put carpet down, then once the carpet is down we can get the crib and other furniture. Jared did get me a glider rocking chair for Christmas, which I'm excited about! So, it'll be awhile before we get anything else.. and I know I know, I have 6 months! :)

I went to penney's yesterday and just couldn't help myself but look at the baby section. Everytime I go to Kohls they don't have anything neutral and penney's actually had some cute neutral stuff. So I bought a few things that were on clearance. I'm sure I'll need sleepers for when baby is inside the house and our air conditioning is on, but I know it will be summer so I'll need a little of both. I am mostly going to wait till the baby is born to just shop online for clothes though. But for now, bring on the ducks.

You know you would have bought it too! How cute are they!!??

All my husband can do is roll his eyes and smile, haha!

First Sonogram/Appointment

We went in for our first appointment in November. This was just with the nurse and the insurance rep so nothing exciting. She asked if I had been having any problems and I said no sickness but I did have lots of cramping around 5-6 weeks. So she wanted to bump up my sonogram to 11 weeks instead of 12-15 like normally just to be sure everything was okay. I was totally fine by that becuase I wanted to put a songoram picture on our Christmas card as a way to tell family.. so it worked out great! We first had our sonogram and the baby measured 4 days older than they suspected so she said that would make me due June 30th, but we'd see again at our next sonogram. The baby's heartbeat was 162 bpm. She said that was perfectly normal as well. Then after that we met with Dr. Haller and I got to do all the fun stuff, an "exam" and blood work. She wanted to see me back in 4 weeks so my next appointment is January 11th (Noahs birthday!). I'm so excited to see our baby again but that won't be till somewhere around 20 weeks. We have decided NOT to find out what the sex of the baby is. I am a planner and I know this will be hard for me, but more and more people keep telling me that "it's the best surprise of your life" People who have chosen to find out and also not find out said the surprise is amazing and it's so worth it. I just can't wait till the baby is here and our family comes into that room and we get to say ITS A BOY or ITS A GIRL! Some people find out what they're having and keep the names a secret... we alaredy decided what names we like! So hopefully sometime in June we will get to introduce either Hunter Wayne Yager or Ellie Grace Yager. I love the names and just hope for a healthy baby!!

October 30, 2011- We are pregnant!

On October 30, 2011 our world changed, for the better! It was just a normal Sunday and Jared was hunting in St. Elmo this day. I was at home just hangin out and I was sittin on the couch thinkin, hmmmm  I'm like 6 days late, I wonder... NO! It can't be! I'm never regular! Just to ease my mind, I went to Walgreens and bought some pregnancy tests. I had every thought that I was just being paranoid and it was going to say negative because I had taken several before and they all said negative so why not this one too! Well needless to say it said positive along with the other 2 I took, haha so I was pretty sure I was! I immediatly got started on writing something out to tell Jared. It seemed like an eternity that he was gone!

When he finally got home, he was outside cleanin a rabbit that he had killed and I was inside impatiently waiting! I started following him around the house because I wanted him to see his face when he saw the note... Remember I have already had about 4 hours to take this all in and I was starting to get excited, while he on the other hand was in complete shock! All he could do was look at it with disbelief and just say are you serious?! No way!? Eventually we both got used to the idea and the shock when away and we both became such excited parents to be! I didn't sleep for the first week just had so much on my mind, but ever since then I've been completely fine! I haven't had ANY morning sickness at all, which I'm SOOOO happy about! I'm loving being pregnant so far! I can't wait till I can feel the baby in a few more weeks!

Christmas is near!

My kids at school are so excited about christmas! I have a countdown till Christmas break in my room but they still make me count on the calendar everyday how many days until Christmas morning. It makes me excited to have kids someday! Kids truly make the Christmas spirit come alive!

We have a busy holiday like usual. This week I had our Elementary Christmas program at school Monday night then went out to eat in Mattoon with some teachers, so that was a late night. Thursday I am going to Sullivan with some teachers to see a Christmas show at the Little Theater. Friday night we have my work Christmas party, luckily thats in Effingham though. I'm gettin tired of late nights this week! Next Saturday is Jared's Christmas party and next Sunday the 18th we're celebrating Christmas with my dad already! I'm ready for a nice break off from school! Our last day is the 22nd. I wish our break was a little longer, but I guess I can't complain about a whole week and a day off!

I did ALL my shopping online this year! That is the first time! I still feel like I need to go out and enjoy the Christmas spirit of everyone shopping at the mall so I'm still going this Saturday. I'm sure I'll find a few more things I want to get for people. I finally figured out what I want to get Jared! I had a few ideas and he shot those down. Apparently he thinks if he wants a deer cam he can "go out and buy it when its time". So there went that idea! My next idea was a dehydrator for meat. I thought he would have fun making his own jerky! Well his dad has one so he can just use theirs if he needs it. Uhh! This man doesn't want anything! I'm going to have to just surprise him instead of telling him all my ideas to make sure he likes them. We usually go all out and spend a ton on eachother for Christmas, but this year I'd like to only spend $100 since we have so much family to buy for. It's gettin expensive. This is the first year I made a budget and a list of all our people and I think that did help a bit.

I didn't want to go buy lots of decorations for my class, but I did buy some lights to hang. Someone gave me a small tree to put up. The last thing I needed was decor for my door. I thought about a wreath, but those are expensive. I decided to just wrap it! Who knew they would LOOOOVVVVEEE it?!

 We wanted to figure out a cute way to display their Dear Santa letters. So I got out some construction paper and started cutting. This is what I came up with! Cute huh? The santa face I found on google and just printed them out and let students color.



Pinterest

http://www.pinterest.com/
(You can browse the site, but to be able to pin things you need to log in. You must be "invited" by someone to get registered for it. Send me your email if you want invited!)

My sister told me about this site this past summer and I never took the chance to look it up. The other day she finally showed me what it was and I fell in love. Its an amazing site where you can keep all your ideas in one spot. You create "boards" which are like your topic pages. My boards include: Recipes, Christmas, Crafts to make, Fashion, Sewing, Organization, and Future Kids Ideas.
So, I am able to surf the internet and "pin" anything I see that I like and I put categorize it into one of my boards. You can also search ideas on the pinterest website and pin from there as well. You have followers which are like friends and you can also re-pin anything they have pinned already or look at their boards to see other ideas! I love it!

My biggest category I've been filling are the 'recipe' and 'crafts to make' boards.
I have already tried several recipes off of my pinterest. I have made a few things for my classroom and I made a Christmas wreath too!

To create this wreath I bought  LOTS of ornaments, ribbon, and a wreath hanger. I got a lot of my ornaments from The Dollar Tree, however some had to be from Wal-Mart because I needed varius sizes. I also needed a wire hanger and a hot glue gun.

First, bend a wire hanger in a circle. I bent the top 2 ends into J hooks so that when I was done I could close the circle off. Next string your ornaments onto the wire hanger. They should slide right on. Vary your sizes to fill in gaps. When you get all of the ornaments strung, lay it flat and play with the ornaments sliding them around where you want them. Then just place a dab of hot glue between the ornaments to keep in place. When you have them all in place, tie your bow at the top and hang from your wreath hanger!

Thanksgiving

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone! I can't believe tomorrow is the last day of November! Christmas is just around the corner. :)

This year we didn't have many places to go for Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving on Sunday with my mom which was fun and nice to do it on a different day to make Thursday a little less hectic. We went to Jared's grandmas for lunch on Thanksgiving day and had a great big meal. Then a few hours later we went to my dad's and had Thanksgiving with the Nuelle family and had another great big meal! The Nuelle family always has around 20 people so normally some sit in the basement and some upstairs. This year, dad decided to put everyone up stairs so we could all be together. We went around and said what we were thankful for, it was nice!

At school, we did something cute and had my kids dress up as pilgrims and the other kindergarten dress up as Indians. We did our own first thanksgiving where we discussed what we were thankful for and created food out of construction paper and glued it to a paper plate. The kids enjoyed this. We also let all of the kids make Indian shirts to wear on Wednesday, the day before. They got to choose their own Indian name I had anywhere from hopping jack rabbit, and howling wolf, to raging red horse, ha. These kids were creative. They LOVED their shirts, and they should! We spent so much money and time into them! We bought plain white t-shirts and dyed them with tea. Then we washed them and dried them, finged them, beaded them, and finally painted them. Whoa that was a lot of work!

REALITY retreat

Last weekend was the first shot gun season of the year. So, of course since Jared has nothing else on his mind besides hunting, he went, as usual. I definitely don't mind him hunting but this one time I wish he could have come with me to the retreat. It was amazing! All of the leaders were really praying that God would show up and move on this trip. The day started out early, we left at 6:30. When we got to Camp Maranatha we heard a message from Chris Ethridge on "Worship". He talked about what worship is and what it isn't.

Worship is not

    about the feelings we receive when we sing

    about convincing God to bless us

    whether or not the guitar is too loud

    about what's happening on the stage

    about entertainment, lighting, or sound

    about us at all.

It's about Him.

It's our response to what we value most...

 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.  Romans 12:1

It really made me think about the things that I put my time and effort into, "idols". God desires for us to spend time with him and get to know him, and truly worship him.

We also had the opportunity to have break out sessions this year which was cool because the kids got to choose what they wanted to learn more about or get encouragment in. I chose the session on being a "people pleaser". Which made me realize that I am to an extent a people pleaser, but I'm more of a peacemaker. I don't value either of these qualities in me and I pray that God help me with not always wanting everyone to "like" me. As soon as I hear of a conflict or someone saying something about me, I often let it overtake my joy and thoughts. I need to stop doing this! I realized I should be more worried about pleasing God rather than pleasing people.

During the sharing time I had a hard time sharing. I kept wanting to say what God had put on my heart but everytime I tried, I cried. Yes, I'm emotional and sometimes I hate that! So, I'll share it hear for anyone who may be reading/listening. I took a lot from the retreat. I realized in the first session that my family is my "idol". They are what I put my thoughts into. This doesn't seem like a bad thing, but when I try and control everything, that's when it becomes a problem. It is literally like having a 50 pound weight on your shoulders when you try and control the uncontrolable. When I try and fix all the problems my sisters, mom, dad, and extended family are having, it's a lot. I've always been the person who wants everyone to be happy and when something is wrong, I worry and let it consume my thoughts. I'm going to try my hardest to give this over to God. I found a verse in Matthew that really put it out there on the line: Matthew 10:37
"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" This verse seems kind of harsh because how can you not love your father/mother/husband/sister/brother! But what I took from it is that I'm putting WAY more time and energy into loving my family, worrying about their problems, and trying to fix it all rather than putting that time and energy into loving God and knowing him more.
I love ther verse in John 14:6 that reminds us to love him because "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to know God except through me." So, it just really made me think, who do I know and care about more, Jesus or my family?! Wow! Tough thing to work on!

The last day of retreat was just another amazing day. I was kind of tired and ready to get home, but the message was awesome. Matt and Stacy did a 2 part duo message. They spent a lot of time really teaching about the history of the tabernacle and how back then you had to do so much WORK to get to God! You had to clense yourself, be mentally prepared, sacrifice an animal, put it's blood on you, and then MAYBE you would be allowed to enter in and talk to God. It was a lot of work! Then they shared about how when Jesus died on the cross (they showed the very emotional clip from Passion of the Christ) the veil of the temple was torn and that represented that we no longer had to do that to get to God. We have freedom to come to him whenever we want now! How cool is that!

I'm so thankful for an awesome retreat where God moved! The Holy Spirit was SO powerful!
Listen to this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR156yJZFUY

Christmas Lists

So last Friday we had a half day of school. Those are way more cool when you are a student rather than a teacher! We had to attend a meeting in the afternoon. Our last meeting we had on institute day was the most boring day of my life! This one wasn't as bad, maybe becasue we got out a little early and it was only for a half day to begin with. Anyways, since I was not really paying attention to what this lady had to say about 504 plans (students with special needs have these)... I decided to make my Christmas list. I started out thinking I don't really need anything/want anything particular this year.. to having a list a mile long! So, I'm glad I was bored and glad I wrote it all down! Jared's mom has been asking me to put my list on Amazon and until this year, I never did. Well I went to amazon.com and created my wish list! It was fun! You can even download a wish list button and go to other websites other than amazon and add stuff to your list, how cool! So, if you haven't made your list, you should make on on there! Other people can just type in your name and see what you are wanting. You can set your privacy to "keep it a secret" which means that YOU won't be able to see what's missing, but others can delete the items after they purchase it. I love this idea! I will be doing this from now on for sure. I even added some stuff for Jared and put in the comment box "for jared" because I knew he wouldn't make a list. So I thought of some things he wanted and put them on there as well.

Check it out! Its a great way to shop and get people what they really want! Thanks Jackie!

Yager's Lately

I can't believe October is over on Monday! CRAZY! Lately we have been so busy, and I hate that! I had parent teacher conferences this week so didn't get home until 8. Although I got Friday off to make up for that, and it was nice! On Friday I went up to Mattoon to see Kate's apartment and have lunch with my sisters and nephews. Lunch was a little crazy with Noah whining and Carson bein fussy, but we managed to get a good laugh out of it. When I got home from that I did a good house cleaning. I steamed the floors, which takes forever but I feel like they're so clean after I do! I did every bit of laundry so that nothing was in the hamper... well until Jared got home anyways. It felt nice to spend a whole afternoon cleaning. It makes me in a better mood when there isn't clutter every where, dishes in the sink, toothpaste in the bathroom sink, and dirt on my floor. I grew up in a very neat freak home so I get super stressed out if my house is messy. I know this could be a problem when I have children, but I am enjoying the time that I don't, haha.

I also worked at the Hilton last night which I hadn't done in awhile, but I'd like to start working maybe 2 saturdays a month to save up some extra money for Christmas, because it's right around the corner!
I've been trying to think of some things I can ask for for Christmas, and just can't manage to think of anything I want! There was a coat I was really wanting for my birthday that I didn't get but I am going to have to buy that before Christmas, so other than that I don't know... I'll keep thinking on that.

I still love my new camera and love taking pictures of people. If you need some pictures, ask me because I'm needing some practice! Jen asked me to practice on them the other day and I think this one is just too cute. Noah is adorable!

Jones Family Fall 2011

I really like this one of Jen and Carson. Carson is SO cute! He is smiling and has the chubby cheeks already :) I love that you can see Jen's smile in it too.

So, I'm not great but hey for free pictures they weren't bad, and I'll get better too!

Birthday!

Well Tuesday, October 18th was my birthday. I had a great day, even though the weather was TERRIBLE that day! It was the coldest day yet this season with 30 mph winds and lots of rain! That didn't stop me from having a great day though. I knew my kids at school were planning on decorating my room because they can't keep a secret, haha! About a month ago my aide asked if I could leave the room bcause she wanted to talk to the kids about my birthday, so I did. Well, almost everyday after that the kids have been obsessed with holding a "secret meeting" about my birthday. So, when the day finally came you can only imagine how excited they were!

The most funny part about the day was that they yelled surprise literally EVERY time I walked in the room that day! It was so cute :) Some of the kids got me gifts... one of them was just too cute. A boy got me a pink bracelet and his mom told me he was very concerned about getting me something "beautiful!"

Celebrating a birthday with a kindergarten class is soo fun! I enjoyed homemade pizza and brownies Sunday night at my mom's. Monday night we went to Fridays with Jared's dad. Tuesday we went to my dad's and had my favorite food. We got to celebrate with the Nuelle side of the family. Sunday is Jared's birthday and we're planning on celebrating all over again for him!

refresHER

Our church holds an annual women's conference called the refresHER. It is meant to refresh women and touch on topics that women constantly deal with. This year the conference topic was "a confident heart". I wasn't planning on going, but Jared thought I should go.
MAN AM I GLAD I DID!

I didn't even know I needed this, but I did. God began working on my heart from the minute I walked in there. Renee Swope from Proverbs 31 ministries was the guest speaker all the way from North Carolina. She was amazing. She had us laughing and then crying all day long.

Being confident is often something I've struggled with my whole life, and I don't know why! But God is working on my heart and making it more confident. I've felt rejection in the past few years, and I have been working on dealing with it, but it's very hard. This weekend made me realize that I need to stop being such a people pleaser. I'm always constantly worried about making sure my family members are doing alright and making other people happy. I rarely do a self check up. So, this is something I'm wanting help from God on. He's going to have to do the work in me, because I can't do it alone.
I'm so thankful for a loving, forgiving God. When I think about the rejection I've felt, I think about Jesus. His rejection was way worse. His father let him DIE for us. Can you think about that for a minute? If your father was to give you away to die in such an embarrasing way, could you do it and still feel loved? Thats what gets me through my tough situations in life, thinking about how much I'm loved by God.

A few years ago, I often thought about the verse in Matthew 11- "Come to me all who are weary, and I will give you rest."  I love that verse and it got me through some pretty tough days. I'm going to post that verse in my car, in our room, and on my mirror. I want to constantly be reminded that I CAN'T do it all, and I need to stop trying. When I feel weary, I know who to run to for rest.

Crock Pot Recipe

Most things in life aren't free... but since Jared's dad is a farmer, we get a lot of free meat! The other night we were over there and we helped them butcher a cow. Well, I didn't actually do any butchering, but I did wrap the hamburger! We left with about 75 pounds of it, for FREE! YAY! That is a lot of hamburger... but we'll use it! So then the next night, he called and said he had half of a hog for us! WOW! That was definitely okay with us too. So we got all sorts of things like sausage, pork chops, ribs... etc.
Well this morning I decided I would try making the ribs in the crock pot. I didn't really want BBQ so I found another recipe for just seasoned ribs and it was amazing! So, try it out!!

-Season frozen ribs with salt and pepper and place in crock-pot.
-Mix together: 3 cups of water, 2 beef cubes, 2 tablespoons of white vinegar, 1/2 cup ketchup, 2 tablespoons of mustard, and 3 tablespoons of brown sugar.
-Pour this mixture over the frozen ribs and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

The ribs have the most amazing taste to them! They will fall off the bone too!
I made egg noodles and spooned some of the sauce from the ribs into the noodle pot.
YUM! I will be making this again, soon :)

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

I have been wanting to try making these cupcakes for awhile now. So, I did! They are super easy and super tastey for the cookie dough lovers.
Step 1. Mix up the chocolate chip cookie dough and form into balls- freeze over night
Step 2. Next day mix up the cupcake batter (I used traditional white cake)
Step 3. Scoop 1 tablespoon of cupcake batter into a cupcake liner
Step 4. Place frozen cookie dough ball on top of batter
Step 5. Bake on 350 degrees for 16 minutes
Step 6. ICE the cooled cupcakes (I think next time I'll do some without icing because I thought they were too sweet with it!)

Finished product! Cookie dough doesn't bake!

New Camera

I absolutely love taking pictures. If you ever look at my facebook I'm always posting pictures of one thing or another! I had kind of thrown around the idea to Jared about getting a nice professional camera. I knew I'd use it a lot more when we have kids some day but I thought it would just be fun to get one now and get used to it and stuff. So, I found one online, a used one for a nice price! I couldn't pass it up! These things are $800-$1200 new (the kind I've been looking at), for less than half that price how could I let it get by me?!
So, I bought it! I decided since my birthday is next week this can just be my gift from Jared, haha, since his money is our money now anyways...  :)

So here are a few pictures I took with my new camera!

Fall

Have I ever mentioned I love fall?! Pumpkin candles are simply the best :) It has got to be the best season.. October especially! September can sometimes still feel like summer, and by then I'm way over the warm weather. Yesterday I got home from work and there were leaves all over our landscaping. Instead of getting annoyed with this, I was thinking YES! The leaves are falling, haha! So I joyfully swept them out of the landscaping and went inside to open the front door. We haven't been able to open the front door and just see the screen door since like May. So, I was pretty excited. I love having it open and letting that natural sunlight inside.

Jared's grandma dropeed off some pumpkins and a mum the other day. I was so thrilled because I was actually thinking I needed to buy a mum but never got around to it. The pumpkins look great next to the orange mum :)

Fall is also a nice change at school because we are starting to do art projects with apples and pumpkins! Those are always fun in school. We also ordered cable for our house last week. We have always just used netflix to watch stuff but we figured 34 bucks a month is a steal for as many channels we get. I was kinda hoping to have some football parties as well so that was a must!

There's one more reason I LOVE FALL.. oh yah, BIRTHDAYS!
My birthday is October 18, Jared's is October 23, and my dad's is October 26. I do enjoy presents, but mostly I enjoy doing special things around our birthdays. For Jared's birthday weekend we are heading to Shawnee to camp with some friends. The boys are planning on hunting, so that will be a great present for Jared in itself. I have only thought of a few things I need and could ask for for my birthday.. both of them kinda costly. I want a pair of Sperry shoes to wear in the winter to school (they're dressy and casual at the same time) I have some picked out and I emailed them to Jared to show people, haha! I also want a new winter coat. Mine is a pea coat, not exactly the warmest thing. I need a heavy duty, waterproof, hooded coat! I found one from JC Penny that I really want. Since I have bus duty at school every evening, I thought I needed to be sure I had a good one for those snowy days coming up!

Carson is here!

Jen had her baby! YAY!
Carson Robert Jones was born on August 29th, 2011 at about 11:30 am. He was born pretty much right after she got to the hospital.. within the hour! I just love babies as you can probably figure out.. so I think he's just about the most precious thing!

I can't get enough of him! I wish I had more time to go over there and just snuggle him.. When Noah was born I wasn't married, didn't have a house, and didn't have a job... so I was there all the time. Oh well.. Carson will still know I love him just as much :) How could you not! I have felt bad about this lately.. not bein able to see him. I don't want him to grow up thinkin he's not as important as Noah cause I can tell you that I sure do love him just as much as I did Noah! It's hard adjusting to 2 babies for Jen.. but I think she's just ready for him to be bigger and be able to play with his big brother. I can't wait to see them play together in about a year. It'll be so cute!

I got to go shopping with Jen last Saturday and it was fun to be with just her and the two babies. I love them both so much and it makes me so anxious to have our own someday!

first 2 weeks!

Well, the first couple weeks of school are over, and I survived! It was a crazy 2 weeks but I'm loving it more and more each day. I only have 12 kids in my class and it's awesome!! I can't wait till a holiday so we can make cute halloween or thanksgiving crafts etc.
The kids are learning their routine better and better each day. They know every morning we turn in our MOOSE books (communication binder), move their lunch stick (a popsicle stick that has their name on it.. they move it to the eating at school bucket or the brought my lunch bucket), then they go to their desk to color a page until all the students get there!
Next 20 minutes we do morning calendar time- a time to talk about the date, weather, patterns, and count!
Then we go to our seats for an hour and learn a letter, it's sound and how to write it.. eventually we will be learning to read during this time of our day!
Next they get free time (15 minutes of inside recess basically)
The day flys by after this~
30 minutes of language
30 minutes of special (music, library, computer... etc.)
30 minutes of lunch
30 minutes of recess
30 minutes of math
45 minutes of sharing/story time
20 minutes of snack time
then we have the last 20 minutes to do art projects or fun stuff that goes along with our letter of the week!
That's it!

My class has 8 boys and 4 girls! The boys tend to get a little wild.. but we're getting there!
I have already had one parent tell me their kid hated school last year and has totally changed this year! She told me that her son said he loved his teacher <3 aww!

August Already?!

I can't believe it's August 4th already! It seems like summer just started! I guess we had a busy summer with me graduating college and then getting married and our honeymoon... It just went too fast. I had good intentions of getting our spare room painted and our front porch power washed and painted as well. Oh well! I'm far to busy now to work on house stuff. From here on out its all about the classroom.
I found out yesterday that my first day is August 16th. I have to be there all day for new teacher orientation aka meetings. August 17th is teacher's institute and "Back to school night!" YIKES!
I'm so nervous about back to school night. I've never done this before, and I'm supposed to talk to the parents and tell them what my year will look like... hmmm. I also found out that the other Kindergarten teacher is new to Kindergarten this year. She's moving from second down to K. I'm hoping we get along well, I know she's 3 years older than me so that will be fun!

The kids first day is a half day on August 18th. I've been thinking about what we will do on that first day... read books, take a tour, play a game, color.. probably all of the above.

I'm heading in to the school today to sign my contract and look at my classroom! I have all next week to set it up, I hope I can get everything bought and hung in one week! Its crazy how your life can change in a matter of minutes! I'm so thankful for this job, and can't wait to teach my first year of Kindergarten!

Faith

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.  But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord;  he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does." James 1:5-8

 

Well, I haven't updated on the job search lately but let me tell you, there have been some changes! 2 weeks ago I got a call from Windsor Elementary asking me to come in for an interview. I was so excited about this interview! There were 10 interviews and she was going to call 5 back for second interviews. The day after my interview I got a call for a second! I was soo soo excited! This interview was a little different than most. I had to prepare a 15-20 minute mini lesson on reading/writing for an imaginary kindergarten class.

 

So, with the help of some awesome teacher friends, I got my lesson all set up! I knew it was going to have to be over the top if I wanted to stand out, and it was! I had the kids singing, dancing, writing, reading, etc! It went so well! However, I was a little discouraged because right before my interview a lady walked into the office and said are you here for an interview? I said yes. She said oh ok I'm looking for Misty. I said Misty who? She goes, oh that was my aide from last year, she must be in her interveiw now. My heart sunk. I quickly went form believing I had to job, to being so discouraged that I wasn't going to get it :(

I still went into my interview with a good attitude knowing that anything was possible. When I left on my drive home Satan started putting bad thoughts into my head about not getting it. I was thinking how in the world could I get hired over someone who was an aide for a whole year in this school? I quickly changed my attitude and started thanking God for my interview. I decided I wasn't going to let Satan put doubt into my head anymore! I looked up scriptures on doubt and faith and came across James 1:5-8. As I was in the middle of reading this, my phone rang. NO JOKE! It was the principal at Windsor offering me the kindergarten job! I COULDNT BE MORE EXCITED! There are so many questions I should have asked but I was just so excited I didn't get any of them out! :)

 

God is so good and he knows the desires of our hearts!

Mouse in the house!

So we saw our first mouse in the house about a month and a half ago. I of course was freaking out when jared told me he saw one run along the living room floor. So, we went out and got some traps. We put one in the basement because he thinks it came up through the drain. Another one in the living room because thats where we saw it, and we put another one in the kitchen. We soon caught 2 in the basement and 2 in the living room. I was freaking out because I'm thinking they are going to reproduce and have a mice infestation in our house! We kept the traps out and within the last month have probably caught 2 more in the kitchen. Then about 2 weeks went by where there weren't any and I thought we got them all!.... I was wrong!
Yesterday I started vaccuming the guest bedroom and I swore I saw one under the dresser, so quickly I moved into the kitchen to vacuum that, then the living room, then I moved to our bedroom. As soon as I snuck the vacuum in I saw one run from under Jared's dresser under our bed! I SCREAMED and dropped the vacuum. I couldn't decide if I should shut the door or just run out and let it wonder out the the traps.. so thats what I did! I left and went to the store to get more traps. I was sick and tired of these things and beyond scared of the little rodents!

So I got back and you should have seen me, walking through the house in tennis shoes and stomping in every room before I walked in. That night we went to Jared's dads house for dinner and I was telling them about it. They gave us some sticky traps to set out..so needless to say, we have about 10 out right now! That night I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep because what if that thing was still in our room!!!!!

I woke up several times checking the trap in our room... nothing. The next morning I got up when I heard Jareds alarm and went on a hunt around the house to check all the traps. I did find the living room trap upside down!! I went to get Jared and sure enough there was a dead one. I'm REALLY REALLY hoping that he was the only one in here and I got him. I did some DEEP cleaning today. Made sure there were no crumbs on the counters, floors, under couches.. etc. I bought an air tight container for the dog food and moved that outside. I'm really hoping that the dog food was what they were attracted to. Please pray we have no more mice because the next time I see one I might go crazy!! I will call an exterminater next time, and then that will suck because you have to try and find them when they die! uhh.. stupid things, no one likes them!

House Updates!

Well we have been in our house for 9 months already! It has flown by, thats for sure! As for house updates we have made it look so much better with not too much money into it!
We have:
--painted every room except the "guest room/future baby room" which we will prob either wait to paint or just do tan since we aren't planning on kids for a long time.. I just hate painting so I don't wanna paint it and then in a year paint again, so we'll see
--torn up the old nasty carpets in guest room and office, replace office with tan shag carpet and left hardwood in guest room
--torn out all the kitchen countertops and replaced with new!
--torn out the kitchen backsplash and had a new one tiled
--tomorrow we are pouring a small 13x12 concrete patio in the back yard!

*The future house improvement plans include building a deck up from the patio
*Cleaning out the garage and putting in a garage door opener so I can park there this winter
*Painting the front porch cement grey (right now it's red and chipping)
*Having the basement floor and walls painted grey (hopfully with a sprayer!)
*Dry walling a small portion of the basement so it can be a little hang out area down there (mostly because jared wants to hang his deer stuff somewhere, haha)
*Still not sure what to do about our kitchen cabinets but they are so ugly! I want to paint them white but Jared says no, so we'll see about staining them or maybe replacing them but I know that is very costly! We don't want to put too much money into this house beacuse we aren't sure we will be able to get it back out when we sell it down the road.

Our plans are to stay here for about 4 more years, once we have kids, we'll see how that goes!

Dissapointed

I am very sad to say that I did not get the job in Altamont as a first grade teacher. God must have something better in store for me! Although I'm dissapointed I didn't get the job, I am excited about my future in subbing and getting to know other schools around the area. My hope is that I can sub this coming year and then re-apply as a teacher at the area schools and get something maybe next year. So, for now, I'll keep on servin at the Hilton and subbing in the fall. Unless God as another plan I just don't know about yet :)

4th of July weekend

We had a crazy busy weekend! On Friday I wanted to surprise Jared with a trip to St. Louis just the two of us. He found out the week before so he could get off early on Friday. So we were off! We headed to St. Louis and checkin into our hotel, which was so nice and modern btw... Then we decided to check out the St. Louis Mills Mall since we had both never been there. It was really.. BIG! I never realized how large that mall is until I went in it and kept walking and walking and walking! I stopped at the first girl store I saw which was Old Navy while Jared stopped into Cabelas. If I had known there were so many stores I wouldn't have spent so much time and money at Old Navy. Oh well, I got some cute stuff. We were there for a few hours and then decided to go out to eat. At this time it was like 9 and we were really hungry so we decided to go to the first place we saw. We ate and headed back to our hotel for the nigiht. Saturday we got up early and went to the Zoo. It was sooooooo hot that day! I was actually rather glad that we made it through the zoo in 3-4 hours because it was just to hot to sit around and look at any more animals. We did have fun though, good couple time :)

When we got back I went to work and then we went to a friends for a cookout. The next day we went to church, then headed out to my dads for a cookout and swim party. We were there all afternoon until about 6 and then we headed to our next cook out. This was Steve's house, a friend of both of ours. We watched fire works there and had a good time.

Monday, another busy day! We were so exhausted from the already busy weekend that we went to bed at 11 the night before and woke up at 11 on Monday! I couldn't believe it! I hate sleeping in that late, I would much rather be cleaning or doing laundry to get that kind of stuff done on my day off, oh well. So we got up, hurried up and got ready, and had to be at his grandmas at noon for lunch. We got there and ate cheesburgers and stayed for a few hours to hang out. Then we headed back home for an hour or so before heading to our next festivity! We were debating on having people over to our house to watch the fireworks since we live so close to the park, but his dad invited us over to Dieterich for lemon shake ups and pork burgers. The lemon shake up did it for me! So we went over at about 430 and played cards for awhile and then headed over to the park in Dieterich. I have always thought Effingham did a good job of puttin on a great fireworks show so I didn't think Dieterichs would compare but they weren't bad actually! They were slow to start, few and far between, but they picked up and seemed like they had 4 finales, which are my favorite anyway.

God's Plan, Not Mine

Are you a planner? I am! People used to make fun of me because I had our wedding planned out last summer! Hey, you can't blame me for wanting to get it done before my last year at EIU...
Well lately, I have been stressing out thinking about this upcoming school year. I am not enrolled in classes (becuase I graduated). So, I am in need of a job. I just wish I knew what God's plan was for me in all of this. I know I did the right thing by going to school to be a teacher. I love everything about teaching and looked forward to everyday I got to see my kiddos. Sometimes I think I know what God has in store for my future, and then it doesn't hold out. I had thought that I had a pretty good chance at getting a teaching job at Effingham. I was in close contact with the person who hires, and then the week they posted the job, she had a baby. SO, needless to say, she couldn't get me "in" when I needed to be. That was really frustrating. So, I brought my resume and things over to their board office anyways, thinking that with my last name being Nuelle they might remember me and give me a look anyways. I never heard anything back from them :( This is REALLY frustrating! I can't get an interview in my own hometown??? I was questioning God asking why I didn't even get an interview. I was mad that I didn't get a call, or a job, there were 3! Everyone says teaching jobs are so hard to find, when one was placed right in front of me, I didn't get a chance to interview for it, UHH!

Well I kind of let that roll off my shoulders and then I had in my head that I wasn't going to waste anymore money applying for jobs because schools only hire either 1. substitues teachers, or 2. PEOPLE THEY KNOW. So I quit sending out my stuff because I don't know anyone from any other schools.
About a week later, I heard a local school was hiring and brought in my stuff. The principal happened to be there that day and I talked to him for 20 minutes. He said he wanted to interview me and he would call me this week to set it up. I have been waiting by the phone since Monday morning at 8am. It's Thursday and it's almost 2pm. I haven't heard back. I'm trying to trust that God knows what is in store for my future, but it's SO hard when I just want this interview so badly. I can't help but hope that is what God wants for me to. So, we'll see.
I'm trusting Him and want His plan for my life anyways, not my plan. Whatever that may be, I pray I am content with it. :)


Dear God,
I'm a planner and I would like to know if I am going to be teaching a class next fall. Please let me know :)

Golf Balls

I have been looking for something part-time to do this summer since I don't have a teaching job. I didn't really want to find anything full-time because I plan on either teaching in the fall if I can, or subbing. So, I started workin the golf ball business. This is one crazy successful business! It started years ago in Arizona. My grandma and grandpa started diving in ponds and lakes at golf courses for used golf balls. They were finding that there are thousands and thousands of used golf balls in the water just waiting to be recycled. So, they started a small business and it has quickly grown! They are now recovering balls in several states by several different crews in each state. My mom and her fiancee have started recovering around the Effingham area. Only we don't dive, we "roll". This is a very weird thing for some people to comprehend. It just seems to easy and too good to be true! While we are on the course rolling for balls, every single golfer has to stop for ten minutes and ask what we are doing. That is very frustrating because it slows us down a lot! But you cant blame for them for being curious!

Okay so here is how it works. There are two golf carts that have wenches on them. The wenches are on the back of the carts. One of the carts holds the roller. When we get to the course we unload the roller and hook up our cables to the roller. Then we drive one of the carts across the other side of the water while the other cart stays put. Then we start our engines and one cart pulls the roller across while the other cart watches for knots in the cable, then the other cart starts rolling. If it is a good course, a few passes and the roller will be full. We stop and pick the balls out of the metal teeth and bag them up. Once we get 2 milk crates, that equals 500 balls, and thats a bag! My best day I worked we got 12 bags, my worst day was 2. So, as you can see, there is a lot of money to be made in the golf ball business. The bags are shipped over to the plant in Arizona where they are cleaned and re-packaged, or made into range balls.

Here is a picture of the roller- pretty full and ready to be unloaded!

Father's Day

Father's Day was a busy day for us. We went to church and then headed over to Jared's Granny and Papa's house. There we had a very tasty meal. We all had ribeyes, twice baked potatoes, corn on the cob, texas toast, and strawberry shortcake. It was yummy but I left there will a belly ache and we were both exhausted. So then Jared and I went home to nap :) I love being able to go home together and nap together, haha! When we got up we went to my dad's house. We sat outside and visited with my family for a few hours and then ate. Dad cooked BBQ pork loin and then we had baked macaroni, green bean casserole, and salad. All in all we had a good day.

I can't describe to you how much I love and appreciate my dad. He has been there for all of us kids during the worst of the worst. Growing up I think I was the daddy's girl. I can't tell you how many times my dad has told us kids he loves us. I won't ever forget the little moments my dad would say, have I told you lately how proud I am of you and that I love you? He never let us forget it. He is a very encouraging, hard working, providing, loving, Godly, comforting, humble, and  tough man. One of my greatest memories of my dad is that we would come home from school and he would already be off work and so excited to see us. When we walked in the door he would have a snack ready on the table for my sisters and I. My favorite snack he usually made was bananas with peanut butter, or grahm crackers with chocolate icing... yum! What I most love about my dad is that he is a Godly man. I can't imagine what our childhood would have been like without the values we were brought up with. Whenever we fought as kids, he made us sit together and hug. That was one way to tick us off, but then we always ended up laughin in the end. I do have to say that sometimes he would go a little overboard with things... We had a nightly bible study after dinner. Most of the time we didn't wanna sit there and hear it, but now looking back I know it was good for us. We would end up laughing and had some of our most memorable conversations during that time. Like the time dad said when we get to heaven God will seperate all of the sheep from the goats. He will put all the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Dad tried explaining to us that the sheep were going to heaven and the goats were going to Hell. The priceless moment was when Kate said, Oh Man! I'm left handed, I have to go to hell?!!!! We also had this book called What Would Jesus Do? I think that was dad's favorite book. We must have read it a million times. There was a song that went with it called I have decided to follow Jesus... I think everytime he heard us arguing he would whistle this song to us to remind us to think "What Would Jesus Do?" These are only a few memories I have of my dad. I love him so much and I know that my kids will one day do the same.

Today, Monday, we are heading to Jared's dad's for Father's Day. I am so excited that he gets to celebrate Father's day with his dad after not having one for so many years. This is a dream come true for Jared and I am so thankful for the answered prayers. This will actually be our second time celebrating with Kenny but last year at this time we had pretty much JUST met him so this year is more special.

I can't wait for Jared to be a dad someday! I know he is going to make such an awesome dad!

Wedding Photography

I LOVED our wedding photography. I am so happy Lauren LaPlante was able to take our pictures. She is so talented! I loved that ours were "different" than others I have seen. She came up with all of the ideas for our photos. That is what I most love. Don't you hate when you go to a photo shoot and the photographer is like okay what do you want to do? That just bugs me! That is their job... they should know poses.. they do it everyday! Well Lauren went beyond our expectations and not only gave us a great deal by giving us all of our pictures on cd's but she brough us props! She brought rain boots, an umbrella, and  a helper who also had a camera! I felt they were able to capture every moment of our special day. I was able to order a 9x12 hardback photobook with 30 pages for only 30 bucks from snapfish. If a photographer was to make that you would be paying hundreds of dollars! The best deal I got was from artscow.com I ordered a 20x16 stretched- wrap around canvas for 35 bucks! THAT IS AN AMAZING DEAL! I know photographers who charge $400 for those suckers! I also ordered 200 of our wedding photos for just 20 bucks. I love online shopping and I love finding great deals! Above is the picture I am using for the canvas. It will look awesome :)

We're Married!

Well, the wedding is over and I'm so sorry I have been away from the blogging world for the last 10 weeks or so! It's been crazy! The wedding was wonderful, everything we hoped for. I can't describe how fast the day went! I wish I could rewind and do it all again, just so I can take in every moment! It started off by waking up early. I remember laying in bed at 5:00 awake. I thought for a second, is today the BIG day?! It didn't take me long to realize that indeed it was! I laid there until my alarm went off at 6:30. That was a very long hour and a half! I got up and showered, then headed to Side Street where all of my girls were meeting! I really wanted to text or call Jared, but I didn't. I wanted the first time we talked or saw each other to be when I walked down the aisle. After we all had our hair done we headed to the church to start getting ready. This part went a little slow, but it didn't take us long to get dressed and put makeup on. We played the waiting game for a bit, then we took pictures. I was so nervous that he was going to see me, or that his friends were going to tell him what I looked like... but they didn't! Before we saw eachother, we each had a little wedding day gift. He surprised me with a dozen red roses in my dressing room, he is so sweet :) He also had a single white rose for every bridesmaid, mother, and sister to us. Thats a lot of roses! I knew that Jason Aldean was playing at the Illinois State Fair this year, and I had wanted to get him tickets. So, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to give them to him... on our wedding day! I wrote out a little letter saying how much I love him and how we've been through a lot together and thats what makes our love so special. I used song titles from Jason Aldean's album to create this letter. It was pretty cute :) At the end I stated how we were going to the concert... It would have been a better surprise if he would have read the letter in chronological order, but no, he read the last line first! UHH! Oh well, he still liked it.

The ceremony was just perfect. I loved the music! That is something I do remember :) The grandparents and parents walked down to Big & Rich "Lost in This Moment" which was sung by Tyler Walls and played by Lindsay Sterchi. It was simply amazing :) Then our wedding party walked down to Canon in D played by Lindsay Sterchi. My song was Bryan Adams "Everything I Do" played by Lindsay again. Then we had Tyler sing again during the unity candle celebration. This was Keith Urban "Only You Could Love Me This Way" I really can't wait to get our wedding video so we can really see and listen to everything again! I think the live music made our day really special... it was the best!

The reception was very fun as well. My sisters gave awesome speeches, along with Matt and Luke as well. I cried and laughed...cried and laughed... they were all so good! Then my dad and I danced to Stephen Curtis Chapman's "Cinderella". The DJ played a messed up version at first, but he found the right one and we were able to continue dancing.. it was sweet :) Jared and his mom danced to "A Mother's Song"... I think she had a hard time giving up her baby boy. We are very lucky that we are able to live in the same town as our family though! I wouldn't change that for anything. I can't wait to have kids and they will be so close to their grandparents, yay free babysitting.. haha!

All in all our day was amazing, I could sit here and write about it for hours. It did rain, but we didn't let that bother us. We took advantage of it and got some awesome pictures.
We have been happily married for a month and 3 days now. We have been to Mexico and back already. It's been awesome! I love my husband!! :) and I love saying he's my husband.. haha!

7 weeks!

I can't believe the wedding is only 7 weeks away! I feel very relieved with all of the plans. I think everything that is left is all just last minute decorating stuff. Today I ordered all of the table cloths, round and rectangle. I also ordered chinese lanterns, sheer curtains to hang behind the head table etc. All of this was the last of the purchasing, I hope! The invitations will be going out next week! I almost have all of them stuffed and addressed. That wasn't too bad because Jared helped me :) We have had 2 out of 3 of our marriage counseling sessions so far. I was really nervous about the first one, just not knowing what we would have to talk about. They have been really good though! They base the pre-marriage counseling off of post-marriage counseling and how to avoid the top 4 reasons for divorce. I think these things were a good refresher for us, not that we are struggling but it's good to hear wise advice! I'm really looking forward to the wedding and the honeymoon, but more importantly just being married and living together! I can' wait to be able to stay at our house, cook, clean, and be together all the time! It will be a very busy next couple of weeks though! This saturday is my bridal shower! Jen and Kate are throwing this for me, along with the other bridesmaids. It's going to be so cute, Jen is awesome at planning that kind of stuff. After the shower I have 3 free weekends then I'm finishing student teaching and headng to Arizona for Easter. The weekend after that is my bachelorette party :) Then my graduation is May 7, and then the wedding is the next week! YAY! I know it will be here so soon, I hope everything is in place! I haven't met with our church's wedding coordinator yet, but I think Im good to go with everything so next week I will find out more details when we meet.
The days are sure going by fast... can't wait to be Mrs. Yager!

Car Trouble

Well, today is my day off and I still plan on getting wedding stuff done! I had a rough start this morning though! I got up at 7 because I couldn't breath. I've had a cough/stuffy nose for a few weeks now. Some days it's just worse than others, and today is one of them! I can't wait to be healthy again.. summer please hurry! Anyways, after I got up I went to get Jared's car because it's been shaking really bad so I thought on my day off I'd let Rock look at it to see what the deal was. Well, he needs new breaks ($300) and a new tire. For some reason it seems like he is ALWAYS getting new tires! I don't know what the deal is but it really is starting to suck! I'm taking his car in later to get the tire fixed and then I had to make an appointment for the brakes at a later day. I have come to the conclusion that his work parking lot or the drive there must be bad to drive on. I don't know why else he would need a new tire all the time! This one has been low for a long time. He said he puts air in it about every day. So I think it's just time to get it fixed before it blows and causes a wreck or something worse! I just wish things like this didn't cost so much! I guess I should be thankful that we both have paid cars and we don't have to make any monthly payments. Its very hard to save when things like this happen though!

New baby in the family!

Yay I can finally talk about Jen's news! She told us at Noah's birthday that she was expecting again. :) Noah came out with a new shirt on after he ate his cake. The shirt said Big Brother. It was too cute. It took everyone a second to realize what was going on but then everyone started screamin  in excitment! I can't wait. It will be so awesome living in Effingham the whole time the new baby is here! She's due September 7. I checked the chinese calendar and it said she was having a girl, but we'll see. She should have her first sonogram in 2 weeks and then another one 8 weeks after that. Im kind of hoping for a boy because then I think she would be more up for having one more kid and then I might be ready for my first one by the time she had her third, haha. I just always wanted my kids to have close cousins. I loved growing up having my cousins so close in age, so I want my kids to have the same experience! Anyways, I'm really happy for Jen and Matt! My step sister is also pregnant and they are both due on the exact same day! It will be a fun year :)

BUSY has a new meaning

Oh my goodness am I busy these days! I feel like I haven't been on facebook or the blogging world in weeks! I honestly don't think it's going to get any better until this summer rolls around. I am loving my first graders at Teutopolis! I wish I could get a job there. The school district is amazing and all of the kids are just so well behaved I'm amazed at them, truly. If Jared would go for it, I would send my kids there until High School, because we would want them to play sports at Effingham.. but the curriculum at T-town is just amazing. Its my dream to get a job at a school like the one I'm at now! Speaking of jobs... holy cow it's time for me to apply to some already! I had a seminar up at EIU today and they were talking about applying for jobs already. I never thought I would be doing this until the summer, but sure enough when I looked online the applications are due in February for most of the positions! I found 2 or 3 positions that are within 45 minutes of Effingham. So, I'm very excited about that! I am going to be busy trying to get all of my paperwork lined up and sent out within the next 2 weeks. Wish me luck!

Noah is one!

Saturday we celebrated Noah's first birthday party! I can't believe a year has gone by since he was born! It literally seems like a week ago we were at the hospital patiently waiting his arrival! It has been a great first year and his aunt Randi and uncle Jared have loved spending time with him! For his birthday I decided to get him practical things since he has every toy and piece of clothing imaginable! So, we got him juice, yogurt melts, his special baby shampoo (which I didn't realize was $5 !!) some bubble bath for sensitive skin, some cute new paci's, and a C.D. of baby songs (mom will love this, haha). Here are some pictures from the little guy's big day! Jen is just too creative! His party was adorable!

She made all the cupcakes... 4 different flavors

Picky little Noah wouldn't touch his cake... no surpirse here!

Loved the theme!!

Always has his tongue out!

Student teaching has begun!

Is it really that time of my life already!? It seems like just yesterday I was starting classes at Eastern! Just 3 semesters later and I'm already student teaching! I'm enjoying it so far, although it's only been 2 days into it. I am really glad I'm in T-Town. I think they have a really good school district and all of the staff is so welcoming! The first graders in my room are so sweet! They are going to be a good bunch of kids. I'm ready for the challenge of this semester! Only 15 and a half weeks till I'm done :) Yes, I have a countdown already. I even wrote it in my big lesson planner for each week. If there is only 15 and a half weeks of student teaching then that means there are only 18 weeks till the wedding! WOW! I remember when it was like 60 or 70 some weeks! Anyway, I want to bring my camera into the classroom and take some picture of the classroom set up. My teacher has been known for being an outstanding teacher and I can already see that after two days! Her room looks amazing, hardly any wall space is showing at all! You know you're a good teacher when the teacher says it's time to pack up and go home and the kids say AWW!! No! :) I am looking forward to this experience. We shall see if I have any time to blog about it, ha ha!

10 Christmas's

Wow, I've been such a slacker with my blog lately! Christmas came and went. I can't believe how fast everything went! We were very blessed at Christmas this year! I think we totalled up how many Christmas's we went to and it was 10 all together. That is a lot of family and a lot of gifts! We had a great time at all of them! We both got very nice gifts this year! I can't even begin to name all of the stuff we got! I am really glad that we finally got our recliner though :) It looks really nice in our living room, and kind of completes it. It was so fun to be around Noah this year at Christmas. I know that it will get more and more fun as he gets older. This year he was just starting to rip at the paper. I'm sure next year he will be tearing into all of his gifts! We had quite the adventure taking him down to Georgia this year. Mom rented an RV and we all piled in and headed down to see mom's family. We had a very good time down there visiting people we don't ever get to see! I am glad the holiday craziness is over, however. It feels nice to get into a routine and I love having my house back to normal. The Christmas tree was just taking up too much room!
Here are a few pictures from just 3 of our Christmas's. I forgot my camera at some of the earlier ones and then I realized it was dead when I did bring it! So, I didn't get any of Jared's family Christmas's.. just a few of mine.

Here is Noah having fun with one of his gifts from Aunt Randi... a popper!

Here is a pic. of dad reading the Christmas story before opening presents... a Christmas tradition.

Family playing games at Donsbach's on Christmas day.

Poor baby was sleepin till we put him in his carseat. This is in the RV ready to head to Georgia!

All the girls in the family (Georgia- Weason side of the family)

Noah watching everyone open presents in Georgia