February Getaway...ahhhh

I booked a trip to Panama City Beach, Florida! I'm excited for a relaxing few days in Florida to go to a spa, do a little shopping, and sit on the beach even if its in shorts or jeans and a t-shirt it will be better then February weather in Illinois!! You might wonder why such a random trip in a little over a month!? Well last August Jared and his dad's family went to Texas to see his brother graduate. I bought a ticket for $321 and then got my teaching job which meant I couldn't go. Well, since the ticket was with Southwest, they are the only airline that lets you keep the money on the account to use another time! YAY! So, Linda had said she wanted to go to New York and we thought perfect, I already have a ticket! We had it all planned to go in June... good thing we didn't have all the arrangements made yet because not long after our New York thought I found out I was pregnant. I mentioned to my doctor that I was supposed to go, and she said no not happenin, haha. So, if I wanted to fly anywhere I'd have to do it before I enter my 3rd trimester. I looked at my school calendar and saw 2 long weekends, one in February and one in April. Well April won't work cause I'll be in my 3rd trimester already. So, looks like it was February or nothin for this girl! I told Linda my delima and she said okay lets go in February then! Only, who wants to walk around New York in the middle of Winter, not  me! So, I started lookin at my hotel deals that I get from the Hilton and found a sweet hotel only a mile from the beach for $29 a night! Woo Hoo for cheap vacation for me! So, we booked it last night. Even though it wasn't our intentions at all to go this early or even to go to Florida, I think it'll be a fun little get-away! We fly out Thursday evening and come back
Monday afternoon. It'll be a short trip, but fun!

I'll be sure to post pictures of the beach! (but don't count on any beach swimming pic's.. cause I will not be wearing a swim suit!)

2011 re-cap

This time last year I was gearing up for student teaching. Its really hard to believe that was only a year ago! So much has changed since then and it just seems like more than 1 year ago I was just starting my last semester of college. I miss my t-town co-workers and students a lot though! That was a great school and maybe someday I'll be employed there? Who knows!

Well student teaching ended quickly and I graduated from Eastern on May 7, 2011. After graduation, literally the week after, Jared and I got married! We had an amazing wedding and headed to Cancun right after! It was such a nice relaxing vacation afer a long, busy semester of teaching and planning a wedding. It was much needed! I enjoyed my summer off and began looking hard for teaching jobs. I told myself I'd be willing to drive up to an hour for a job... boy am I glad I don't have that far to drive though! I don't think I would have liked driving any more and I am now. I got my teaching job the first week of August. I was supposed to be going to Texas with Jared's dad's family to see his brother graduate from basic training... but since I got the job they left without me and had a great time anyway! I was glad Jared was still able to go, he had fun and really enjoyed the base in Texas! I started my first day of teaching on August 18, 2011. Shortly after, my second nephew Carson was born! Jen had Carson on August 29th, 2011. This is a picture of him at Christmas this year. He is such a cute little man!

I thought that was going to be it for our year of change but nope, God had another plan in mind when we found out we were going to have a baby! I still can't believe in 6 short months we'll be holding our little one! 2011 has truly been a year of blessings. God has blessed us in more ways that we could have imagined. I can't wait to see what else he has in store for our little family! Here's to hopes that 2012 is just as awesome as 2011 has been! So excited for yet another year with family, friends, and the one we love most, God!

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!