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!