Monday, October 20, 2008

Trying to keep up!

SORRRYYY for the lack of postings-Since the beginning of Sept I've started my own company www.ScriptedLiving.com. Jon has worked my website (which he has also made it possible for people to order RIGHT off my website!) We are able to do ANYTHING that a client requests. We have been able to use their own logo's if requested or design something unique for their business. It's been a lot of fun working with people. Im VERY lucky to have Jon in my corner & use his art knowledge & computer skills! I have been CRAZY busy getting new clients & accounts. (Scripted Living is a vinyl lettering business.) I also have lined myself up with a screen printer so I can do any kind of tshirts, hats, jackets, etc. So lots and lotsss of time spent on the computer doing my thing. Its been successful so far! I hope my company continues to grow & help to lighten our burden.

In other Hales family news, Rachel was awarded "most confident" in her class. She was nominated by her classmates at school-so we got to be there for that.



This will be her LAST student of the month award as an elementary student..sniff sniff. They also announced that she was nominated to attend the Pres. Inaguration infront of the 5th/6th grade classes, teachers & parents--the kids were like WOOOOOWWWW!! It was really cool to be there to see her get the award and see the excitment of her classmates.

In the end of Sept was Sarah's 9th bday-all she wanted were "gift cards". So thats essentially what she got! Made shopping SO easy!! When I took her to spend her cards she wanted to spend them ALLLLL ON HER SISTERS!!!!!!!!!!! WHO DOES THAT??????


I had to keep telling her over and over..Sarah these are NOT for your sisters..they are for you--they have xmas coming up!! "we'll they are my cards, so i can spend them how i want!" rhghghhghg if thats my only battle with her-then she rocks. She did get things for herself after MUCH pleading from me but STILL managed to get each of the girls a few things.

she had a 2 dollar movie theatre bday party for sarah with a few friends SOOOO EASY!

The two older girls have started up volleyball and they LOVEEEE IT! They are both quite good -hopefully they have their parents athletic coordination. They go tue/thur nights for 2 hours each time. Its been GREAT for the both of them.

Lastly only a house full of girls will you walk in and see this:




Girls are soooo easy!! (Atleast right now i can say that-right!)

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Glorious Week of SCHOOL!

So I have been ENJOYING the past week because school started. The house has stayed clean, quiet & just oh so lovely! My girls did their homework promptly when they got home, did their chore right after, dishwasher..all that is required of them to earn their marbles. SO NICE!
On Saturday they have their "saturday chores" & if they get them ALL done perfectly BEFORE I get back home from my food runs, I treat them to a Slurpee. So Rachel managed to get them all in gear so here they are grubing their prize.


This past Monday for Labor Day we went to Pres. Goodmans house of the OC Stake. Their son is married to Jons sister Katie. It was seriously a FAMILY reunion! In the OC Stake there are soooooo many of us that married someone else from the stake. We had the Goodmans, Hales, Williams, Christensens, one of the Fishers were there, we just were missing my family the Roberts & the Wingers-SO CRAZY!

Tuesday was Becca's first day of pre-school. She is going to Ms. Heather. She has been Sarah & Anna's teacher before. Here she is all ready to go!

Here are the girls wishing her Good Luck!

Here she is walking thru the front door WITHOUT her blanket-I think we have PROGRESSED!

This is Ms. Heather:

I mentioned my girls earning their "marbles"..this is the girl picking out their prize from the treasure box for having atleast 10 marbles..they were all SO close to have 20 marbles but came just shy (trying to show them to be better is BETTER then to be bad..you could have had TWO prizes instead of just one!)

They get one marble for making their bed in the morning, another for brushing their teeth, another for homework, another for their chore, another for the dishwasher & THREE for coming to family scripture reading time which we do by about 7pm. We are using the books "A Standard Unto My People" that the Hales wrote. The younger two just color the paragraphs that we are reading while the rest of us read from it and discuss. I love it! Its just like the old days where families would gather together by candle light after dinner to read scriptures. It really helps to set the tone for our family at night. We have been discussing Spiritual Death/Physical Death and why we need the Savior. We then have family prayer.
The girls also can LOSE marbles for fighting, yelling, being mean, not doing their chore (they get 2 taken out!) etc..it REALLLLLLYYYYYY helps on the no yelling from mom & dad!!
Jon is doing good--his body seems to be really tight. Other then that he is doing well. He is working on his 2nd book. He is heavily involved with his calling now Duty to God & Scouts. Our scout program is being revamped so there is a lot going on with that. But he LOVES working with the YM!
He's excited (or maybe not) that he's on Medicare now

which will help TREMENDOUSLY with our costs of things for him. We are grateful for a system in which our family is helped to pay for health insurance etc. We are extremely grateful for each & everyone of Jons siblings & parents that contribute to pay our mortgage so that we can stay in our home. Where would our lives be without family.

Well I just got back from the Gym

& Im ready to grub on SOMETHING!!! Why does working out make me so famished?!?!?! Probably because I just love food WAY too much--

Monday, August 25, 2008

Back to School

We've had a REALLY fun summer, beach days on tuesdays, swim days on mondays/wednesdays and fridays-carls jr from gpa on fridays--bbq's, movies lots of good times!

Here is a photo of my cuz jason playing the drums on the girls (he use to be in a band and is a REALLY fun guy-always the life of EVERY party!)


i had some of my cousins that live nearby for a bbq--so fun! i love family!!!

It has been fun getting "new" things for the girls for school (THANKS gma!)they each had their "first day of school" outfits-shopping with girls is SO FUN! so far still very modest and no skimpy sketchy stuff! WHEW!

On Sunday I put together our family schedule-no need to read just for my documentation purposes:
730 wake
800 school/mom@gym
900 Albertsons
300 homework/chore
530 make dinner
600 eat/dishwasher/pick up rooms/read scriptures as family w/Hiss Forth books
730 prepare for sleep/showers/brush teeth/jammies
800 color/read
830 lights out
900 stretching

CHORES for girls after homework:

Mon: bathrooms
Tue: stairs
We : wipe back door
Thu: clean own rooms
Fri: take out trash

Sat morning chores:
office-Becca
TV room-Anna
piano room-Rachel
dining room-Sarah
Sweep floor-Sarah
Mop floor – Rachel

FHE:
1st mom
2nd dad
3rd rachel
4th sarah
5th PLAY DAY!

We use a marble jar reward/punishment system that works GREAT for us--thanks to gma for giving FUN stuff to the treasure box!

We had a family meeting sunday night to go over all of this, it was followed up with jon giving each of the four girls a fathers blessing for school..they were so precious and placed a pillow at the foot of his wheelchair and laid their head on his knees so he could reach them with his hands..so tender & sweet. He told them he was grateful that this was something that HE could do for THEM.

The girls had a GREAT 1st day of school--



this is how becca spent the day today after an hour at the water park with a friend!


The girls were treated with homemade warm chocolate chip cookies when they got back

(its a family tradition we do with them).

After homework/chores-they went swimming:


At the dinner table we go around and everyone says what made them mad or sad or frustrated that day, then we go around and ask what made them happy that day-its a great way to hear how their day REALLY went! It was fun to hear how school REALLY went today for them--

Today I started back at the gym-SO FUN! im SHOCKED that i ate VERY POORLY (like mcdonalds for breakfast, carls jr for lunch followed by del taco for dinner- I KNOW in one day ive done that! and on SEVERAL occassions)so i thought FOR SURE i had gained 10 lbs or more--but MUCH TO MY SURPRISE i only gained 2lbs..hmmm crazy..but its good to be back at the gym doing my circuit training/protein shake drinking.
Im THRILLED that i can still fit into these bad girl jeans!

Im working on a no sugar no white flour no soda gig..im committed..tonight i had a turkey burger with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes with lettuce wrapped around it! SO GRUB!

On my food runs I do to Albertsons, I used french bread, pizza sauce, cut up tomatoes, mushrooms & peppers & we made french bread pizza- SO GRUBILICIOUS too!!









Monday, August 11, 2008

Beach, Beach & MORE Beach

We sure have had lots of beach time! We went on Wednesday to the beach house that Jons Gma rents every year the last week of July right on the sand on 17th street.

Jon got to go with this time..Tim his cousin LUGGED him ALL the way out to the water in his wheelchair SO NICE of him-the girls REALLY wanted to Jon to see them ride all the waves..he was surprised at how far they went out and all the mad skills they had! The girls LOVEDDD having dad there!! Rachels almost caught on to doing a 360--
We went again on Friday as well! I was trying to leave on Friday from the beach, but Rachel stayed in the waves for 45 minutes nonstop to get some last minute riding in--that girl is crazy!
Sunday I was incharge of the ENTIRE 2 hours of Primary.

The 1st Sunday of the month I get the whole time to do singing time. So I made footprints, one said Baptism & had little footprints with things like honesty, tithing, loving family, prayer etc that led to the other footprint labeled baptism. With each little footprint was a primary song they had to figure out what the footprint clue was-it was fun and SO fun to sing OTHER songs besides the ONE song we are stuck learning that entire month. As fun as it was...after 2 hours of nonstop I was ready to go home and NAP FOREVER!!
Tuesday again more beach time with our friends the Blackmuns back at CDM my fav spot-followed by dinner at the Hales. I made my homemade chicken pot pie & everyone loved it--i fed 16 people i think!?!?
Thursday was volleyball--

always a good time however I think Im ready for some city league play at this place
come October..

Saturday my sister Heidi came over with her 2 little ones one of them who ended up in the ER!?!? HELLO! Sarah tossed a water balloon at his head which resulted in him getting a gash in his head from hitting the corner of the spa spillover..OOPS! Never a dull moment in Heidi's life for sure---
Sunday we headed to OC to celebrate Bdays for the month of August--which they had this AWESOME costco chocolate cake..

man..still thinking about it GRUBILICIOUS!!!
Its now monday...I MADE ALL my kids do the house cleaning, being at the beach all the time, the house kind of gets out of control-we are good to pick up and put stuff into a basket, but once the baskets start PILING UP its time to get in gear!! So i DUMPED all the baskets into the living room & made them sort out toys, trash, clothes & blankets-then they all had to put it all away, then i made them dust ALL the downstairs (they each had their own room)& i had to "pass them off"--THEN i had the older 2 sweep & mop the wood floors...can you say FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now its the end of Monday, Ive paid my bills online, taken out the trash, got dinner going & working on FHE my day is successful. Oh DANGT! i JUST now remembered to give jon his medicine that was SUPPOSE to be given at 3pm...its now 5pm..so I am humbled & not as successful as I thought I was!?!?! rhghhghg it never ends huh!!

Monday, July 28, 2008

The cleaning fairy...


is NOT REAL!??!?! what the heck?!?! so upset about that...the cartoon image should have clued me in huh...

we've had a good week, the usual-beach day on tuesday followed up by the glorious frozen chocolate banana (thanks blackmuns AGAIN!)


got a new phone AGAIN becuz mine had water damage ALREADY!?!? what in the world..so bugged..spending MANY hours on facebook...SO FUN catching up with old friends!!!

this week will consist of more beach days (wed) followed by a bbq at the blackmuns pad--FHE with Dan & Jenny Limburg tonight (hope i can get this darn heater replaced in time for the spa!??!), my moms bday bbq on saturday--

i finally looked up when the girls start school......august 25th---im SO HAPPY!! we'll start gearing down for backpacks and CLOTHES..i told them once i get alllll the laundry done they will realize they already HAVE clothes! girls.

last week we had a family come while we were at the beach and spent 3 HOURS in my backyard, pulling weeds, working on the pool and picking up-it looks FABULOUS now!! i just like to sit out there and look around--so very very very nice of this family...

my microwave went out-i swear if its not one thing its ANOTHER EXPENSIVE thing..robert and mark replaced that and the new one is up and running..two days with no microwave is TORTURE enough for us! sad huh.

Jon will start medicare sept 1st-

which will relieve a LOT of financial stress for our family--HALELUYAH!! we're excited about all the benefits that come with that..

lastly i spent my entire sunday doing this...

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

WHEWWWW thats overwith!

Jon was asked to give a 45 minute fireside talk to the Orange Stake YW's girls camp--we went to that last night (Robert, Sandra, Venessa Frutos & myself)--jon did SUCH a great job! I was impressed!! He was hilarious too--which surprised me because his not a huge fun of comedy relief in talks..but he was FUNNY! his talk was on surviving trials..which includes Prayer, Persistence, Priesthood, & Patience.

The past week for me meant keeping the kids OUT of the house so he could concentrate..which is always hard to do..we spent time swimming at our friends pools (the resorts i like to call them!) We have a pool in our own backyard, but our resort friends have massive slides! We did our weekly trip to the beach-meeting up with our friends the Blackmuns-who treated us to frozen chocolate bananas and a TO DIE chocolate covered cheesecake of which im STILL thinking about-we shared it between the adults..no one could eat the WHOLE thing by themselves...too rich!

We've been having fun catching up with friends via facebook (ie the beach, our friends the wagners, sheldon came for a visit, hooking up with the limburgs at our house for FHE next monday).

Im LOVING my new cell phone!

I called Sprint & used my "mad skills" to get this phone for free & get a bunch of other "hook ups" & a cell phone bill DROP for the family-Robert YOU STILL OWE ME DINNER!! HELLO!!!
Im also texting like MAD-jon laughs everytime my text ring goes off--

Well today I think we are heading to "our beach"

this is the big hill we have to trek down-i usually put all our stuff on the boogie board and pull it down and up the hill...it works great!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Fun Few Days!

Saturday we had an ALLL day party 2-830pm for a ONE year old, granted his mom was 43 when she had him-so bring out the GOOD STUFF which is exactly what they did--check out this video of what my girls did the ENTIRE time--


Today my 2 older girls got busted for "fighting" (scratching etc) my girls NEVER fight like that...but the summer switch has been turned on so look out-geesh! They got grounded with no tv & no computer for today & i followed that one up with some MAJOR chores--moms happy..kids not so much..

Later we went to our friends house to swim--how fun is this!


I know jealous huh---it was awesome!

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Now a facebook fan...

Well Im moving on from blogger to facebook which allows me to use my blog in it--fabulous! I have a TON to catch up on -so here it goes (janet your welcome!HA)

First we have Anna's 6th bday on june 11th:


I cant find my smaller red camera that has more photos of anna's little "friend" party-but i did a quick last minute invite a few friends over to the park for cupcakes-it was the EASIEST party EVER and very fun! i let them each decorate their cupcake and we played duck duck goose only it was happy happy birthday-too cute! we were over & done with in ONE hour-highly recommend!!

June 15th it was now Daddy's Day:
Here are some photos of the loot he got--



becca drew the photo of jon in his wheelchair-it made me teary eyed...its saddens me to think this is the only way she'll remember her dad--she was 1.5 years old when the accident happened..

June 18th is when our good friends the Rassmussens who were moving to UTAH (UGH) the very next morning - can you tell im bitter!!! \



They had a daughter Meghan who was right in the middle of my two younger girls & they were all friends--sniff sniff.

June 25th we are onto Becca's Birthday:





I feel bad that she often gets left out of things since she's my 4th-no friend bday party for her because EVERYONE MOVED TO UTAH-again frustrated that too many of our ward families up and moved to utah!! Rachel felt bad and made her a homemade pinata-my girls are seriously SO clever!!

July 4th was CRAZY! It started out with me playing volleyball till after midnight (my usual thursday night escape), then Jon was really tight all night long, which kept both of us awake till about 5am-then my Sarah came in to wake me at 610 to go run the 5k at the ward function-so got up and ran that with my 2 older girls..scarfed down some pancake breakfast, brought some home to jon-then hung out in my room allll day watching dirty jobs on tv with jon--relaxing! We all watched the fireworks on tv and by 920pm we were all asleep--nice.

July 5th we headed to my moms for swimming & a bbq-while there i checked my mail to find an email from a friend who said she just spent 300 bucks to hop on a plane to see jon & myself at the 80's Orange Stake Youth Reunion! DANG i only brought my swimsuit and cover up!!! so ran to my sister house who hooked me up with some cute clothes etc-made it to the reunion 2 hours late (i know so stake dance style huh!)and had TONS of fun visiting with so many old friends from when we grew up in the stake..our stake was AWESOME and everyone was and still is close to eachother--ive yet to see a stake with such strong connected youth. We still continue to have families move out of our ward..rachel is now down to being the ONLY girl in her primary class, and in her boys class there is only ONE boy..depressing..im on the hunt to find more kids! where are they!? they cant ALL be in utah!!

July 8th headed to CDM (i take the girls EVERY tuesday)-i called one of my friends to meet up with us-so so so fun! Jons gma lives one house away from the sand in CDM-so i always get a guaranteed parking spot (the driveway!-which makes it nice for my ginormous denali!) a clean bathroom, we sit right in this little cove area ALL by ourselves away from the crowds, rocks for climbing to find crabs, the waves are perfect sizes, its safe etc--








she's lived here since the early 70's i believe-i like this beach the BEST because its clean, family friendly, not too many binki's everywhere and CLEAN language for the children--
my girls have really picked up their boogie boarding skills & sarah is the master body surfer now--they even taught their new friend how to boogie board-too cute!
For some reason I've had some CRAZY experiences while at the beach, 2 weeks ago it included a young lady who THOUGHT she was still in Europe & lets just say used seaweed as "cover ups"!! what in the world?!?! lovely...
Yesterday at the beach the girls came SCREAMING that a "bird was floating in the water!!!" of course i thought they were OVERREACTING assumming it was some small dinky bird like a sparrow-NOT it was a HUGE pelican!!!!! it looked like a turkey--seriously oh so wrong...it kept washing up then going back..so i had to go into survivor mode and use this BIG stick that anna found to get it OUT of the water and ONTO the sand FAR AWAY from children..it was the event lets just say..i FINALLY got it in a good spot--i turned around and apparently had a HUGE audience of like 50 kids!--my friend said everytime i would move the bird allll the kids would scream "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh" too funny...i get back to my seat and a huge wave comes to drag that dumb bird back out AGAIN stick and all! DANGT! so off i go AGAIN to "rescue" the already dead bird...i get it in a better place


to turn around to an even BIGGER crowd complete with parents wanting to know what kind of show i was putting on -GEESH! hello-where was the lifeguard--isnt this his job!?!?!



after we're done with the beach-we get back to gma's house to "hose down" we've been hosing down for many many many years as the family has come to the beach...good times!
After the beach we always head back to the Hales & I bring enough food to feed everyone from my Albertsons run, the girls all take a quick bath-my girls are SO tan right now they look like they are already wearing swimsuits! gotta love their mamma's skin!

Okay so now Im caught up-Ive been SUPER busy just trying to keep kids entertained here for the summer...its been a LONG summer already...when does school start again? I should have that date memorized!!