Keeping it Real

No more life!

2012-01-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

Looks like I will no longer have a Life in a few weeks -and here's why. THANKFULLY all these activities are literally within 1 minute of my house!

Rachel will be on the High School Track Team as a sprinter--the girl is freakishly FAST!
This is her head coach "Coach Corona":

and this is her specialized Sprint coach "Coach Jones":

SUPER GREAT COACHES! This should be a GREAT season for her-Im anxious to get it started and ACTUALLY SEE HER RUN for reals.

Sarah will start Spring Softball. She tried out last night-NAILED IT! This was her official tryout number. They had to catch two fly balls and throw to second base. Then move to short stop and catch two grounders and throw to first base. This girl can throw from center field to home plate. She did that very play in winter ball and got the girl out-all 5 of her coaches were like WHAT THE SMACK!??!? super fun.

Then she had to hit 4 balls and run on the 4th ball that came. She walked up to the plate, got in her "stance" and ALL of the new coaches that were drafting said "WOAH!!" Most girls kind of go up there and are a little dainty-but not Sarah. She's for real. This photo isnt of Sarah-but was pretty much Sarah's stance.

She doesnt mess around! Her first time EVER playing a sport was winter softball. She knew nothing of the game. She had AMAZING coaches that took her under the wing. They all kept saying "Sarah has NO IDEA how athletic she is--she's like every coaches dream!" ---they get their athletic build from Robert their grandpa. They are lucky to be so strong.

Anna strangely wants to do Karate!?

She is my dainty, always dressed with perfect accessories, always reading, always behaving, girly girl. I have no idea why she wants to do Karate-but alrighty then!

Lastly Becca didnt want to be left out and will be starting floor gymnastics.

Is that photo not SCARY or WHAT!?

So as you can see-the next three months with all this going will F.L.Y. our life by.
But I can look forward to this

come May 6th-13th!
I earned a free trip to Hawaii all expenses paid-flights, hotel, food and entertainment. SHAZAM. We havent decided if it will just be myself & Jon (we've already been to Maui pre accident), or us and the four girls (the girls have never been) OR me and my four close girlfriends for our annual girls weekend-only it will be a girls WEEK. We'd LOVE to take all four girls--so that is our goal. We will see if we can make it happen-flights are SO EXPENSIVE then times four, get another hotel room-it all adds up.
Either way--I will be ready to R.E.L.A.X and do N.O.T.H.I.N.G on a beach in Hawaii!

Highs & Lows

2012-01-23T10:32:00.000-08:00

My friend Amber does Highs & Lows on Sundays-I always look forward to them. She's HILARIOUS too--always great posts.

Lows:
Dealing with Rachel and her choice in boys. It's SO HARD to raise girls-and we are just beginning! Jon has been working REALLY hard at staying calm and letting Rachel do most of the talking. That is key I think. Kids know right from wrong-sometimes we have to step in and remind them that the DO know right from wrong and can change behaviors. This is the third "round" of dealing with this same boy so I decided to step in and texted the kid "This is Mr. and Mrs. Hales. Please do not call, text, email, facebook or message our daughter any further. Thank you." I think as parents-we sometimes need to step in when the time is right. Rachel is WAY happier when she's not having interactions with this boy. Here's to hoping she has a better week. So far so good.
(Side note-my dad told me last night that the Stake YM's president came to our house to meet with my dad and said "There are lots of boys that would like to date your daughter but they are too afraid of you." My dad replied "Well Alan, lets just keep it that way." --good grief that explains why I didnt get asked out one ONE DATE EVER in High School! It's okay I more then made up for it in college.)

Dealing with Sarah who likes to C.O.N.S.T.A.N.T.L.Y pick on Anna. Sarah will make some remark about ANYTHING Anna is doing-then Anna comes to use crying. It's a cycle that get's old-real fast. What is it with 2nd and 3rd children!?

Man I didnt really have a lot of lows this week? I could add how Rachel didnt do ANY of her chores this week and that so bugs.

HIGHS:
This is a photo Rachel asked me to take of Jon & her.

This is what she wrote about him on her Facebook: "This is my daddy. Go ahead and laugh, I don't care. I've been told every possible thing imaginable. He is my idol, my world, my hero. He's there to listen to everything I say. He's a best friend, a father, a teacher. He's the one I look up to. This is my daddy that could never be replaced.♥" She was teased in 5th-8th grade about her daddy being in a wheelchair-it was R.E.A.L.L.Y. hard on her.
I LOVE this photo and it will definitely be one of her wedding montage video photos.

Yesterday after Stake Conference we drove to Todd's house. I had texted to see if it was okay to come-but neither of them saw their cell phones with the text. So when my girls knocked on the door their kids were yelling "NO WAY OUR COUSINS ARE HERE!" Jon and I left them there and we drove around looking at houses.

The Hales purchased a cabin in Lake Arrowhead. You can see photos at http://cabin.jonathanhales.com/ The family is SO EXCITED! It JUST closed on Friday. I picked up the keys. Our family is only 40 minutes away. We are 20 minutes from our house to the base of the mountain, then 20 minutes from base to cabin. I am also helping Sandra pick out tile, carpet, colors etc. SO FUN.

Lastly Jon & I started a Ticket business and it is doing great. You can see the website Jon built at www.stubgate.com PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD! Any concerts, shows, games etc--use our site! It's been GREAT to work side by side with Jon. We pretty much live in our office. We LOVE that we can really live anywhere-as long as we have internet access we can work. What a blessing to our family.

Goals, changes & date nights

2012-01-16T19:26:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday afternoon Jon had PPI's with each girl. They went over their goals for 2012. Jon had them write them down and hang on fridge. I then took a photo snap of each one, printed it up at Walgreens and now they are hanging on our "to do list" wall. I love that they can see them and keeps tabs on how they are doing. At dinner Jon will ask "So how is everyone doing on their goals?!" Suddenly the girls start hugging one another, or saying a nice thing. Whatever works.
Here's Rachels:

Here's Sarah's:

Here's Anna's:

Here's Becca's:

Having our "to do list" thing on our wall-seriously FABULOUS!

Jon had to prepare a talk on Sunday-which meant on Saturday evening, I had to keep all of the girls out of the house. The older two went to a friends house (because our Stake Dances are kind of lame here) so I took the younger two on a date. MEXICAN FOOD!

This GIANT garnish was on Becca's plate-she asked "Um....am I suppose to eat this?!"

Seriously-who doesn't look at this photo and get a tinsy bit twitter paited!?

I've been doing SO GOOD with eating well thanks to this

I use it in my protein shake for breakfast, have a snack, then repeat for lunch, have a snack then enjoy a yummy dinner. Down 3lbs my first week. Whoo hoo!

Rachel has start HS Track (she's doing sprints.) She has been running sprints everyday all last week. Between early 6am seminary, training in Volleyball after HS, and then immediately into sprinting for an hour with track-she.is.beat. She said she just wore sweats to school all week and her hair in a ponytail. So when she decided to go out Friday night she got "dressed up." Now if you know my Rachel SHE IS SUCH A TOMBOY--but I love her girly side coming through!

We are excited to see how she does in Track. So far she's placing first every sprint. My older two girls ask "Why did we get stuck with Grandpa Hales' legs?!" Now they know why--they are athletes.

I dont know how you are about your Ward Church Xmas parties-but I could TOTALLY enjoy staying home and skipping the whole thing. I'm thinking next year-Im good with each family bringing a plate of cookies, we serve hot cocoa and then we go home. Over and done in 60 minutes! My sister Heidi is all.about.christmas. The over the top kind of people. I like that I can enjoy (and slightly make fun of) from afar. She did her ward Xmas party and texted me a photo.

I mean seriously-for reals?! She built that thing-did everything-even had a play with Jacob in it. I am SO THANKFUL for people like Heidi-so I can sit back and well-do nothing.

Anna's funny ways

2012-01-10T19:22:00.000-08:00

Anna cracks us up. This is how she LITERALLY eats dinner every night.

What in the world?! We teach the girls-how they behave at dinner is how they will behave on dates ie "Are you going to chew with your mouth open on your dates? Are you going to burp on your dates? Are you going to SIT on your date?!" Weird huh?

This is what she wore to school today.

Cutesy?!

I LOVE this board that I made.

The girls walk in and can see what the plan is for the day. It makes our life simple having structure like this. Kids REALLY do well when they know what is going on.

This year I started having each girl pick a dinner dish job.

You can A)rinse, B)unload, C)load or D)sweep & change table cloth. THIS HAS BEEN FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!! Whoever had to pick last-gets to pick first the next night. No one complains & it helps keep order in my home.

Science Projects & Girls Goals 2012

2012-01-09T09:45:00.001-08:00

The younger two girls got handed science projects 2 weeks before the Holiday Break--seriously-what kind of teacher does that?! And it was due pretty much 4 days after Break was over. We did SUPER EASY projects.

Anna did a thing where she mixed 10 tablespoons of cornstarch into a 1/2 cup of water one tablespoon at a time then kept mixing it.

Eventually it turned into puddy. When you let it "slide out" of the cup-it flows easily-if you try to "force" it out with a spoon it breaks and cracks.

Becca did "which flavor of gum lasts the longest?"

In the end each one really only lasted 15 minutes.

Each Fast Sunday Jon takes each girl one at a time and has a PPI with them. Last night he had them write one church, family & school goal. They then hung them on the fridge.

I think I will frame them somehow and hang on our wall. I created a wall that has everything Hales.

Are you impressed that I MADE THIS all by myself-super easy, GIGANTIC and SO HELPFUL!

Made this too--it's so nice they can walk in from school and just do whatever I write on the board. I usually write Homework 330, snack, chore for each girl. Here I just listed things on there so I wouldn't forget about them later. I think I will put their framed goals here so they can see it all the time.

Thought I'd throw this HUGE HALES family photo in--

this is when we all went up to Chad's house for thanksgiving. Todd/Jon stayed back because it was cold and to watch sleeping babies.

I also LOVE this truck photo----

we have a photo of each of the older 3 boys with their Mercedes when they all first got married-now they have all had kids so they all have black denali's--such a crack up!

Good Times!

2012-01-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

The weather in so cal has been AWESOME--total beach weather--which of course we took total advantage of. My girls are beach freaks-

and cold water does not affect them.
It is really strange to be having 80 degree weather during the day and 40 degree weather at night. It's AWESOME that we can go to Newport beach one day and then off to Lake Arrowhead the next day!

This is a gift Anna picked out with her $30 from my parents for Christmas.

Seriously-how do my children know about such things like this?! It's HUGE.

It makes me laugh how Sarah can keep her room super organized and spotless and Rachel is the complete opposite. Jon tells me it is because she is an artist. Here are all her clothes I cleaned-I just tossed them back onto her floor-

where they sit. I have learned you "pick the hill you want to die for." PLEASE refrain from any judgmental comments about how I need to make her clean this up-I got enough of them from Facebook friends (why do women feel the need to do that?!) and quite frankly I am doing the best I can with a paralyzed husband, four children, a house to take care of, money to provide etc etc. Geez I'm sensitive huh! HA

Today while dropping the younger two off at school they were looking at our drivers licenses.

Here is their conversation:
Anna "wow-dad looks weird!"
Becca "that's because he was standing up then and not in a wheelchair."
Anna "no it's cuz he looks like uncle Todd!"
Becca "Mom looks like a maniac."
Anna "you mean a mannequin."

For the record--i was waiting for the lady to say 1, 2, 3--all she said was "next"---for.the.love now i have a mugshot of myself!

I saw this photo and feel like this needs to be shared with all teenagers--

and well some adults too!

What just happened!?

2012-01-03T12:50:00.000-08:00

Another year has past. I feel like these past 5 years have been a total blur. Here's to remembering the next 5!

Everyone is healthy & happy. I will be working from home now (YEAH) side by side with Jon. We are both VERY productive, organized, optimistic & excited for 2012. One of my goals is to better document our family life--the good, the bad and even the ugly!

Realization....

2011-09-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

that I just don't have time to blog--and I am really okay with that!

Work from 9am-4pm Monday thru Friday-thankfully my commute is only 5 minutes away!
Freshmen on the volleyball HS team.
7th grader on softball team.
4th grader taking piano lessons (and wanting to take karate)
2nd grader---well she just gets to be cute at this point!

Add in taking care of Jon, thinking of dinners, shopping for dinners, making dinners, running kids here, there and everywhere, seminary, school drop offs, pick ups, attending practices, games, tournaments, church callings, helping Jon with his High Priest church calling (did you know I am his home teaching COMPANION!?-does this get me out of visiting teaching--cuz that would be super helpful), my work with Nuriche (although helping family/friends lose weight is SOOO FUN to watch-I truly do love it!), family home evening, family scripture study, family prayers, paying the bills, keeping the house clean, staying on top of girls homework and school projects, helping girls pass of faith in God and Personal Progress goals (no drivers license until they are DONE with Personal Progress -rachel is half way done.), keeping up with my pool, breaking up fights (usually between Sarah and Anna, or Sarah & Becca, or Sarah & Rachel--you get the picture), figuring out what to do with my washer that decided to billow out smoke, figuring out how to fix the girls potty that keeps running, replacing burnt out lights (i swear i replace 8 lights and 15 more burn out in this house!!), managing everything financially for our family, and lastly putting on a smile, positive attitude and sense of humor to make it through each day!

So...yeah...no time to blog---and I'm done feeling guilty about it.

PS: Oh great--I just saw our family photo on the top of my blog--which is like 3 years OLD---lovely--add to my list "find photographer for updated family photo"!

Highs & Lows:

2011-07-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

Lows:

Jons grandma that lived in Corona Del Mar on the beach passed away. It's Sandra's mom. All the family flew in and we attended her funeral, followed by the grave site service. We saw the program and Jon saw his name as grave site dedication/prayer-he's never done that before. It was a good experience for him. After the ward put on a lunch for the family and were so nice to all of us. After the service all of sandra's kids and grandkids headed to the beach just for an hour. Grandma would have wanted it that way!

At the end of our WEEK LONG beach vacation with all of Jons family-all four girls barfed. I cant complain much though. They are all old enough to hit the toilet, stayed in the rooms & kept to themselves. I hardly saw them much! It was kind of nice to be alone after a long weekend of craziness. I got ALL the laundry done, totally unpacked, rented a TON of chick flicks and ate gobs of candy--all by myself-glorious. I guess part of this could have gone in the HIGHS section.

BOREDOM seems to be the theme at our house over here. We havent had cable in 1.5 years. I dont get why the older girls dont call a friend to come over?! When I was in summer I was always AT someone's house or HAD someone over. What is it with teens these days?! It honestly drives me crazy.

HIGHS:

A WEEK LONG beach vacation with Jons entire family!

SERIOUSLY SO FUN--he REALLY has SUCH great siblings-each and everyone are so genuine and so great. I really am so very lucky to be part of the Hales family. It's still strange to me after 15 years that I am ACTUALLY a HALES!

Chad/Kelly bought these longboard chips & salsa for each of us-GRUBTASTIC!

Girls learned how to surf from Uncle Chad and Uncle Todd. How nice are they to teach my girls! They got up on the boards too--so so so very fun. They even managed to get Jon out there-

Im not sure why Jon looks so trashed in this photo-I do know it was a hard day for him that day--poor guy-only one hard day out of the whole week though so that's good!
me & my girls were kind of a mess watching Jons brothers all take him out there and put him on a board-but Jon loved it (mostly because he was with all 4 of his brothers & 2 sisters in the water) and he enjoyed being a little crazy/reckless.

Todd/Taylor made this HUGE screen set up--so cool to watch it indoors!

watching cash cab with most of the kids-we made a great team and they thought I was kinda smart cuz I got some answers right!

Rachel made the HS volleyball team--and the ONLY girl that was NOT on a club team prior (to the tune of 300 bucks a month-sigh). We are so proud she made it and she has a LOT of work to do to catch up to all these girls-but this will be a great experience for her. Im definitely READY for her to be REALLY busy during the school year and super tired when she gets home!!!

Highs & Lows

2011-06-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

LOWS:
Last Sunday I was SO DONE with my messy house. I am CRAZY busy with Nuriche and ALL four of my L.A.Z.Y. children are home full time. Instead of yelling at them-I put all my frustration into their "chore list."--Each girl had a list of things to get done. IT WAS MAJOR. I also wrote "I will be gone for a LONG TIME so do NOT call me until this house is CLEANED UP and DONE WELL!" Then I went grocery shopping and got a ton of errands done in peace while my free child labor was getting stuff done.
It worked like a charm and the house was FABULOUS. This will be repeated EVERY Monday morning. They clean, I shop for groceries and get errands done (or maybe just go see a movie...SHHHH!)

My dumb pool is giving me issues. Why must it taunt me so?! I THINK I finally have it taken care of--but good grief--I'm getting tired of spending cash on it!

My two older girls fighting over who wears who's jeans, who sits in what seat of my truck etc etc etc--when does school start again?!?!?

HIGHS:

GRADUATION GALORE! Rachels graduation:

Apparently her 8th grade class was the TOP class in all of Riverside county-so they got to have their graduation at the HS-kind of a big deal.

Her drawing also made the cover of the graduation programs:

The Hales still have the STANG they all drove in HS--Rachel has her eye on it BIG TIME!

We have a friend who is ready to restore it back to good shape. Grandma said if Rachel earns money for it-she can have it-so start saving those pennies!

She made it on the HS Volleyball team. Out of ALL the girls that made it-Rachel was the ONLY ONE who WASNT currently playing on a club team (to the tune of 300 a MONTH!) that made the HS team. I swear-why must everything be SO competitive-and why do parents think their children will all be sports super stars?! WHATEVAS.

Sarahs graduation:

Having fun in Las Vegas with my Nuriche company. Giving our 40 minute presentation on stage. It was NOT what I was expecting-HUGE stage, HUGE lights, HUGE screens-I was mic'd LOUD music--it was like a concert-way way WAY FUN!

This is David Parker giving his presentation.

I was able to receive my Gold pin for my efforts in the company so far-WAY FUN!

Getting Rachel ready to send off to BYU EFY. Her & her cousin Kaylee will be going together--SO EXCITED for them! Jons cousin Kim is married to John Bytheway-so they will be staying with them over night then they will help take the girls get checked into EFY.

Lastly-it's Sunday night which means tomorrow my house will be looking FABULOUS!

Girls Weekend, New Garden, Teenagers...

2011-05-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was my annual Girls Weekend--i LOVE it! Sadly we only took like FOUR photos the entire time!?

Probably because we were too busy sleeping, eating or shopping-just as it should be I say! I LOADED UP at Nordstroms Rack--I've been wearing the SAME black skirt with different shirts for two years now-it was time to find something else. I got LOTS of pencil skirts ($16.97) & LOTS of cardigans ($14.57) & LOTS of cute ruffly tanks ($12.95) to go under the cardigans & a pair of SUPER expensive jeans that were cheap and WAY cute summer denim shorts.

While on Girls Weekend-Jons mom Sandra came to stay with him & the four girls. Each year I go, she comes & plants my garden for me. The girls worked to clear it all out-and then mainly Anna/Becca helped her plant the new crop. The girls (Sarah/Anna) have been watering the garden & watching it-so cute.

Over the weekend I invited some of the youth Rachel's age to play in the pool & have pizookies-surprisingly they all ended up playing the Wii's Just Dance 2-

it was like a stake dance in our livingroom--so fun.

This week is our LAST week of school--We have Sarah's 6th grade promotion on Thursday at 9am, then Rachel's 8th grade graduation on Friday at 9am. They already had the awards for Rachel's grade--she ended up getting the Bronze Award for Honors both years, Excellence in Mathematics & the Presidents Award for Outstanding Academics. Seriously-this girl is going places! It will be fun to see what awards the other girls get this week. I REALLY do NOT know how we got such smart girls--every single one of them get amazing grades and are all in the Gate Program. With the huge trial we already have going on-it TRULY is a blessing to me that my girls can get their homework done & somehow manage to get good grades. Now if I could just get them to keep their rooms cleaned..........

Doing my THANG!

2011-05-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

I have been BUSY!!!! I'm loving life & I'm really really REALLY happy--thank you for your continued support for our family-I have awesome friends!

This is a fun video I put together--click on the link below:
Talk Fusion Studio UTC

Gardens, Babies, Easter-oh my!

2011-04-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

Every year I go away for MUCH NEEDED girls weekend. These are the group girls that rallied around me like no other girls and were there for me day & night when Jon broke his neck. The things they did for my family (and Im sure MUCH MORE I dont even know about) just brings me to instant tears. I am soooooooooo lucky to have friends that care and love me.

While I am gone on this Girls Weekend trip-Sandra comes to stay with Jon & the girls. While she is here the girls along with her help like to plant a garden. So before she does her green thumb thing I had the girls weed out last years garden.

No men on the corner were hired for this job--100% free child labor!

Not bad huh - This makes one HAPPY MOM & DAD!

I've been wanting to SHED those "last 20 lbs" after having my four girls. I realized I didnt have a "before" photo of me-but found this one. I've COMPLETELY changed the way I eat, the way I eat out, the way I work out-I've never been healthier and happier! I'm vigorously pushing Nuriche along to help as many people as I can-it's so fun! I cant WAIT to post the photo of my friend who's lost over 80 lbs with Nuriche & exercise next.

This is my friend Erin. She has struggled to have a baby of her own. Breaks my heart. If Jon didnt break his neck-I would be a surrogate for her in a HEART BEAT! I am sad that I can't do that for her. Oh how I WISH that I could! Being adopted myself I was one of her first calls to learn more information. I will FOREVER be grateful to parents that wanted children so bad-they flew CLEAR to Brazil for a little brown eyed, brown haired 2 year old.

Easter was good-Sat we hit Irvine park with Scott & Kellie's side of the family. Then Sunday we ate with Jons family (small-just us, Mom & Dad, Scott & Kellie).
Earlier in the week-the girls saw that I had just purchased 99 cent cheapo plastic eggs and candy-they asked if they could all put candy in the eggs. SURE WHY NOT! (Is that like having them wrap their own xmas presents?! -cool I didnt think so either!)Then Easter Eve Rachel & Sarah hid all the eggs. Rachel asked me "Mom are you going to do clues for our baskets like you always do?" I being kind of tired from the long day said "Well I hadnt planned on it" Rachel sighed a small "ahhhh" I asked her "Oh do you like that?" Her eyes got REAL big--"Yeah I love it!" So I managed to come up with 5 clues for each of them. The older two girls I made harder clues. The LAST clue for their basket was "When you want to look hip -you come here!" They couldn't figure it out--DUH it's MY CLOSET since they BOTH wear ALL MY CLOTHES!!!

Today I took the older two girls to find cute dresses for their 6th & 8th grade graduations-DUDE WHY DIDNT I HAVE BOYS?! I can just give them a tie and be done with it all. We searched EVERYWHERE for a DECENT MODEST dress. I SWEAR everything is strapless and no joke just under the butt.

Drives me batty. It's sad to think pretty much all the girls will be sporting these trendy looks on the graduation runway--except for mine. Oh well. So if anyone knows where I can get two decent dresses that dont look like they are 12 sizes too small LET ME KNOW!!!!

I cant even be clever with my title!

2011-04-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

I am too busy too even think of a clever title. Oh well!

Our cruise was FABUUUUUUUUUULOUS! You found yourself sitting on each island that looked like a postcard and taking a few minutes to take it all in. It was truly beautiful!

Grenada-My FAVORITE Island

Nuriche Team Members

Laziest Day---sooooooooo nice! I even went in the water. I DO NOT LIKE snorkeling or being around fishes--creeps me out.

Formal Dinner Photo--I was lazy and just wore a church outfit-nothing fancy. Can you tell the theme of my trip--LAZY!

Some Plantation--see even Jon got out and about!

BIG thanks to our friends that stayed with our girls so we could go. BIGGER thanks to Sandra who took all four girls to Yosemite for their school competition thingy. Sadly they didnt win (yeah for us cuz that means not having to travel the family to Tenessee in May for four days!). Fun experience for them though.

I cant believe school is over June 2nd here. I will have Sarah graduating from 6th, and Rachel graduating from 8th. CRAZY!

Life is good--just really, really, REALLY busy right now for the next few months. I am working Nuriche full time, Jon is working full time doing websites & a project for his dad all while helping me with Nuriche too.

Ive been without my laptop for a MONTH-my Dad fixed it for me-I finally feel whole and complete. I have SO MANY fun shows to catch up on now, greys anatomy, Modern Family, Parenthood, Bethany, and all the Housewives-HA

Laptopless...

2011-03-23T22:21:00.000-07:00

I've been laptopless for like three weeks....can you say brutal!!!

Life is great other then that! Jon and I are off next Friday for a southern carribean cruise thanks to nuriche! We will visit islands like Barbados, Aruba etc... Fun stuff!

Girls are growing up fast. I can't believe I just registered one for high school. Crazy! She's taking honors English, honors biology, geometry, an art class and theatre or creative writing class. She will also be trying out for the volleyball team and track team. Add early morning seminary, she will be tired.

I would write more but using this iPad is not my favorite.

Highs & Lows

2011-02-27T22:12:00.000-08:00

Lows:
Feeling STRESSED. Some days my plate seems heavy. I am doing paperwork to get a loan modification for our house (I'm on my FOURTH ROUND-good grief). I'm doing a mod thru the "front door" thru Chase and through the "back door" with Fannie Mae both at the same time. We've been working on a loan mod for TWO YEARS just with Chase "thru the front door" but just this week I started the process direct with Fannie Mae-dude something needs to happen.

We are VERY concerned about how little youth are in our ward/stake. When we first moved here there were 140 primary kids, 120 youth. Today we have maybe 30 primary kids and 15-20 youth. Rachel has been by herself since age 11-she will be 14 in about 3 months. We are considering other options for our girls as we feel having good STRONG friends plays a major part in ones life. We shall see what plays out.

I am still working very hard to have Nuriche going to help support our family. I am so grateful it has kept both Jon & myself healthy. It's such a tremendous product and I am glad it's part of our daily lives. I am also grateful we can share it with others-see the changes it's made in their lives (personal friends losing 70, 80 and 100 pounds in 6 months!) and that it helps us financially as well. We are so grateful to David Parker for asking us to join him in this venture.

Jon is creating a new business (which I cannot say until it goes live) so I am busy trying to help him get that going as well. (I guess this could be in the Highs too.)

Taking on a HUGE project with Sarah. Her and Anna are in a program called Destination Imagination. They are on different "teams" and meet with their "team" at a parents house once a week for about 1.5 hours. This Saturday is the HUGE challenge. They had to come up with an 8 minute skit that THEY came up with, wrote a script for, created props, costumes-EVERYTHING. The parents are not allowed to help them in anyway other then prompt them like "what are ways to show an explosion of a car" then the kids have to give the ideas and pick one to use as part of their skit etc. Well it was going fine until I get a text that Sarah's group (two weeks away from the BIG challenge) decided to QUIT. WHAT?! They were so close! So I decided to take it upon myself to "see this through." I contacted the parents and said we're moving forward which meant four girls at my house EVERYDAY for TWO weeks for two hours and on saturdays for 8 hours. Kill.Me.Now. Really it was just me trying to teach Sarah that "even if things get hard-and you are THIS close-you dont quit." So the big challenge is this Saturday and to be honest I am kind of hoping they dont win and move on--because that means 6 more weeks of DI for another challenge! (Last year the team from our school made it ALL the way to World Regionals (it was like the Olympics-teams from every COUNTRY!) and our team from our school ended up placing FOURTH in the world-HELLO!) I am REALLY hoping we are done with DI this Saturday FOR REALS.

So as you can see MY PLATE IS FULL! Not to mention caring for Jon, being a wife, being a mother, trying to keep family dinners going, family home evening, scripture studying, family prayer, homework etc etc etc--the past two weeks I have just felt my plate a little too heavy with meat and not enough dessert on it!

Highs:
Jon was ordained a High Priest today. We are both still in shock--he's so young (38)! I feel like I need to get him some geriatric scriptures (you know the BIG FONT ones!). Thank goodness for technology now-the scriptures are on his phone and if he needs them geriatric style he can push the plus button.

Both sets of parents came to our ward (the 3rd hour). Jon's dad (along with my dad in the circle) ordained him a High Priest and gave him THEE MOST BEAUTIFUL BLESSING any of us had ever heard. We were all in tears. We are all trying to remember what he said so Jon can write it down and have it. My dad told us later "I've heard A LOT of blessing-but never heard a more beautiful blessing-especially one from a Father to his Son." So touching.

After church they all came for pot roast (in the crock pot) and had my famous Cowboy Cookies for dessert. It was great to have both sets and for the focus to be on Jon.

Jon feels INCREDIBLY humbled. It has been touching to his watch his reaction, his emotions, his thoughts, his actions, his sincerity. I am a very lucky girl and our girls are extremely blessed to have Jon as their Father.

Today-Sunday-has just been a really really great day!

Highs & Lows

2011-02-13T17:57:00.000-08:00

Lows:

Catching more mice on sticky traps (up to 4 on ONE TRAP) then I care to know about. Seriously I'm freaked. Last night at 2am I walked down the upstairs hall to find some cough drops for becca-I flipped on the hallway light and BAM a greyish matter squeezed its fat self into this TINY pencil sized hole and up away it went through the hall cupboards and into the attic-why why WHY!??!?!? We had a professional come and set traps and other things--I swear just something I dont care to deal with.

Everyone but Jon coming down with allergies. I think the constant weather change is making it hard on everyone. Everyone I know seems to have allergies or a cold right now. Its been 80 this week and next week will be 60 and raining. Pick a season and stick with it already Mrs. Mother Earth! Last night I got to hear Becca cough (the dry hack kind) a.l.l. night l.o.n.g. How did that girl stay up half the night with her drippy nose and cough yet wake up at 7am bright and cherry and be her totally happy self all day today?! Meanwhile I've been a total witch.

Highs:
Getting the pool cleaned out AGAIN. I'm sure my neighbors (specifically on the right side of us) hate us. I really need a pool boy. A cute one. A young one. A cheap one. Okay what was I talking about again? Oh yeah my pool. It's been green for a while & I finally found some energy to get it taken care of. I swear it will stay blue for like 2 months then something else will go wrong with it. It taunts me.

Jons Bday-we did Sushi & had brownies with mint ice cream. Sadly he didn't get any gifts (too many sick kiddos). I feel like he needs a birthday redo and that this should be in my lows section. Jon is not easy to buy for. All the things he wants are SUPER technological and cost a lot-and by a lot I mean like 3k on up. And let's be real if we had an extra 3k laying around I would be buying the 3500 food storage package from Costco that I've been coveting-and call it "his gift.

Finding my secret chocolate chips at Winco of all places!! They have bins of product-I loaded up 11lbs of my favorite milk chocolate chips--HEAVEN.

Getting a new chocolate chip cookie recipe which I will be trying tonight. I will probably half the recipe though-otherwise I will be sick to my stomach snarfing on all the cookies myself! I'll even be nice and share it with you-these are from Jennifer Davis in my ward with my secrets to a good cookie at the end.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
1.5 sugar
1.5 brown sugar
1 lb butter (real stuff no fakies!)
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla
5 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon soda
2 packages of milk (cant stand semi-sweet we are a Hales milk chocolate ONLY family!)

cook 7-9 minutes at 375 degrees

The secret to a REALLY good cookie is to under cook the cookie-because it still cooks when its out of the oven. My cookies are ALWAYS super soft! Also I only use Guittard chocolate chips in my recipes. I also only use real butter-I heard that margarine is one molecule away from plastic--yeah no thanks.

Happy baking!

Highs & Lows:

2011-01-30T21:37:00.000-08:00

Lows:
Facebook has new photo feature so now I cant take my photos off my FB to put them on my blog--BUGGED!

Feeling heavily overwhelmed with my "plate."

Struggling that I dont have four Nephi's but instead 2 Laman's and 2 Lemuels! Well actually Anna might be my Nephi. Why is it that when I ask them to "load the dishwashwer" instead of saying "oh sure no problem" I get "what? why? it's not even my day? how come so and so isnt doing them? blah blah BLAH"--seriously it's driving me batty. Why can't they just do it-do it nicely and be done?!?!?!?!

Apparently we are the new owners of mice---they have been scurrying around in our attic. This past week the girls found TWO in our downstairs tub. Jon asked me to get them out-I FREAKED on him and said "Oh HECK NO!" I will plunge a gross toilet (which I seem to do EVERY darn Xmas Eve), or stick a snake down the sewer pipe (which yes I have done that too), but dealing with mice--NO THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wont even go in that bathroom. We were able to have a friend "deal with the two mice" only to find two MORE mice in the bathtub. I'm freaked.

HIGHS:
Getting rid of two of who knows how many mice from our attic. Still freaked.

Watching the Steelers WIN their game and anticipating the Super Bowl! I grew up with Chris Hoke in HS & we work together in Nuriche. Troy Polamula is also a customer of mine in Nuriche for the past year. He called on Thur before the game needing product
overnighted to him before Sunday's game. Always fun! I can HARDLY wait till this Sunday to watch the Super Bowl-we will be at Jons parents stuffing our faces with glorious food-love it.

Helping Rachel pass of her 4th value for Personal Progress-YES this means we are half way there! My goal is to have her complete Personal Progress before she's 16 and crazy busy with life.

Setting a goal for myself-and completing 1/3 of it TODAY! Yeah me!

Highs & Lows:

2010-12-26T22:38:00.000-08:00

LOWS:
Sarah getting a cough/cold (she is SO NOT a "sick person")

-she kind of makes it miserable for all of us.

Dealing with the RAIN. We looked up at our bedroom ceiling to find a water spot. What the heck?! Our house isnt even that old?!?! Our pool was about to flood over as well.

Sometimes being "Santa" means I must ask for wish list, shop for wish list, wrap wish list, set wish list out, take photos of wish list opening--all that and NOBODY LEAVES ME ANY COOKIES!!! I guess if "santa" wants cookies then "santa" will need to start making some and leaving some. Good grief.

HIGHS:
Taking Jon out for our 15th Wedding Anniversary. We went to the same exact hotel that we had our honeymoon at. They remodeled the entire hotel in 2009

and I must say it is SOOOOOOOOOOO nice! The room came with a livingroom, bedroom, bathroom AND heart shaped jacuzzi spa IN THE BEDROOM!

It was super nice. The whole entire room was a view of the city--all windows. So classy. Just loved it! We did lots of eating, went to the movies, & the museum.

Since our girls chose to go to a cabin in the snow for xmas

(we leave Mon 27th through Thur 30th!)
they each only got one REALLY special gift they wanted.

Rachel wanted a small portable video camera

Sarah wanted warm boots

Anna wanted a "really long pretty prom dress"

and becca wanted a pink scooter
.
So that's what they got. My wrapping session was SUPER FAST this year!

Xmas Morning-enjoyed our traditional potato/cheese breakfast casserole
. Our friends bring us homemade wheat bread and freshly squeezed OJ from their oranges on their property-so we enjoy that too. We let the girls open JUST their stockings. Then they have to wait for us. I swear from 6am on-EVERY 2.5 minutes Becca kept asking if i would get up. Finally around 9am I decided to be "Christmasy" & go downstairs and get on with it! I popped the casserole in. We go around from youngest to oldest and open one gift at a time. By the time we are done the casserole is ready for us. LOVE THAT! After breakfast I was strangely EXHAUSTED. Sarah was starting to come down with a cold-so she was wiped out too. So we both crawled back into my bed and I fell asleep from 10-1pm. HEAVEN. I felt tons better.

We then headed on down to OC to hang with Jons family. Always good food

and good times.

Do other families have 47 name assigned cups too?!

ALL the grandkids love to swing around in this chair. Probably was a nice chair to begin with-and grandkids have "broken it" and now its a new toy. Oopsies!

Turned around came home. Slept. Went to our ward. Headed back down to OC for more good food and

good times. Here are some shots from Xmas Time with the Hales:

if you are a Hales you are "blessed" with this gene. You can sleep ANYWHERE. One time Jons family found me asleep ON the carpet in the middle of the floor and I think Jon said "she's a REAL HALES NOW!"--he was proud.

Movies are always playing at the Hales House. Usually a movie in one family room and a game in the other family room.

It was so cute to hear Jons mom say "Im so glad you guys live close-because we realize that Xmas is not fun when it's just us! We are SO happy we have a few family here to share it with!!!" It made Jon & I feel happy that we chose to live here near both of our parents. The cousins ALWAYS play so well with eachother and you can really tell they love to be with eachother.

Highs & Lows:

2010-12-19T21:23:00.000-08:00

Why do I call it Highs & Lows but start with the Lows?! random thought.

LOWS:
Jon came down with a 103 fever for quite a few days. After several doctor appointments, him giving me the "If this takes me out" speech and some antibiotics later-it was a REALLY bad Urinary Tract Infection.

The COLD weather is not good on Jons body. He is often in cold pain (but never tells anyone other then me!) He pretty gives his standard answer "Hey everything is GREAT!"

Trying to scramble to find jackets & gloves for all of us for the cabin in the snow. Hoping to just borrow it-I cant spend another 300 bucks to be "winter ready" for 3 days out of the year we will ACTUALLY be IN SNOW weather!

A science project looming that is going to be due Jan 5th. Need to bug Sarah to think of something.

HIGHS:
Jon back to himself again. PHEW!

Posting on FB my need for Jackets/gloves and people responding to help and let me borrow stuff--Facebook is SOOOOOOOOOO awesome!

Only having to buy ONE GIFT per child this year. They dont think they are getting any because they chose "no gifts and to go to a cabin instead!"-but I am getting them each ONE gift they REALLY truly wanted. Xmas morning will be sweet and simple.

Getting my DMV junk done with. I had to get a new license with a NEW photo--the stress to be cute! Getting the truck registered. Now I just need to trade in my truck plates for my new NURICHE plates I got.

Celebrating my 15 years of marriage to Jon.

Watching Rachel get award for 5 A's.

Hosting our 1st "Ugly Sweater Party" and having 40 people come and have a great time!

Hosting our 2nd GNO xmas night and having over 20 girls RSVPing to come!

NO SCHOOL FOR TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Highs & Lows:

2010-12-05T22:26:00.000-08:00

Lows:

Why is the month of December SO DANG BUSY?! I had stuff everyday/night last week and again this week--why does that bug me?

Jon missing his afternoon medication tonight(my fault-left drugs at home when we went to OC) so he is M.I.S.E.R.A.B.L.E. --sounds like it's going to be a LONG night for the both of us.

Highs:

GNO spur of the moment dinner! Love those--we shut down Yardhouse--we like to gab.

Having the missionaries over for dinner. I'm trying to have them in our home more-it's good for Jon and the girls. This week I made turkey, cheese, tomato on sourdough bread then placed it on the waffle iron-bam ghetto panini's! Add some avocado in there--DUHLISH!

Finding a cabin for our family for Xmas Vacation! This cabin is only 99 per night-ALL the other cabins are ATLEAST 300 per night. We will go the Monday after xmas and stay till Thursday. Happiness all around!

Receiving a GENEROUS gift from a dear friend-which paid for our cabin stay! She has been so sweet to our family. She always says "I have enough-why not share it!" I hope that when the day comes that we have "enough" I follow her example and "share it." It's so nice to know there are people in the world like her.

I was at home and checked into my FB to read how another friend was at the school watching her daughter get an award--I thought to myself "oh shoot both of my younger two are getting awards-is that today?!" Sure enough-IT WAS! SO I jammed around the corner and made it in time-whoo hoo for Facebook!!

Jon & I spending 11 hours, trying to REMEMBER 300 questions to take a test of only 35 to be Ham Radio Certified. Jon only missed ONE question and I only missed THREE. I havent taken a test for about 16 years! It was fun to take the class together, study together (we had about ONE HOUR) & then NAIL the test!

Spending Sunday to clean the house-why is Sunday the BEST day EVER in the week to clean my house?!?!? Oh well-does it count if I sing hymns in my head as keeping the Sabbath Day holy? I hope so. It REALLLLLLY makes for a nice week to start off the week with everything in order. The girls helped and I let them drag in the xmas clutter to decorate. Why does Xmas decor make me feel claustrophobic & grumpy? Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me?!

Highs & Lows:

2010-11-29T15:32:00.000-08:00

Lows:

Feeling like Im not cutesy, celestial enough to update my blog like all my other friends do!!!

Having ALL four girls barf for thanksgiving weekend.

My bday on Thanksgiving Day-then barfing all through the night & feeling nauseous for 36 hours STRAIGHT!

My family having to be stuck home from Thursday till they went back to school because I was sick.

The THOUGHT of Jon getting what I did!

Highs:

Not caring about not being cutesy, celestial enough to update this dang blog!

FINALLY not feeling nauseous.

My family not really wanting Xmas gifts this year--HELLO!!! I must be doing SOMETHING right here?!

Girls back in school.

Going to a Brazilian BBQ.

Losing 5lbs from all the upchucking!

All four girls getting REALLY good report cards-even the girls I was worried about!

Reading all the Facebook Bday Shout outs.

and Lastly-Updating this dang blog! THE END.

Highs & Lows:

2010-10-24T19:59:00.000-07:00

LOWS:

Needing TWO dental implants now. I lost one tooth & to get an implant

is $4500. I had a root canal down on another tooth which set me back 1k-just 3 weeks ago the dentist used what tooth was left and filled a cavity with the expensive white filling only for me to have it COMPLETELY come out along with some of my tooth--CLASSY! I feel so ghetto. Luckily I have an appointment tomorrow which was to "build up the remaining tooth for a crown"--wont they be surprised when i "open wide!" With TWO implants needed now I'm looking at 9 grand---lovely. My friend has a dentist in Tijuana that is sounding better by the minute! www.mybajadental.com
I feel a girls weekend happening!!

Missing a day from the gym. I only go mon/wed/fri to this new B.R.U.T.A.L class at 845am-930am. The instructor is a professional "humbler" I like to call her. I thought I was pretty fit--

um yeah totally NOT in her class! I love it though. We like to say things like shizzz this is HARD and my personal favorite "Jesus take the wheeeel!" There is only 5 of us in there and she has us rotating doing different things. I love it because we NEVER do the same thing twice-ever. SO when i MISS a day (because jons nurse has to take a test)I am SO BUMMED!

Having the 3 older girls take turns doing the ENTIRE kitchen clean up. Yes I know it's in the "low" section because I am kind of a neat control freak.

I like things done ALL the way-not half way. Right now I have Sun-Sarah, Mon-Me, Tue-Rach, Wed-Me, Thur-Anna, Fri-Sarah & Sat-Rach. Each of us has to wash our own cup, fork, dish and put in sink but whoever is in charge has to clean off the entire table, put food away, rinse off everything else, unload & load dishwasher & then sweep. I feel like for a while I am going to have to "hover" (mom's you know what i mean!) to make sure it gets done right. I'm not really looking forward to this part of it.

HIGHS:
Losing almost 3 more pounds this week! YES!! This makes almost 6 lbs lost in two weeks. Happy day.

Taking the girls to see You Again-

it's only PG and they enjoyed it as did I. We were all cracking up-a great wholesome movie (which seriously is SO rare these days) that didnt put me to sleep nor was it animated. Heaven.

Going to the movies with Jons dad, bro mark, & sisters Krist & Katie. We saw Red-

it was totally up my alley, my kind of movie-CIA-ish. I loved it and figured out the twists & turns through out the movie.

Hearing about how much FUN Rachel had at her Leadership Retreat. She told me she met so many new friends from school that she never really talked to. She said she was able to "just be herself" and that people liked her for that. Makes me kind of sad to think at regular school she feels like she "just cant be herself"-I can tell she's still trying to "find herself" with all these kids from school. It's hard for me to relate since I went to a private school from 3rd-8th grade and graduated with 7 other classmates in my ENTIRE 8th grade class! We pretty much all knew each other since we were little kids.

Finding some cute "winter shoes." It's been FREEZING here and my flip flop days are coming to an end soon. So I was on the hunt for some cute "winter shoes" and I found them! They are grey flats but are more like slippers.
they are PERFECT because they have a hard sole on the bottom, cute & trendy to dress up with, yet fuzzy on the inside so your toesies stay warm!! BEST EVER! They were on sale for 18.99 (which is a lot but i figured -well if i wear them ALL winter it's worth it) then when she rung it up and it was on sale FROM 39.99 I had to take a triple check--dang.

Highs & Lows:

2010-10-17T22:14:00.001-07:00

LOWS:

Coming home from church to see my neighbor extending their front yard fence. I knew we where too ghetto for them.

They are "interesting" folks. I think in the almost nine years we've lived here we've had maybe three conversations?! Maybe they just got tired of looking at my weeds.....

It looks a little random to have it stick out right there--oh well.

The cooler weather is not easy on Jons body. He is like my own weather man! His body gets really tight and uncomfortable when it's cold. The past couple of days (and two more days ahead of us) have been a little hard on him. Naturally he'd NEVER let anyone know that though.

This past week my schedule was ALL free and clear-as I look back at it tonight every single day I had something going on--good grief!

Monday Jon had a DR appointment-we discussed some good medication he tried for two weeks that really helped his bladder. Unfortunately it's not really covered by insurance. We are working on it-but if it does get help from insurance our copay for a 30 day supply is $75---for heaven sakes.

HIGHS:

Getting my taxes done in ONE HOUR AND getting a refund!?!?! How did THAT happen!?! Total blessing (the one hour time & the refund).

Our Disneyland passes expired on the 15th! Yes I am aware that I have posted this in the HIGH section--I am not a real fan of Disneyland between the crowds, long lines, frustrated parents with their impatient children--not my scene. We decided since they expired soon to keep the kids home from school and hit it "one last time." Only down fall was it was also UEA (Utah Education Association) which means the schools have that week off which translates really to Utahans Entering Anaheim! It ended up being pretty crowded and I felt like I was in Zion.

Rachel got asked to join the Jr High Leadership Camp (for school council). She's not involved in any of the leadership positions but was asked to come anyway. She is on yearbook and her design was chosen for the yearbook for the year. Kind of fun for her to get asked to come! (She's has had her phone taken away for 4 weeks as well as FB-and I must say it's been heavenly.)

She's a good girl-just needs to stay busy with good things!!!! Teenagers are H.A.R.D.--especially girls!

Friday night I had my family come over for a get together. I had an Aunt/Uncle visiting from Arizona so we all got together. It ended up with the women at the dining room table (yeah we pretty much all quickly ran in there so the men had no where to sit! HA) and the men gathered/ate in the living room. I love my mom's side of the family--they are SO FUN and SO down to earth. My grandparents had SEVEN daughters and THREE sons!!!! The house was chaos with lots of kids running around-but I love that and it doesnt bother me. I know some people can't handle that--but truly I have learned to tune kid chaos out! HA

Family is such an important unit. It's important to always get together as much as one can. I LOVE having my house full of people--especially when it's family!

Highs & Lows:

2010-10-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

Lows:

Becca being injured and needing an ice pack THREE times in one week. The wrist, the arm, the chin--for heaven sakes already this is why i didnt have any boys!

Becca come home crying because she couldnt write her lowercase o correctly. After talking to her she said "the teacher kept telling her she wasnt writing it right." Then Becca started crying-then the teacher said "if you keep crying you have to pull your card." So i asked Becca "if the teacher hurt her feelings & broke her heart?" Becca replied "yes." --this is what I ask becca when she cries about something -it's usually because someone said or did something and if i just ask "oh becca-did that hurt your feelings or break your heart?" she says "yes" and then she's fine.

So I called the teacher and asked what happened. I could tell right away she was on the defensive-which is probably natural. She even made the comment "and this isnt the first time she's cried-she's done it a few other times!" I wanted to go postal on her--but didnt. I took a deep breath, didnt say anything for a few seconds then said "Becca is very sensitive. If she feels like she is doing something wrong she feels terrible and her only coping method is to cry. She doesnt know how to handle letting someone down yet. So next time she's struggling please ask her "becca did that breakt your heart or hurt your feelings-because i dont want to break your heart-so lets take a big deep breath and start over."--then take the breath and start over. I also told the teacher "i dont expect you to console my daughter every time--you are there to teach and not break to console her--but maybe the first few times might help her to regroup her feelings and thoughts more easily." In the end I could immediately tell the teacher was changing her tone of voice and she thanked me for calling and giving her guidance on what to do should something happen again. I told her to please feel free to contact me by phone if there is a problem.

Poor Becca--she's my baby--and well yeah there's a TEENY bit of extra love for her.

I think i feel bad because i spent so much time with Jon recovering from his accident and getting acclimated with life that I missed out on so much of her growing. I saw her running back into the house because she forgot her shoes for the library and as I watched her it made me visually freeze that moment and then flash forward to her being 17 and running in real quick to get something. I find myself taking more moments to capture a memory in my mind--because for some STRANGE reason my memory of my life and my children's life is HORRIBLE. I do NOT remember much!!

HIGHS:
Watching Rachel make the 8th grade volleyball team! She made 7th grade last year. This year was WAY harder and more intense--I was nervous.

Beginning the Roadshow practice (I am in charge with my friend Erin Thompson)-STRESSFUL. It was GREAT to see everyone excited about it and really getting into it.

Attending Anna's BFF baptism. Anna "met" kate when they were both 3-5 months old-us mommies were nursing in the mothers lounge. Kate's mom Kristen & I have been close friends ever since that day. I'm so grateful for Kristen--and love that Kate & Anna have such a great friendship--the kind of friendship where you know they will be college roomies when they grow up a bit more!

Finally getting the Turbo Tax CD so I can start my taxes ALL this week that are due on Friday--again STRESSFUL! I hope/pray I can manage to get it all done. This year feels extra complicated with businesses we have going on.

And lastly--getting a blog post in!! YES i feel like I can enter back into the Celestial Kingdom again--or atleast rejoin the "Mormon moms who do everything perfectly" club again!!

CRUD!

2010-09-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

Dangt--its been 6 weeks since my last blog update! I find myself TERRIBLE at keeping this up--facebook is just 1000 times easier.

Anna had her baptism--Chad's family SURPRISED us and showed up in this Christmas Vacation RV look alike--it was HILARIOUS! SO cool of them to drive down for it--we all came back to our house for Mexican Grub--i got 2 tacos, beans & rice for everyone that was there--seriously the ONLY way to feed 25+ people!!!!! We all went swimming too--even Jon--first time since before he was hurt--good times.

We never made it on a little family vacation this summer--next summer though all of us Hales are renting beach houses in Newport 2nd week of August--that should be fun!

My brother Clay got engaged and will be married 3rd weekend of September so my side of the family is driving to Arizona for that--

School has started for all four girls and it has been J.O.Y.O.U.S!!! It took a couple of weeks for the girls to REMEMBER how to come home, grab a snack, do homework at the kitchen table, do their chore and put their marbles in. Everyone is in full swing of things now though--I had to lay down the law on that one! I am kind of (BIG TIME) nazi about homework.

Well not much of a fun update--im thinking I may have to go to the HIGHS and LOWS of the week--that's an easier task!

Overwhelmed...

2010-07-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

with everything i want to do, everything i should be doing, everything im not doing. Does anyone ever feel this way!? GEESH!

Blogging is one of those..I need to update with Anna's bday post, (she's being Baptized July 31st by JON!!) Jon was able to baptize Sarah after his accident-it took 2-3 other guys (his brothers) in the font to help him--but he did it!! We are all looking forward to another beautiful spiritual experience again. What an amazing thing to witness that Jon can still perform such a VITAL ordinance even though he is paralyzed.

My heart has been SOOOOOOO heavy with the passing of sweet Max Harris. I along with so many other mothers out there have found ourselves crying (bawling!). This is an ENTIRE post in itself.

Im STILL trying to see if i can pull off any kind of "mini vacation" for our family--we will see if anything works out! I am WAY ready for August 23rd to get here--life is so much easier when school is in session!

Summer-Hales Style!

2010-06-23T21:38:00.000-07:00

YES school has been OUT since June 10th for us--but I will admit I know EXACTLY when school STARTS around here...August 23rd!!!!!!!! We cant believe that at that time ALL FOUR girls will ALL be gone. If you need myself or Jon we will be out to lunch, at the mall, at the movies--who knows! GLORIOUS.

Summer has been off to a great start for us--this is pretty much our schedule.

Each morning while Jon is getting ready for the day from 730am-1030am & I am at the gym and doing the food run from 830am-1000am the girls ALL have to do the following and be DONE by 1030am.

Pick up room, make bed, dirty clothes INTO basket, eat breakfast, take shower, brush teeth, get dressed, pick up their designated room downstairs & clean up kitchen.

Let me just say this has been a DREAM for me! They ACTUALLY do all of that and are ready to start the "Summer Day" by 1030am--so all of us are ready to go do something fun!

Summer -Hales Style
Mon: Craft Day at home with mom & dad
Tue: 2 dollar Movies then swim at friends house (with FUN slide pool!) 2-5pm
Wed: Pharoah's Water Park 11am-4pm
Thu: Newport Beach 15th street 11-5pm followed by hanging with family in OC
Fri: Friend Day (they can have a friend over or go to a friends house)

My family thrives on a schedule--when they know what's expected of them and what our plan for the day is--its like MAGIC.

I will say not having anyone in diapers, bottles, carseats etc makes a HUGE difference for us. Also our kids aren't in any camps, sports, dance or extra activities. Also makes a big difference. I don't know how other families manage to do it all--HUGE KUDDOS to them!

How about you? Does your family have a schedule? Is your summer relaxing or a bit crazy?

We have been officially TEEN'D....

2010-06-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

Rachel turned 13 a couple of weeks ago.

We are not sure how it happened--one day she was a sweet young lovely child, the next day BOOM full blown teen with ALL it's glory!!!

For her bday she wanted AGAIN something easy & simple-YEAH for mom! She invited friends over, they went on a bigger or better scavenger hunt. I gave them a toothpick and they went to each neighbor asking if they had anything bigger or better-then they go house to house and see what they end up with. She LOVES to do this with her friends every year--this year they came back with a HUGE robot!

After the scavenger hunt they all hopped into the pool. This year we had a DJ playing all their favorite songs. SOOOOOOOOO FUN!!!!! They enjoyed pizza and all kinds of teenage grub. Later they came in and did some mattress surfing down our stairs--awesome.

We had our little family bday party for her too:

She REALLLLY wanted a pizza cookie instead of a cake--fabulous!

and YES ALL THING HOLLISTER.....

Rachel is too fun---our only concern is everyone THINKS she's 15/16!!!!!

Girls Weekend!

2010-05-19T08:12:00.000-07:00

Each year I get together with my girl friends. These girls have been with me through my MANY up's & down's of life these past few years. These were the girls that came to me when Jon got hurt, helped watch my kids, were physically here when I bawled my eyeballs out, helped me get through the struggles that presented themselves as time went by. I will forever be grateful for these few woman who never judged me for how I handled things but chose to instead do what they could to "just help." Don't we all need these kinds of friends!!!!

Kristen Thompson: I met her when I FIRST moved to our home here in Riverside. It was at church in the nursing room. We both were nursing our 3 month old girls. We started talking-soon discovering that we both LOVE FOOD and SLEEPING. Say NO MORE--Best friends FOR LIFE! Since that very day--I have considered Kristen one of my "best friends."
Celesta McGee: I met her at church as well. Apparently she either thought I was stuck up or just really did NOT like her! HA-I come across that way CUZ IM SOOOO SHY at first till I warm up to you. I invited her to a few of my "Bachelor Season Finale's" & the more I got to know her the MORE I got to love her. She is one of those easy going "no fake/no drama" kind of girls.
Amy Novak: I met her on my street a few months after we moved in. She lived 8 houses up from me. My oldest Rachel, 5 at the time, walked outside with her blanket and asked Amy's daughter "Hey do you want to see my blanket?" Amy-confused asked "Um where is your mom?" I came outside and we hit it off right there. Amy knows EVERYONE! Literally. Every time we go somewhere someone say's HI to her-she's like a celebrity. Cracks me up! Amy would do ANYTHING for ANYONE-I love that about her.
Erin Thompson: I met her through church. She is one of those WAY EASY going kind of girls. "Go with the flow-whatevs." She is the girl that is happy to take ALL FOUR of your children TO THE BEACH along with HER FOUR children! Every mom needs one of these friends! She dresses like a Rock Star & I am always trying to copy her latest look only she looks awesome & I come off looking like I tried WAY TOO HARD.

This year we decided to stay "local." We did GWO OC style. We have decided that from now one we will ALWAYS do the few days before Mothers Day. School is calmed down (no crazy school projects), our lives all seem a little less busy etc.

On Thur around 11am we piled into my truck & began GWO.

We drove to the OC airport to pick up Celesta

where I managed in MINUTES to get myself in trouble. Shocking I know huh. Apparently, as the nice cute officer told me, you are NOT allowed to be on the phone, have a passenger yelling out your sunroof, music blaring & not pulled ALL the way over to the curb. Who knew these rules!? Obviously not me. When the cute officer came to "deliver" all the broken rules I rolled down my window and asked "Oh perfect are you here to help load the luggage?" He actually was super cool and when he rattled off everything I had done wrong--I told him thank you and "peace out!"

We then headed off to the Mission Viejo Mall. We were starving and needed to shop. After KRISTEN was ALL done with HER shopping (inside joke) we headed off across the street to catch a movie Date Night-hilarious. We had the whole theater to ourselves. We then walked across from the theater to Riptide for our 6pm dinner reservations.
We had been waiting around for our bill-but not really caring because we had NO KIDS torturing us when suddenly the manager comes over. He asks us how our meal was? We replied "SO GOOD!" He then places a piece of paper on the table with a BIG FAT ZERO on it and says "thanks for joining us today!" What in the world?! Did he just basically tell us our meal was PAID FOR?!?! Celesta whips out "do you even work here?" Seriously-were we getting punk'd by Ashton Kutcher or what's going on?? The bill was NOT CHEAP! It HAD to have been atleast 200! We all pitched in extra for our waiter-a "pay it forward" kind of deal. We walked out of there STUNNED that someone had just paid for all of our meals!

We then headed off to our Hotel.

The Laguna Cliffs. This place was AMAZING. We plan to just come to THIS hotel EVERY year-ya it was THAT GOOD!!!!

From the entrance--just beautiful.
driving further up the hill to the hotel doors:

We pulled up to the valet and handed off the car--then walked into this GORGEOUS hotel and checked ourselves in.

They told us our room had been "upgraded" to an ocean view WITH a balcony!

They had recently remodeled the hotel.

At about 10pm that night we all had the urge for a BJ's pizookie!

We hoped back into the truck and made our way down PCH to the nearest BJ's.

We each ordered a SMALL (yes did you know you can ACTUALLY order a SMALL pizookie! It's only 2.95!)pizookie & moaned with every bite we took-dulish. If for some STRANGE REASON you have NEVER had one of THESE here is a link to show you how to make yourself one at home. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/08/how-to-make-a-pizookie-or-a-pizza-cookie-recipe.html

We then headed back to the oh so perfectly, lovely, and quiet hotel. We all plopped onto our beds and SADLY directly onto EACH of our own cell phones.
We spent a LOT of time on our cell phones!

The texting went wild, the FB status updates rocking, internet searches, emails etc-CUHRAZY! We all came to chit chat and ended up quietly alone with our own cell phones-classic. Do you know people who when they get on their cell phone SUDDENLY start talking WAY LOUD (Amy & Kristen)--isn't that funny when that happens!! I would tell them "Um HELLO you are yelling." Kristen told me, "Well I cant hear on the other end." Okay then!

The next morning SOMEONE Ms. Celesta decided we needed to get up and cracked opened the heavy drapes. Seriously-who does that?! Just kidding. We had decided the night before we would hit up Denny's for breakfast. We decided since it was SO NICE (seriously the ENTIRE TRIP was PERFECT WEATHER!!!) to walk to Denny's. The WAY CHEAP food was so grub.

Kristen was off to get her pampering massage

while the rest of us went out to the pool

and RELAXED chit chatting away in the sun. They had these GREAT Cabana chair/set up things

(like I mentioned they recently remodeled the entire hotel so even the cabana's were NICER then this! Think REALLY cushy padding.) at the END of the grass overlooking the ENTIRE ocean...HEAVEN!!!! We SERIOUSLY could have just stayed in this ONE spot the ENTIRE time we were there.

After Kristen's massage she came over to tell us to go hit the spa for our showers-they had EVERYTHING we could possibly need. So we gathered up our stuff and headed to the spa area. She was NOT JOKING!!! They give you a lovely Robe and sandals. Then you step into a HUGE shower. It had TEN sprayers on EACH wall PLUS a HUGE sprayer from the ceiling. Talk about feeling like you are drowning!! They had shampoo, conditioner, gel, cream, lotion-everything. They had the hairdryer, deodorant spray, razors, toothbrushes/paste, seriously-EVERYTHING! In the spa area they also had a steam room & a dry sauna as well as the spa. HEAVEN.

After the HEAVENLY PERFECT shower-we got ready to find ourselves a yummy Mexican place to eat. We hurried & got ourselves put together.

obviously Kristen got ready FASTER then I did! We all did the change of outfits a few times, swapping and sharing clothing items-it was like we were all roommates in college. Good times!

We found this great place right off PCH--they HANDS DOWN had THEE best chips EVER!! Thick, warm--oh sooooooooooooo good!! We then went shopping for a little bit. We hit up Nordstrom were I purchased my VERY FIRST outfit.

Too fun! Amy & Erin helped Kristen & I to find cute outfits (because seriously I cant seem to make things I pick out work right!!!) Of course we HAD to hit up BJ's once AGAIN--pizookie.

The next morning Kristen & I got up for a nice run outside. What a workout we did! We also did a little bit of weights in their gym & then hit the spa showers AGAIN-seriously I couldnt get enough of that spa area!!!!

We all checked out and hit up the OC Swap meet for a little bit MORE shopping. After we found a place to get our pedicures then off to find GRUB. We found a Yardhouse (which I had never been to before), ate a DUHLISH lunch & talked.

It was then time to get Celesta back to the aiport. She needed to be dropped off at 545pm--so OF COURSE as soon as she walks thru the doors she gets a text telling her that her flight was DELAYED till 830pm--GEESH! She ended up staying and the rest of us took off back home.

Girls Weekend was SOOOO enjoyable and perfectly positioned the DAY before Mothers Day! Thanks for coming with ladies---Big Loves to you All!

in the meantime...

2010-05-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

I have created a whole girls weekend update--but STILL waiting on my FRIEND (hint hint ERIN THOMPSON!!) to give me her photos she took---the weekend was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO fabulous!!!

SO in the meantime...here are some lovely photos of my ADORABLE two young children at their BEST!

Awesome huh! SIIIIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHHHHHHH

on the bright side-while at Girls Weekend my sweet awesome most terrific mother-in-law Sandra put in a FABULOUS new garden with my 2 older girls

How GREAT is that -right!

So I in turn spent ALL last week making the backyard cleaned up and READY to bring on summer

the end!

Trials are for others..not just yourself.

2010-04-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

Maybe that's why God gives us trials.

It's honorable. It comes with deep responsibility. Our response to trials doesnt just affect us. It's not suppose to.

You become a complete open book (if you allow yourself). Judgements come-some are harsh & surprising. Some are tender & beautiful. I will be the FIRST to say "I could have done/handled some things differently." But it wouldnt be true to who I am or my character. Which needed to change.

Just today I have received two separate messages from people that know me. I am worried that maybe this "boost" of spirituality is preparing me for something in the near future!?

"Christina,
You don't know me, but I have followed your blog for years now and always been strengthened by your faith and wonderful attitiude! I never would have guessed in a million years I would be put in a position as a caregiver for my own husband, but last week he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and underwent brain surgery. I have thought of you a lot, and remembered things that helped you. Thanks for sharing your challenges. They really have blessed others!
love,
Wendy"

Niagra Fall of tears. Cleansing. Rejuvinating. Re-Energized. Strengthened.

"Have I told you about Christina? SHE is really an amazing woman! I totally admire and look up to her in so many ways- seriously- I have "known" her for over 4 years I think now- before her husband was in his accident and put in a wheelchair-she has 4 little girls and works really hard at everything she does- we "met" on a mormonchic, and then she started a blog and then I did.. that is how we have kept in touch- we have talked on the phone a few times- I feel like I totally know her although we have never met in person-ANYWAY... get to know her- you won't be sorry! While going through this trial with her husband she is still really beautiful, an incredibe mom, a service oriented person, hard worker, super funny, down to earth, an entrepruner, tell it like it is- and super friendly, all things I LOVE I could go on and on about her amazingness."
-Lauralee

WELL! That pretty much sums me right up then doesnt it.

SERIOUSLY THOUGH--I am WAY worried with all the "Nice-ities" coming my way!!!!!

Spring Break ING & reflect ING!

2010-04-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

It was sooooooooooo nice to not wake up and shuffle kids out for school all week!

Monday: We hit 2 movies at the $2 theatre.
Tuesday: Took all four girls to the mall - Rachel bought herself more Vans, Sarah purchased her FIRST pair.
Wednesday: Beach at Corona Del Mar
Thursday: Bowling
Friday: Rented movies via Red Box (LOVE that thing!)
Saturday: Hiking in the hills

So looks like we had a good week of Spring-the weather was PERFECT total summer like.

As I went to bed Saturday night, I was reflecting on my week. Does anybody else do this? I think about the times I came up "short" in the motherhood department. I find myself saying, I could have done this better, that better, played more games with them, talked to them more etc etc etc etc ETC. Then I found my thoughts going towards "HELLO this is Satan's sharpest tool for mothers--to make us feel like we aren't doing a "good enough" job!

I realized that at this point, if I can get them to:

clean up their rooms everyday after school -JOB WELL DONE!
(I have to LITERALLY go up everyday to "check & pass it off")

brush their teeth- JOB WELL DONE!
(I have to LITERALLY smell their breath-that should win me a gold medal huh!)

read the scriptures with us and PAY ATTENTION-JOB WELL DONE!
(we are using this GREAT book that goes along with the scriptures)

pray as a family/personal prayers-JOB WELL DONE!
(we do this with Jon each night usually in our room)

spend one on one time-JOB WELL DONE!
(each Sunday we call them in one by one oldest to youngest, we ask them how their week went, is there anything they are struggling with, need help with, want our help with etc--they LOVE this & are surprisingly very open and honest)

My Patriarchal Blessing states "You will have noble children." THE PRESSURE!!! Maybe this is why I find myself reflecting & worrying that I keep coming up short to this. But I am reminded time and time again-Satan will do ANYTHING to wreck my family-including paralyzing Jon.

HE WILL NOT WIN. Can I get an AMEN!

Prepare, Preparing or Prepared???

2010-04-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

For quite a while now I have had PREPARE on my mind a LOT lately. Not sure if it is because of our situation with Jon's injury? Our lack of income for FOUR LONG YEARS NOW? The constant earthquakes we keep having or the BIG one everyone else keeps having?!

One night I felt prompted to get a tubbermaid container and spend a FHE night having the girls get an old pair of sneakers, socks, jeans & a tshirt. We put our clothes into that tubbermaid container and put it in the cupboard upstairs in the hallway. One of my fears is, we have an earthquake in the middle of the night-we are all shoeless & me stuck in my religious wear!!

We may never need that tubbermaid in that certain spot. But maybe I just needed to follow that little prompting?

We also have a large rolling trash can that has 6 72 hour back pack kits complete with water, food, toilet paper, pad of paper, pens, wipes, cup, shampoo, soap, deodorant etc etc etc. This past FHE we pulled them out took inventory & then I purchased all new food. Kinda of funny-I THOUGHT it had only been a "couple" of years--my bad. We looked at the yummy crackers and carmel--um OOOPS it WAS ORIGINALLY crackers and cheese!! nasty.

This General Conference the girls will get to eat the oh so yummy emergency food and replace it with fresh food (obviously minus the "carmel & crackers!").

Within this large rolling trash can we have LOTS of supplies like flash lights, batteries, solar blankets, first aid kit, portable radio, tools, maps, 2 binders with TONS of emergency information, mask, even a bucket (cuz ya know someone may need to go potty!) etc etc etc. ALL of these things PLUS the 6 72 hour kit backpacks fit neatly into the rolling trash can. It's kinda like our "covered wagon!"

Again, we may never need these 72 hour kits. But we have felt prompted to take it seriously. Maybe once again, it's just about us being obedient to the promptings we feel for our own family.

Of course NOTHING brings as much comfort as being SPIRITUAL PREPARED! We were AGAIN having another lesson on being prepared. It was geared more towards "spiritually." I didnt quite FEEL LIKE my girls were "grasping the concept." I felt prompted yet again to be frank with them. Before I knew it, these words, sentences and thoughts came flying out of my mouth before I could edit! I turned to Rachel (almost 13) and said "Rachel, what if we had a serious earthquake and EVERYBODY died but you. Would you be spiritual strong enough to take care of yourself? To move on with your life? To get on your knees and ask for help? To know that Heavenly Father is with you even though your family was not?" Jon whipped his nervous eyes right over to me with the look of "ARE YOU JOKING ME?!?! What in the world!?"

SILENCE.

We talked about this. We spent time discussing this. Things were "grasped."

Lastly, we all know that in the end, if we are having a major fire or earthquake-Jons rules are to "Save Yourselves & Let Me Be!" --lovely huh.

My Father in Law...Robert Hales birthday post

2010-03-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

Our family LOVES this man. I have always felt that Jon is the only man that I know that reminds me of Christ the most. I have the same feelings regarding Jon's Dad-Robert. He is the only man that reminds me of Heavenly Father the most. I am definately blessed because of these two people in my life.

Growing up I had ALWAYS wanted to marry someone JUST like Robert Hales. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd get to marry one of his gorgeous sons! My mom use to tell me, "always take a look at the Father of the person you are considering to marry-most likely he will be JUST LIKE HIM." This couldnt be more true!

Robert is amazing.

He & Sandra have seven children, all active in the church, all temple marriages (Mark HURRY UP! HA JK), 5 Eagle Scouts, 5 Return Missionaries, I believe all 5 were AP's, all college graduates, all happy & healthy children expanding their broods. What a blessed man huh!

Robert has a great sense of humor. There is always an understanding between he & I that where ever we are driving,

we are ALWAYS in a race. ALWAYS. The rule is that you have to get OUT of your car and RUN to the front door and THAT determines the winner. Thankfully he is MUCH older then me and I use that to my full advantage!! During race mode we sometimes take different routes thinking one way is going to beat the other person. There have been times when an ENTIRE OPEN bag of cheetos have flown ACROSS the inside of my truck as I was determined to BEAT HIM-which I did! I LOVE that when we are all traveling up to Chad's house by car, that we RACE THE ENTIRE WAY. We get our BEST speed time in once Sandra & Jon have fallen asleep. Sandra & Jon do not approve of our racing ways however. Which makes it THAT more fun for the two of us!

Robert is COMPETATIVE! (Do you see how the racing fits RIGHT in there.) Have you SEEN this man play Pollyana?? Look out. You can NOT be whimpy when playing with him.
It doesnt even matter if you are a grandchild!

I can totally hear this conversation with Katie, "Geez Dad." With Robert's usual reply "WHAT?!"
He has killed players in Pollyana-simply because it just feels so good. Love it. He has played Pollyana for DECADES that when any number comes up-he knows EXACLTY where his player is suppose to be.

It's pretty amazing actually.

HOWEVER, Robert taught me how to play Chess when I was first dating Jon.

It was our first game. I wasnt aware of this competative nature of his at this point. But I am JUST as COMPETATIVE as he is. (again, we make the best racing team!) We are about 3/4of our way thru the Chess game. I am looking at the game, my pieces, my placements, the moves I could make when suddenly I realize "hmm, if I move this ONE piece to this ONE spot-game over." I wasn't totally sure yet because I had just been taught. So I bravely asked Robert "if I move this here, does that mean I win?" SILENCE. That was all I needed-movement was made, victory was won, his pride---SHOT DOWN!!!!!!!!!! We have yet to ever play a Chess game again, nor will I EVER give him THAT opportunity.

Robert is a kind kind KIND man. I've never seen him yell at anyone, raise his voice or get upset (well except for the Frey's Electronics fiasco! which was well deserved). He is always willing to help anyone out. He is one of the most generous men I know. Without his help-we would be living in a tent, I am sure of it! I have to laugh at this one story. Jon & I had just moved into our brand new home. The backyard wasnt even in yet. We decided to dig trenches to lay pipes for a spinkler system. We called Robert the day before to ask him to come help us. "Of course!" he said. The next day comes, we are ready to start digging. Robert pulls up and says "I am here to help!" Only coming out of the car are three men he picked up from OFF THE CORNER!!!! Jon & I look at eachother and start laughing, to which Robert does his usual "WHAT?! I said I'd help!" Comedy.

Robert LOVES either Carls Jr or El Pollo Loco. During the week you can ALWAYS find him at either of these places on Chapman Avenue. They know him by name. They know his order when they see his black shiny jag pull into the parking lot.

A number 14-NO CHEESE & Medium Diet Coke.
He comes to our house every Friday and we hit Carls Jr. He LOVES

their chocolate cakes.

The poor man gets severly congested when he eats anything that has cheese, butter or chocolate in it. I mean SERIOUSLY talk about trials!!!!!!!!!! He has the LARGEST amount and array of over the counter sinus congestion mediciation of ANYONE I KNOW. Whenever we get together for dinner, we promptly tell him what he can or can't have. He just eats what he wants anyway and follows it up with drugs. It's comical.

Robert is a TRAVELING MAN! He has this ONE HAT

that literally has been AROUND THE WORLD.

He & Uncle Mike goofing off-I hear there is a photo of him as he FELL OFF this contraption.

He LOVES to vacation with all of his family. One time Jon & I went with them to Hawaii in 2000. I will never forget chowing down on our chocolate macadamia nut ice cream on a waffle cone-dreamy. Both Mark, Jon & myself turn around to see Robert wearing "the hat" with a hawaiian themed shirt, camera around his neck, black jean shorts -which up to this point doesnt sound too bad right? No, IT GETS WORSE. Let's move on down to his choice of footwear. Let me also quickly point out that he has no ability to tan his legs-ever. We gaze our eyes past his Holy Ghost legs to see black sandles with black CHURCH SOCKS! This is an image I will truly never forget.

Robert has a tradition at Christmas time to give each of us $50 to spend how we want. HOWEVER each year he likes to HIDE it in something. He has put the money in chocolate angles, See's Candy Boxes, Cans of soup, the freezer-for the 14 years Ive been in the family, 14 different ways. We LOVE IT and look forward to it each year.

Robert also has this obsession with LARGE HOOD ORNAMENTS. He drives a black Jaguar.

He doesnt want to get a BMW or a MERECEDEZ because the hood ornaments are "dinky & not manly enough". Cracks me UP!

Lastly, Robert is one spiritual GIANT. The man knows the Gospel inside & out. He once taught Gospel Essentials class & had MORE people in his class then the regular Sunday School class! I love that when he teaches anything about the Gospel, he challenges our thinking and makes US think of the answers ourselves versus him just telling us the answer to Gospel questions. He has an unwavering testimony. He is deeply connected to Heavenly Father & Christ.

My family is blessed by this wonderful man-and will continue to be blessed...well until he FINALLY FINDS his acres of land he's always wanted (he's always looking for lots of acres that we can have a Hales Compound on) and asks us to join him in bedouin tents

if THAT happens it will change EVERYTHING!

Happy Birthday Robert---we all love and adore you!

It's been FOUR YEARS!

2010-03-16T17:43:00.000-07:00

This is what our schedule/life was like FOUR YEARS AGO:

March 2006
Jons Daily Schedule..

12am-Cath, rotation in bed and give meds(baclofen)
2am- rotation in bed and meds
4am-Cath and rotation in bed
6am-rotation in bed and meds
8am-Cath, rotation in bed, dressed and breakfast
9am-Meds
10am-rotation and meds
1130am-transfer to wheelchair
12pm-pressure release for 5 minutes (meaning i have to get onto the couch and tilt his wheelchair back into my lap to relieve pressure so he doesnt get a pressure sore)
12pm-lunch and meds
1230pm-pressure release for 5 minutes and then range of motion exercises
1pm-pressure release for 5 minutes
130pm-pressure release for 5 minutes
2pm-pressure release for 5 minutes and meds
230pm-pressure release for 5 minutes
3pm-pressure release for 5 minutes and meds
330pm-pressure release for 5 minutes
4pm-cath, pressure release for 5 minutes and meds
430pm-pressure release for 5 minutes
5pm-pressure release for 5 minutes
530pm-pressure release for 5 minutes
6pm-pressure release for 5 minutes, meds and dinner
630pm-pressure release for 5 minutes
7pm-transfer back into bed and start bowel program
730pm-transfer jon onto commode chair for continued bowel program
8pm-transfer jon back onto bed, change clothes, bath, and meds
9pm-meds
10pm-meds and rotation in bed
12am-Cath, meds and rotation in bed

so as you can see - its VERRRRY busy and LOTSSS of chaos in our life right now..mix his schedule in with him having physical therapy at the home 3 times a week and occupational therapy 3 times a week, plus 2 doctors appts which will take a total of 3 hours getting there, waiting and returning home...

i have to help with all of that AND then help the 2 older girls do their homework from 3-4pm, try my best to have rachel practice her piano each day, feed girls breakfast, lunch and dinner, make them do their chores for the day, try to keep the house quiet for jon, change diapers, get juice cups and snacks, keep an eye on jon so that he doesnt black out or pass out, constantly ask if he's okay or does he need his feet up..if he does i have to be right there to do so or ill be in a HUGE mess, feeding him, getting a drink of water when he needs it, answer the telephone, work on our business by answering phone calls, checking and responding to business emails, staying on top of our business accounting, making sure and paying all business bills on time, getting my mail each day, staying on top and paying our home bills on time, getting girls bathed and showered, teeth brushed, prayers, fhe, scripture reading each day, fighting the fires between 4 young girls each day, working with a 2 year old who SCREAMS if im not right by her side constantly, laundry, washing all of jons towels, sheets, pillowcases, clothes, as well as all of our clothes, having all the neighborhood kids constantly in and out of the house, back and forth from the backyard to the front yard, making sure becca doesnt go outside and into the street, working on getting social security to help us out- which working with the government is a NITEMARE, keeping everything filed and organized regarding jon, bills, insurance stuff, charts, medical records, social security stuff, equipment manuals, numbers for when equipment breaks down, state disability information, TRYING to find a caregiver who can help me, figuring out what im going to do for 3 of my daughters bday's coming up this month and next month, trying to prepare for 2 weddings and the hales family cruise that had already been booked and paid for before the accident occured which will all occure in the month of june and THEN wanting some alone time by myself and on the computer but too tired so i just want to go to bed instead...

so as you can see...my life and jons life is extremely difficult right now, maybe people dont really know just how hard it is..i hope this may help you to realize when people ask "what can i do?"..that all i can say is..theres so much i dont even know where to start!

i KNOW this will get SO MUCH easier..but right now its REALLY hard and REALLLY hard on me the most right now..this is why im struggling to find a balance and help from a caregiver..because jon requires SO much ALLLL day and ALLL thru the night...it really is a LOT of work

When Jon FIRST got hurt-the FIRST person I called after family was Sis. Rushton. The one thing she said to me that I have NEVER forgotten was "It's hard right now but I promise as each year passes it WILL get easier!"
SHE WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOO RIGHT!

Now we have Amanda (our nurse) come in 730-1030 to prepare Jon for the day
His Mom comes out on mondays for 2 hours to work him out, his brother Mark comes on Wednesdays to work him out for 2 hours, and he comes back again on Friday with Jons dad to work him out for 2 hours.
He eats lunch around 2pm, helps the girls with their homework and Anna gives him the medicine he needs at 4pm.
Jon is able to more around SOOOO much more-he can do his OWN pressure releases.
He doesnt need medication around the clock-he has been able to get himself off major medication and only use what is needed.
Jon is doing SO well-that often times people dont even realize he's paralyzed!!!

We have been SOOOOOOOOO blessed the past four years with help from our families and from all of our friends-we cant thank you enough for bearing this trial with us. It wouldnt have been possible without all of you-thank you.

Our future is SO BRIGHT right now and we are SO ready to bring it in!

How did I get so lucky?

2010-03-08T17:20:00.000-08:00

Totally Stealing this idea from my friend-Thanks Amber!

Lows: WHY DO I HAVE THEE MESSIEST CHILDREN EVER!??????????
One Random Day Snapshot:

ANOTHER Random Day Snapshot:

and YET ANOTHER Random Day Snapshot:

DUDE those were THREE DIFFERENT DAYS!! Do you feel my pain-they are MESSY!

Someone please tell me I am not alone here. Why do I have such messy girls?! I secretly hope they "snap out of it" by the time they go to college or get married. I apologize in advance to their poor husbands. Hopefully they all just marry someone rich so the maid is included.

Actually they are REALLY good about cleaning it up when I ask them to. I have taught them to make "piles." One trash, one clothes, one toys. THEN put the piles away-this way it's not so overwhelming to them.

I guess my problem is the upkeep-it's great for one day, then I dont say anything (cuz I am never in their rooms-I mean HELLO they can dress THEMSELVES!) so when I actually walk past it I just sigh and close the door. Maybe I need to just be better about having them check on their rooms EVERYDAY!? Is that the secret I am JUST NOW figuring out?!??! Maybe I should just be grateful this is my only low this week!

HIGHS: Every Fast Sunday we get together with Jons family. We usually rotate houses, but lately it has just been easier for us to all meet at his parents house in OC.

Robert doesnt have any meetings on Fast Sunday by choice OR COMMAND as he is the Bishop! HA
So we have Jons parents, our family, Todd & Celene's family, Scott & Kellie and cute little Esther. We always do a "potluck style." Last night Celene made taco soup, I brought a big green salad & made cheddar/jalapeno bread-UM GRUB, kellie brought cut up fruit, mom/dad made their famous punch & a BIG OL' chocolate cake!

I LOVE that my girls are older and there is NO diaper changing, or referring or getting to things we arent suppose to. All of our kids get along SO well-it's so great. I LOVE that we dont discuss boring things or plop ourselves infront of a football game (those are definately happening on other days!!). We are always discussing DEEP things. Whether it's church topics, politics, where we see ourselves in the future, when we think the SO CAL earthquake will hit, what food storage supplies we have etc.

I realize that I am not really "spiritual fed" at church, but when I visit Jons family-I am definately spiritually FED! I come away (as I am driving us all home) feeling so blessed to be in this family, so blessed to have so many righteous examples to TRY to emulate, so grateful our children all get along so well as cousins, so blessed to be encouraged to try harder, do better. I always feel like my "batteries get charged!"

QUESTIONS: What are your secrets to a fabulously well kept childs room?
Do your families get together each month for Fast Sunday? Do your families have great discussions?

Surgery, Newlywed Game, GNO's... OH MY!

2010-02-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

Jon has been visiting the Urologist a lot lately to discover a 3-4 centimeter stone in his bladder. YIKES that's right it was CENTIMETERS not MILLIMETERS!!!!!!!!!!!
We had several tests that had to be done and concluded that he would need surgery to try to remove the stone from his bladder. This was basically a "Star Wars" game for the surgeon. Most stones are VERRRY teeny tiny-not this one though.

We had to check into the hospital at 830am-they put him under and an hour later they had lasered down 50-60% of the stone. The surgeon decided not to push his body another hour to remove all of it-
but to be happy where they had gotten and have Jon come in for another round of surgery.

We got out of the hospital that day around 430pm. We had to do certain procedure's every hour around the clock and thru the night. EXHAUSTION for both of us no doubt. We have SUCH great friends who brought in dinner for a couple of nights, Jons parents took the girls to the beach that day because there was no school. It went very smoothly all in all and we were SO grateful. When Jon had surgery when he broke his neck, it took 2 HOURS JUST to get the tube down his throat--so we were VERY nervous-but it all went smoothly... PHEW.

He had to stay down in bed for a full week-thankfully he is able to use his laptop while in bed so he got a lot accomplished, but by about saturday he was thoroughly bored with being up in the bedroom all alone with just the computer. He was so happy Monday came so that the cath could be removed and he could be up and about in his chair again. He has recovered SO WELL from it-we are all so happy.

We are not sure when the second surgery will be again-but atleast we know what is in store for us and can be prepared again with family & friend help.

Each year Jon & I host a Valentines Newlywed Game Night-one word. HILARIOUS! It is SUCH a fun night and the game takes sooooooooo long because we all can't stop laughing!

Jons brother Scott & Kellie have won the past couple of years, this time they were BEAT-all because Scott is a "better reader then her" um ya who knew?! Too fun.

Lastly, GNO's (Girls Night Out) are simply the best. I love Facebook because it strengthens friendships & helps you get to know other people you wouldnt REALLY get to know. Sometimes we limit our friendships with only those we attend church with, those we blog with or a select few that we meet at our children's schools or sports clubs. With Facebook I have been able to really get to know people, whether they are family I have reconnected with, friends I have reconnected with, people from previous wards, or schools I have attended. I have seen how most everyone is doing such a great job raising their own families, attending their own churches & being great role models.

I just love people & relationships. I love to know when their lives are good or when their lives are hard. I have learned from Facebook just HOW MANY PEOPLE I personally know that are suffering that I wouldnt have ever known. It is crazy to see so many are really suffering with illnesses, accidents, job losses, or financial situations. You then pick up the latest Ensign Magazine & every other article is about overcoming trials. The people of the Earth are no doubt being tested. In the end life is about our relationships here on Earth & what or how we strengthen them. I feel that blogging and facebook are great tools for just that.

I am grateful that through our trials of life, we have things like blogs, Facebook, & GNO's to get us thru these trying times. One of my friends recently posted on Facebook "When God closes one door, He opens another but that doesn't mean it's not hell in the hallway!" Sometimes that is the truth! It made me chuckle. There are some who could care less about blogging or facebooking and that's okay. To each is there own as they say! What works for one person may not work for the next.

I joke that I am the "Social Fun President!" around here. I am always wanting to get people together to do ANYTHING FUN! Even if it's sneaking off to Chili's at 10pm after all is taken care of at home for yummy cheese fries, or to Cherry on Top for a quick dessert OR a GNO. We have had up to 25 girls join us for a end of the month dinner at a restaraunts like Cheesecake Factory

or most recently Claim Jumper

-which by the way did you know the Blackened Bow Tie Pasta is 3778 CALORIES?!?!?!! dude. Thankfully I had the Cedar Plank Salmon

at only a WHOPPING 985 calories-good grief this was the only healthy thing they had!

I joke (altho I am being SERIOUS) that I am going to start filming all of us crazy ladies at one of our late night Cherry on Top visits

for The Real Housewives of the IE! (Inland Empire)--we have way too much fun together. LOVE ALL THESE GIRLS!

Jon & I are going to be working VERY HARD together with Nuriche. We are so grateful to have this chance to change our lives forever. Our life will truly be completely different in 16 months. We are SO grateful for a tool in which together we can use to make our future so bright. Our lives are moving in a forward direction!!! Happy, Happy Days for us.

Where'd my Thoughts go?

2010-02-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

I thought I had some good thoughts to write about but with my current head cold,

they seemed to be lost in with all the congestion! geesh

We have been struggling with our sweet Sarah.

The girl can back talk like NO OTHER! Does anyone else have this problem? Maybe it's just us!

And lets not forget about THIS!

It says "Mom is a Butt!" and in the hymns no less-nice.

I have always felt the child that acts out the most needs the most one on one time. When we pray at night, we always pray for our children and Sarah usually gets the "please prompt us in ways to help Sarah and to help change her behavior with love and kindess" hoping that we will be guided how to help her.

Sarah has a problem with "always having the LAST WORD!"
example:
ME: "Sarah can you please pick up the dining room?"
SARAH: "But I didnt make the mess!"
ME: "I know but you are incharge of that room."
SARAH: "That's not fair."
ME: "I know sorry babe-just hurry real fast."
SARAH: "But I didnt mess it up!"
ME: "I know just hurry and get it picked up-the other girls have their rooms they are cleaning up."
SARAH: "But that's not fair!"
ME: "Enough already honey-spend less time talking to me about it and pick it up real fast!"
SARAH: "But I didnt mess it up!"

you get the picture-and mind you she is saying each sentence AS I AM TALKING to her.
FRUSTRATING!

Needless to say she has spend the past THREE mondays in a ROW grounded for talking back. When we ground our children, it is "not to their rooms for 4 hours" but they get to clean-ya know all the stuff I dont want to do like laundry, baseboards, changing bed sheets etc. Our kiddos have to WORK when they are grounded.

Jon has felt prompted to take Sarah on a one on one walk to frozen yogurt. Apparently, she talked the ENTIRE TIME and told him all sorts of things every parent hopes their kids will do! It was awesome he said.

We have talked to her about HOLDING OFF to say anything until we ask her "Sarah do you have anything you want to say?" THEN she can give her opinion but not give her opinion DURING every sentence we speak to her. She has been SO MUCH better at it. I will hold up my fingers to my lips like "DONT SAY ANYTHING HOLD OFF!" and it works. I am happy that she is trying her best to change this behavior.

Last night Jon was incharge of Family Home Screaming. Why does it take us (sometimes) 30 minutes to go thru ONLY 5 minutes of the ACTUAL lesson?! I guess that's why I lovingly call it Family Home Screaming...sigh. Oh well-it didnt matter because at the end (our lesson was "Why it is important for us to have a strong testimony") & Jon was sharing his thoughts about why it's important and how life for them will be so different from our lives growing up and if they arent FIRM in their testimonies NOW-life will be even more difficult.
We looked over and Sarah had tears in her eyes. Imagine as parents how that made us feel-TOTALLY AWESOME!

We went to bed that night and our pray was giving Thanks to HF for helping guide is in direction with Sarah and being grateful that she was able to feel the Spirit right in our home. Isnt that what the Gospel teaches us-to teach our OWN children (not leaving it up to Primary) so that they know what it feels like to feel the Spirit. A sweet memory to be treasured in our hearts no doubt.

Last thursday we took the family to Disneyland.

Jons Grandma bought us all year passes-we had to go on Thursday to take our photos for the passes. It was PERFECT weather and we managed to hit all the rides in FOUR HOURS! We took the girls to Olive Garden for dinner after & hung out at my parents while the nasty 91 freeway traffic died down. It was a great day for our family.

Over the weekend Jon & I together attended a work event. It was great to be there with everyone & they had us speak to those in attendance.

Together Jon & I are going to be doing some amazing things with this company and feel it an honor with much responsibility to utilize this for our health and to help support our family. We are so grateful for those that have helped us along the way!

How do you help change the behavior of your children? Do you pray? Do you ground? What has worked best for you?

Am I a "Runner"...I'm still deciding.

2010-01-13T08:31:00.000-08:00

My conversations about "running" typically went like this:

"What, you run, on purpose? That's not even right. I only run if there is an emergency and even then i am debating the whole time if it's really even neccessary!"

Seriously-I HATED RUNNING. I hated how your heart would beat so fast, how you would get stomach cramps constantly, how your legs would feel like jello and twitch for 3 hours after you ran reminding you of how much you are not a runner, how you cant chit chat with your friend because you were DYING for air to breathe!

I think honestly I was secretly jealous of those that run. I mean really-they are slim and trim.

They can pop out of bed, bust out 3 miles and be done working out. They were always outside in the warm sunshine-blaring killer music from their iPods. Often times if it is warm enough you can have the pleasure of watching a very handsome man with NO shirt run in front of you (if you're lucky)

or run past you. Glorious.

Jon had always dreamed of running with his wife. He always thought that was "so hot" to be able to run with your wife. When he was in HS he was on the track team. He use to RUN to seminary from his house every morning...ALL UP HILL--CHAPMAN! He has some seriously NIIIIICE legs.

Wow-did I disappoint or WHAT?! I had began running with my friend Kristen (we actually chit chatted more then we ran-I mean really after the ENTIRE day of kiddos, dinner, laundry etc-women need to VENT!) & I was able to run a mile or two.

One day I asked Jon, "Babe, would you like to run with me tomorrow?" Imagine the thrill that went through his body. SO EXCITING! "HECK YA!" was his response.

It was a perfect SUNNY cool but not cold, warmth coming from the sunshine day. We dropped all the kiddos off at school and shuttled Becca to her preschool class. We were SET to go "running."

We begin our journey. I told him "when I run with Kristen she's ALWAYS on my right hand side-so you will have to be too." We start to pick up pace. Suddenly Jon begins to have some sort of conversation with me. I quickly remind him "Dude-NO TALKING while running!!!!" He replies, "Oh sorry-I didn't know there were "running rules?!" Too funny.

We ran one mile together. Jon was so ecstatic about it all. His dreams were, FINALLY after 10 years of marriage, coming true.

The very next day, almost 24 hours later from that very run-Jon broke his neck.

Fast forward four LONG years later. I am now a "Runner"-I think. About 8 weeks ago I decided I was going to start running. My heart would beat fast, my stomach would cramp, my legs would feel like jello and twitch forever-I never had enough air to breathe. Yet-I kept going. Little by little. First it was on the treadmill-adding more and more as the days and weeks went by.

I remember going 3 miles, then 4 then 5. Later I remember going 5 then 6 then 7 then thinking heck lets just see if I can get to 10! I did. DUDE. I just ran 10 miles. AMAZING.

I started running on Victoria Avenue-I always feel like I am in Hawaii when I run on this street.

So beautiful and peaceful. To bring in the 2010 year I woke up and ran 10 miles New Years Day. Probably one of my very favorite days of my life. It was just me, this gorgeous open road and my thoughts.

I then decided to take the "challenge" and run a HALF MARATHON.

It was in Irvine on a CRISP COOL morning. There were 3840 of us there that day. Imagine that many people all huddled together ready to take off on a 13.1 mile run AT THE SAME TIME. Can you say MOOOOOOOOOOOOW!? It felt like a herd of cows. They released the alarm to start, we begin the "shuffle run" and make our way to a small biking trail where AGAIN ALL 3840 of us are now having to MERGE into this VERY NARROW PATH. The "shuffle run" continues.

Finally it gets back to the wide open streets and the "real running" begins. I am totally enjoying it! I get to mile 5 and I now see who the winners will be of this race as they are going the other direction on their way back to the finish line. They ran 13.1 miles with a 5 minute mile pace. They are SMALL framed men, every muscle pronounced and skinny as all get out-GROSS.

By mile 8 I am now thinking-dang I'd be set if this was only TWO MORE MILES--but I have to go FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVEEEEEEE more?!?!? ugh. This is where I begin to think-this was great to do ONCE but NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN will I do a marathon.

Finally I get to mile 12--I am running and a younger boy says "good job you are at the half way point-only half mile to go and you're done!" AWESOME. We all start to kick it in gear to FINISH THIS THING ALREADY!! We are running, and running and running--Dude WHERE IS THAT FREAKING FINISH LINE!??!?! We come to an older lady who says "great job! you are at the half way point!" ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR freeze, hold up-"what did you just say?!" apparently that younger boy was wrong & needed to be smacked-hard.

I turn the corner and I hear another lady yell "you have 40 seconds left then you are done!" I see the finish line, the balloons, the big banner, the people. I am at the same time trying to look for Jon as he was there waiting for me in all excitement. I start sprinting my guts out and passed over the finish line.
FREAKING FINALLY.

I get my medal & guzzle my water. I find Jon

and tell him with the last bit of air I have left to breathe-"SO GLAD that is done and I will NEVER do that again!!"

Honestly I am thrilled that I did atleast ONE marathon. It got me to the point where I can easily run 3-5 miles every day if I wanted to. I have chosen to run 3 days a week and use weights the other 2 days of the week. This mixes things up enough for me.

I am NOW looking at the Ragnar Relay April 24th-25th and trying to put together a 12 person team. This is an event that your team runs from Santa Barbara to Dana Point with no breaks. Each of the 12 members take on 3 separate legs of the race. So leg one will run 3 miles, hop into the truck and runner 2 hops out to run 5 miles, hops in the truck for runner 3 to hop out etc etc. I want to call our team "Run 2 Grub" because honestly that is why I run & workout-SO I CAN EAT GOOD GRUB!!!!!! I love the idea of running down the California coast-that excites me.

I am so bummed that I did not take up running sooner so that Jon & I can do things like this together. He is able to go in his wheelchair and push alongside of me with his power wheels. Of course it's totally not the same-but better then nothing right!

So in the end...I guess I can now say "I am a Runner!"

Happy 14 Years Babe!

2009-12-16T09:16:00.000-08:00

I STILL cant believe I am actually a "Hales". Ive known Jons family from the age of 11. We were put in the same ward together at church. His mom was my YW's leader, his dad was my Senior Seminary Teacher. This family was awesome and still is today! I just ADORED Bro. Hales. He is one of my all time favorite human beings.

During my dating years, in the back of my journal I wrote down qualities that attracted me to people I dated & qualities that I wanted in a eternal mate. I will tell you that I had 76 qualities-& Jon had EVERY SINGLE ONE of those 76 qualities-NO JOKE. They were everything from the "usual" to the "very specific" just for me. I love that I did that! I will be teaching my girls to do the very same thing.

I remember my grandma in a church meeting. She had just heard Jon share his testimony of the Gospel and she thought to herself "Wow, I hope that someday one of my grand girls could marry someone like that!" NEVER did she think I would actually marry him! She was beyond excited to hear that I was engaged to "thee Jon Hales!" too cute.

Jon & I started dating in mid September. Our first date was to a church fireside on Faith. Every since that night we were together every single night from then on. He always called me "Babe" and still does. Love that.

To this day I remember first being around Jon in the Singles Ward, his knee was touching my knee and HELLLLOOO--I can still feel the butterflies in my tummy when I think back to that time. He ALWAYS opened my car door no matter WHERE or WHAT time it was. True gentleman. He always had me go through doorways first with his hand on the small of my back. He always sat in the correct seat at restaurants. It was all those little things that I had taken notice about him.

When it was time for our "first kiss" after a few dates mind you (again true gentleman!)-he leaned in....and...suddenly...kissed...MY HAND!?!??!? Seriously--like a Prince would kiss a Princess!! I thought to myself "what in the world!??!"---I LOVE THAT HE DID THAT. I had never dated anyone quite like him. This "gentleman" stuff was all new to me-& I LOVED every morsel of it!

He proposed to me Nov. 5th at 1030pm. Honestly I thought he was joking around with me. He was being his usual sentimental sensitive self while I was trying to hold back laughter. I am SO NOT mushy gushy & Jon is very mushy gushy!!! Which I do love, except when I am watching tv-that is not the time to ask me what "my hopes & dreams are!" Haha just kidding--little inside joke there.

Jon had all these big ideas about "proposing"--like the "event" of it all. But I LOVE that he did it by the Spirit. He felt prompted to ask me right then & there-and so there we were in the middle of his living room at 1030pm, he knelt down and said some of the most precious things ever girl wants to hear...& asked me.

I remember telling my Dad about how I felt about Jon. I remember my Dad asking me "Do you love him?" Still to this day I remember the tears rolling down my Dad's face as he told me how proud and happy he was for me. Such a tender moment for the both of us I will always treasure.

We then got married just SIX weeks after we were engaged--Ya I know HELLO right!? We had our "rehearsal dinner" the night before at Claim Jumpers on 17th street. SO GRUB! The next day we realized that NEITHER of us had a RIDE TO THE TEMPLE to get married!!!!! Everyone was going at different times and taking all the cars--thankfully our friend Wendy said "use my car!" So together Jon & I drove to the temple to get married. I remember we cranked up Aerosmith as we drove (probably not the most spiritual thing to be listening to on the way to the temple!!-but that's us!).

After we were sealed in the temple for life here on Earth and life in Heaven, I remember TONS OF PHOTOS being taken outside. I paid a HUGE price tag for my photography-because at the end of the day, you dont walk away with the "decor" you walk away with your PHOTOS!! It was NOT CHEAP-but worth EVERY single penny.

The reception was amazing. I wanted it in the house I grew up in. So happy I made the choice to do it there. My friend Wendy helped my mom transform it to look even more beautiful. Our house was 9000 sq ft. I helped my mom EVERY SINGLE Saturday to clean it. Figured we should put it to good use right!

We didnt want to do the usual "sandwich, fruit & veggies" for the reception-so we opted for a "desserts only" style! We had all these gorgeous cheesecakes, and POUNDS & POUNDS of See's chocolate! It was off the hook.

I remember the "first dance"--I danced with my Dad. Love this man. He is a BIG MAN (6'6.5--football size man)--something about a Big Daddy with his little girl dancing that just makes you tear up!

I remember Jon whipping out his guitar to play "our song" I Cross My Heart by George Strait. He had learned it on his own. I had ALWAYS hoped that whoever I married would do that-I never mentioned this to Jon before. I was in Heaven when he brought out his guitar-I kept thinking GET OUT NO WAY!!

I remember when it came time to do the cake, his mother had told him "Jon be nice & respectful-do NOT get it all over her dress or her face-Christina will NOT be happy about that!" Really she was drilling him about it. So naturally he was very nice about feeding me my piece.
I on the other hand-are you kidding me?! I was all in--I switched my piece so that frosting was towards him, then gave it to him gently-then SMEARED IT ALL OVER HIS FACE!!!!!!!!!!! The crowd went wild-it was hilarious. He was in shock.

When it was time for the garter belt removal (So not his favorite thing)-- I gave him one leg (which did NOT have the garter belt) on purpose, so he kept going up and up and up my leg LOOKING frantically for the dumb belt-It was SO FUNNY!! Then I told him "Oh oops-sorry its on the OTHER leg, my bad!" Good times.

As we left our reception-gave our hug goodbyes and headed out the door

-we realized we were STARVING and on our way to the honeymoon suite-we stopped at Del Taco for some GRUB-seriously we did! Too funny huh.

We have a wedding video of that day-it's so fun to watch it and remember all those good warm fuzzy feelings from that day. I've always ALWAYS felt it important to REMEMBER that day, how we felt when we dated, got engaged, got married etc. It's important.

Here we are 14 years later. MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR life changes & challenges-yet our love for eachother remains steady & strong as ever before. I love that Jon loves me despite my very UNPrincess like ways--I am sure he'd love for me to be way more mushy gushy--I am learning!

Happy 14th Anniversary BABE--Love ur guts like no other!!! (see not very princess like huh-sigh-but like they say "Marriage is not about changing, but loving and accepting"-so I'm good).

Christmas is DONE!

2009-11-29T11:19:00.000-08:00

I am on a ROLL this year with Christmas. By Nov 23rd I got ALL my xmas cards done! I use www.overnightprints.com. Jon helped me design our card, I wrote a quick "wrap up" then uploaded it to their site. They are able to print 100 of them, stuff them into envelopes, address them, stamp them and mail them OUT--OH YA!!!!

Next I went on Nov 25th(girls got to spend the night at Jons parents house) & got ALL my xmas shopping done-including good deals. Got gifts for the girls and our parents--WHOO HOO!

On Nov. 29th Jon & I went to the movies with Jons parents and we let the girls "decorate" the house. So great to come back 2 hours later to a decorated house-granted it's kid style-but whatever. Im so not a fan of decor clutter..I cant handle all the "extra" stuff around.

All I have left is to make my FAMOUS SEE'S FUDGE--and I will officially be done.

Guess I better back up to Halloween from here to catch us up:
I went as Octomom-HILARIOUS!

this is a trailer that was decorated..our cool neighbors let us ride on it! Our street was AWESOME! people come in from EVERYWHERE and park then go up and down out street--we went on the other streets--TOTALLY dead except our street.

Our neighbors Jim & Gayle across the street opened up the garage where we partied it up! We met these two random gorillas-we had NO IDEA who they were, but of course I needed a photo with them-I love that they completed their outfit with a banana!

Jon created an AWESOME video that we projected on a big white sheet & CRANKED up the volume--IMPRESSIVE!

Becca was a Ghost-again ANOTHER simple costume!

We had the Nuriche Film Crew come to our house to video tape my family & shoot our commercial for the company. It was too much fun. The girls had a blast filming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eS6JsMXG4A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgxwbhfzBcQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKvEXsla0q8

I have taken up RUNNING--I know, pick your jaw up OFF the floor. I've been consistently running 3-4 miles per day. I ran 10 miles a couple of weeks ago-SHOCKINGI to say the least! It's been fun for me to see what I can do with that. Some days are awesome, some days are HARD.

About 15 of my friends all gathered at El Torito for my bday SO FUN!
We grubbed on down and had lots of laughs--I have such great girl friends!! Even my sister in law Kellie & her sister Becca drove CLEAR from HB to celebrate-I love that about family...we are always up for a good time no matter the drive!!

Jons brother Todd made Partner at his Law Firm-so his wife Celene treated all of the family to Maggiano's for dinner--wow GRUBILICIOUS! It was "adults only" so nice to have so many adult conversations to choose from!

The girls last day of school for Thanksgiving break was Nov. 19th-so on the 20th we headed out to Henderson, NV & we took the girls to see their great grandma. It will most likely be the last time they see her before she passes I imagine. She looked great and is always so sweet. She didnt quite remember who I was. She said "oh wow, you are all grown up now!" -too cute. We then got to hang out with my cousins & their families that live there. They are WAY FUN! Rachel was a good sport and babysit 8 kids so we parents could all go see 2012. By the time we got home, she had them all in bed and the downstairs picked up-I've got her trained well!

We had Thanksgiving Day at my parents house. We took a family portrait.

It's AMAZING that my parents adopted 6 little babies from Brazil & made us all into a family. I love the smile on my Dad's face-he's such a proud Daddy! too cute
After seeing the Blind Side movie TWICE NOW-Jon wants to write a screenplay about my parents & what they went thru to get all of us...SERIOUSLY some AMAZING stories. Just goes to show you that Heavenly Father has his hand in everything!

Well the flu has "caught" our family. Becca threw up in the wee hours of friday morning, and now Sarah & Anna have in the wee hours of sunday morning. We shall see how this all turns out. THANKFULLY it seems to be only a 24 hour thing or less even! Crossing our fingers....

So another month has passed...

2009-10-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

I have been CRAZY BUSY with this:

Everyone has been very positive once they try the Sample and that makes me happy!
The CEO David Parker & Meagan contacted me to put together two events one Nov. 10th in the IE and one Nov. 11th in the OC--so BUSY STRESSFUL but OH SO MUCH FUN!!

I have been heavily campaigning for Mother of the Year still. Look what I did!

I know right--how awesome am I--this totally put me up a few notches. Well let's be for real here tho--I did JUST purchase all the stuff and let the girls put it up--besides nobody likes it when "their mom does everything!"--

I have a VERY FUN street with LOTS of kids--altho I didnt know ANY of them lived on the street. Leave it to my family to CUT OUR CABLE and make our kids go outside-it's amazing what happened...soon ALL these kids started coming out of their houses. Great for the kids! I was tired of all the stupid drivers that speeeed down my street-so I bought these:

TOTALLY WORKS! the cars actually even STOP with the 2 foot stop sign--awesome. I have been known to throw Becca's blanket at cars to get them to stop-even considered a toy baby with a "YA could have been my kid!" geesh.

Later in the week I got to deal with this:

cant be good! My dad came and fixed the problem YA FOR DADS!

Rachel has a group of girls come over to "hang out"--apparently this is what "hanging out is like?!":

fine and dandy by me...until the boys come over!

I posted on Facebook-BEST THING EVER that whoever was my 700th friend gets a "prize!" it ended up being my neighbor down the street. Funny story, both he and his wife got friend requests, but since he got to his laptop first, he got to be #700! So I made my prize and it was delivered!

consisted of del taco card, carls jr card, in n out card, gum, grape sparkling cider and 3 yummy smelling candles--just some of my very favorite things!

I helped volunteer at Time Out For Women here in Riverside. TOO MUCH FUN! I got to wear my staff badge and all--good times. I picked up these guys from the airport

and we've become fast friends. Jon & I have known Brad Wilcox for many years--I ended up taking them to in n out-a MUST in cali, and then they all came to our house.

We now have a full fledged pre-teen, complete with her first pair of Vans, skinny jeans, & braces!

I love Facebook because if I am lonely and bored one night at oh lets say 10pm, I have instant access to my OTHER lonely and bored women friends and we can meet at Chili's bra or no bra to have a SERIOUS grub down!

This was DELISH! We were working on our Sitcom-Hungry Housewives of Riverside--catchy huh!

Jon took our family to a Castle here in Riverside for some fundraiser something or another--they had face painting for the kids...uh overboard??

As you can see life has been still full of lots of fun and crazies--JUST how I want it!

"What gym do you work out at?"

2009-09-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago (I am sadly JUST now remembering to write this down), we were at Todd & Celene's house celebrating Todd getting SUPPPPPPERRR old (he's 3 months older then me...dang!). Celene is always SO sweet to save me ALL of Anika's clothes (their only daughter) and give them to Anna & Becca to wear. Seriously-what a great blessing!
So Celene gets the bag of clothes out of the closet and the conversation goes like this:

Anna: "Oh I can help!"
Aunt Celene: "Um, it's really pretty heavy sweetie."
Anna: "It's okay-I work out."
Anika: "Oh you work out, me too-what gym do you go to?"

Ummm HELLO--how funny is THAT! These girls are 7 & 8!!!!! Cracks me up--

Nothing super exciting going on in our Family here--just staying caught up with LIFE. I am SO grateful Jon is here to help me with FOUR KIDS doing homework-good heavens. He is incharge of Rachel & Anna-to make sure it's completed, done correctly & goes on the school website to make sure all their homework assignments match up. I am incharge of Sarah & Becca-same drill. It really is a LOT of work to make sure everyone is on task and it gets completed--as they get older they get WAY more work. And I will have to say Kindergarten is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY hard now!!!!!!!

On Tuesdays-I take the girls to the library to get a weeks worth of reading. (During bedtime quiet time-they have 30 minutes to color or read). I had got a LOOT full of books--i mean hello four girls EACH getting 7 books ADD's up--only i "forgot" to return them...like a month late forgot--i figured it would be like 10 bucks--oopsies it was 92.50!!!! i KNOW can you even believe that!?!? I literally said OUTLOUD to the librarian--"wait WHAT??????????? r u just joking with me??"
She wasn't. I paid. We left.

I have been campaigning for "Mother of the Year" this year. I VOLUNTEERED at the kids elementary school on friday for TWO HOURS--i know shocking huh. Normally I am just the "paper product mom." I then VOLUNTEERED AGAIN on monday night for 2 hours--I handed out over 800 slices of pizza.
Seriously..I am a shoe in for sure.

I am Happy!

2009-09-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

Let's start from the beginning. I am 34. I have a husband who is paralyzed from the chest down. I have four girls ages 12, 10, 7 & 5. I am TIRED, usually cranky, tend to be fake with my smiles of "everything is great!", stuck at home day in and day out, moody, gaining weight, getting little sleep or too much sleep, blacking out, having thyroid issues, no income for 3+ years, lots of people involved with my life both physically & financially. Yet, do my best to remain hopeful, upbeat & positive for the most part.

I receive an email from my dear friend David Parker. I have known him for 25+ years. He asks me to take a look at some commercial shots for his new company & give my feedback on it. I gave him my lengthy feedback & asked him what "Nuriche" is all about? He told me I "could just do some research on the website, have a look around & he'd be happy to answer any of my questions."

Great I thought! I can do that. I begin my research and immediately thought OH GEEZ is this some new MLM thing-because I am NOT interested. Then I thought, let's think about this. David Parker is a VERY reputable man. I mean he's friends with Mitt Romney-he was his top campaign fundraiser guy that made sure the money came in and went out correctly & honestly! These are the kinds of dealings that David Parker works with. He is also outrageously generous with the blessings he's been given. I know, I have been a beneficiary of his kind heart. So, I decided to look further.

After further research, I thought OH GEEZ is this some juicey juice thing!? Again, David Parker-he's not the type of man to get involved with some "latest & greatest" silly juice thing that is FLOODING the market right now-especially in utah! So, again, further research.

I researched EVERYTHING about Nuriche for 2 full days-google was my friend! I researched the people that were involved, the product itself, the company, how it is run, how the product works, testimonials from outside sources. Anything & everything I could find out about it.

I WAS IMPRESSED!

To start, I LOVE that Nuriche offers a FREE 3 day sample to anyone. I LOVE that Nuriche offers up to 90 days to try the product out with a 100% money back guarantee including ship/tax/handling withOUT having to be bugged to send the product containers all back.

I LOVE that the product sells itself-either you love it or you dont! I love that I am losing weight, not feeling the munchies all the time, have good healthy energy, not needing my "3pm oprah nap". The benefits have been so positive for me!

I LOVE that the product is simple-its 30 mostly organic fruits, 30 mostly organic veggies, all my seeds, nuts, enzymes & probiotics in one shot. Nothing else added to it, it's just pure live whole food! Easy & Simple.

As far as the business side. THAT blew me away. I learned that David Parker as CEO is ONLY paying himself ONE DOLLAR per year. NEXT the top Rep is not a PERSON or group of individuals it is a CHARITY ORGANIZATION called "My Firm Foundation". For every dollar made into the company 5 cents goes to My Firm Foundation FIRST! How great is that-so as the Nuriche company gets larger, so does the amount of funds in the foundation so that we as a company will begin to help feed those in Africa with our product AND help them to start their own businesses. They will be able to purchase their product for 2 dollars and sell it for 4 dollars. THAT SPOKE HUGE TO ME!!!!!

The next step is called the Nuriche LLC. Right now there are 10 "Founders" that together they OWN the Nuriche LLC. They have personally invested their own money to hold that position. David Parker has it set up so that whether you are the FIRST Rep to join Nuriche or the millionth in 5 years from now-if you work hard and show intergrity, honesty and work ethic-you will be ASKED to be a founder as well-and will be able to OWN the Nuriche company as well-UNHEARD OF!!

Lets get back to my story for a minute now, I am still 34. I still have a paralyzed husband. I still have 4 girls to take care of. I am NOT A SALES PERSON. How could I begin to think I could even make this work???? We have had no income for 3+ years. I limit myself to a "Target trip" every OTHER month to help keep costs down. My children receive free lunches at school. I run a "fresh rescue" program with Albertsons to help feed my family everyday. I have done what I can to keep our budgets REALLY low. I am in the middle of maybe losing my house. Working with the bank to see what can be done. It's been a LONG process. There really is no way for me to get involved with this company right now-right?

WRONG!!!! I jumped ALL in--I saw the benefits I was having with the product. I saw the financial benefits that could occur and I WENT AT IT. I sit here on Facebook and send people a simple 4 minute youtube video that explains what Nuriche is & ask for their feedback. Then I offer to send them the 3 Day Sample to try it out. Then I ask them to try the product for 90 days with the 100% money back guarantee. I tell them either they will love it or they wont. Either way WE ARE TOTALLY FRIENDS!! No hard feelings ever. The product truly sells itself.

I have been involved with Nuriche for 52 days now-I will be helping to make my mortgage payments. UNBELIEVABLE!

Because of uriche the product & the business side-my whole outlook on life has changed, even my family/friends have noticed! What is out there for us if we give ourselves honest effot-believe in ourselves-believe in the products-BELIEVE IN THE COMPANY NURICHE -- you WILL SUCCEED! If I can make it happen-anyone can.

I love my family, I love my friends, I love my life. Come change YOUR life!

On a roll...

2009-09-05T17:54:00.001-07:00

Do you ever feel like some days or weeks or months you are on a roll?! I feel like i am "on a roll!"--life is good for me these days.

I am so grateful for the blessings that Nuriche is bringing to me and my family. To help my family be healthy and bring income-lovely. I am excited to be traveling this next weekend to SLC for the events there-and LOVE that my family can watch it from here using the new Nurichetv.com site--SO FUN!

School is going well--Rachel is enjoying Jr. High--i love my new set up--wake at 640-out the door by 655am drop her off then get to the gym with kristen by 715 and workout for an hour (30 minutes free weights/30 minutes treadmill)--then back home to shower and get myself ready for the day--drop becca off at school and FREEDOM till 3pm!

So we CUT OUR CABLE last week--HEAVEN!!! Our girls have been outside more, coloring more, drawing more, in the POOL MORE--it's been a blessing already. If there are shows we want to watch-we can get anything we want via the internet-so we can watch it on our computer or laptop or even thru our Wii-who would have thought. I love that there isnt any ENDLESS TV WATCHING anymore--and at night after kiddos were in bed and jon was done being stretched we'd stay up till midnight watching all of our DVR'd recorded shows. Now we either talk, read or my favorite JUST GO TO BED! With me getting up at the crack of dawn..Im ready to crash by 930-10pm every night. I'd like to get myself some good books to read--make a good wind down for me.

I also canned some peaches-what in the world?! first no cable, now im canning?? scary. I buy 2-4 boxes of peaches from an orchard each year..so this year i decide i would can them. My friend in r/s let me come to her house and she taught me how-this same woman taught me how to make wheat bread as well. I think this would make a great xmas gift--a canning thingy-how sad i dont even know what its called?? geez

Jon took the 2 older girls and walked down to fresh & easy to find something to make for dinner the next two nights--why are dinner ideas ALWAYS the hardest part of cooking!? im curious to see what they bring back-he said i cant be mad of what they bring cuz i didnt give him any suggestions..oh dear. I DID however suggest to buy things to make my homemade rocky road ice cream-(atleast i know that will taste FABULOUS!)HA

First Days...

2009-08-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

of school went smooth--got Rachel off to Junior High on time (early) which was smart due to TRAFFIC nightmares with shuttling all the kids there..she made it to all her classes, figured out her "route" is had fun seeing she had a few kids she knew in EACH of her classes--she even found the "mormon table" -so all is well!
sarah is going to have a fun year, as is Anna--good teachers, good friends--
had fun walking with becca to kindergarten-she's in the PM class and has one friend in there she's good friends with so that made the "drop off" easy! NICE

I picked Rachel up at 2pm-then the other 3 walked home at 3pm--i had a nice plate of warm chocolate chip cookies waiting for them (my tradition!)--devoured & enjoyed.

We stuck to our schedule, scripture reading at 730, followed by brush teeth, hair, jammies etc by 8pm they were in their rooms either coloring or reading, lights out at 830--FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i am debating about starting a NO TV/CANCEL dish beginning sept 1st..surprisingly i decided to go to bed at 1030pm vs watching tv--im having tooth pain and didnt sleep the night before so im SURE that encouraged me to not watch tv--i took a vicodin and slept like a BABY--sooooo great. We will see if i continue the challenge or not...

Last week of summer--

2009-08-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

Let's hurry it up already!

This last week will be spent at dentist offices, eye doctors, school registration etc. Trying to cram in all this stuff on the last week--not the smartest but oh well-atleast all the school shopping has been done for 3 weeks now.

Yesterday I went to the Price is Right show. What an ordeal THAT was. I will never do it again-but fun to do it ONE time. It required me waking up while it was STILL DARK!! 530am--i dont know how Jon taught seminary for so long waking up like that..no wonder he was ready to CRASH by 9pm everynight-and i'd be bugged cuz that's when all the good tv shows came on--while putting on my make up-becca came in and asked "is this when you put on your make up? when its still dark then go back to bed?!" it made me chuckle-i had to tell her i was going somewhere--she replied "shouldnt you be sleeping??" um YES!!!!!!!!!!! so got to our meeting spot by 6am (we had to ambush one of our friends cuz we needed ONE LAST person to come or none of us could get in-she was a total trooper and busted out of bed, put on her face and was out the door in now time!)
We got to LA in good time thanks to my driving skills--and were ready to go-it was TONS Of hurry up and wait and wait and wait..good thing we had fun girls!!
We got into the show by 1230pm and started the show-it went super fast, the room was SUPERRR small and one of our girls actually got on and won a car--SWEET!

After that we headed back home-stopped off to eat at a grub mexican place (they give you fresh warm HOMEMADE tortillas with butter--DUDE PERFECTION!!!) & then made it back home by 6pm...lonnnnngggg day and i was wiped OUT!

I came home and jon had the girls pick up the downstairs-it was spotless and shiny with the hum of the dishwasher-why is this like every mother/wife's dream!? i dont know why--but it is!!

I had a hard time sleeping becuz of a silly tooth ache that seems to SHOW ITSELF RIGHT as im going to sleep--so struggled with that all night, i ended up sleeping in this AM till 1130-HELLO! of course now its 330 and my tooth feels totally fine..grrrrr

Today the girls are off in different directions playing with friends-LOVE friend days!

Jon and I have been watching these DVD's ON SACRED GROUND
Reflections on Joseph Smith by Truman G. Madsen ..you can go to www.trumanmadsen.com to purchase them. I am FASCINATED with them--really great DVD's to watch together with your spouse/family and grow--I LOVE learning about the Gospel-!

Rounding out Summer...

2009-08-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

PLEASE BRING ON THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR!!!! okay so it's obvious where my thoughts are these days...i have 13 more days till school starts again and quite frankly it cannot come SOON ENOUGH! Being on the downhill side of summer is never my favorite-i am one of those "lets get on with it already" types--

We have done quite a few beach days-we had beach house week last week of July with Sandra's side of the family-always fun to visit with cousins & see families growing! I've met lots of friends at CDM and Newport--i even ventured into the waves myself--i know pick your jaw up OFF the ground.."christina went IN the WATER?!" yes. i did. I caught some sweet waves-then was quickly humbled by a trasher--good times! Every time I drove home back from the beach it MUST be accompanied by Guns N Roses--its just the Hales way.

We had lots of fun with Kristi's family in town-a couple sleepovers--so crazy seeing the "older cousins" becoming "older" and the changes they all go thru. I am glad she brought the crew down and had so much fun! I LOVE that ALL of Jons family gets alone so well and we can always count on each other and have fun with each other with NO DRAMA--sometimes that's hard to do in families these days.

Jon continues to have pressure sore issue's which leaves him stuck in his bed upstairs-not the most fun but helps to keep it from getting worse. He's pretty much spent the WHOLE last 4-5 weeks IN BED--poor guy. It's still only at stage 1 of 4--so we just keep plugging along with life.

I am CRAZY BUSY with my new company and LOVING every minute of it. I am extremely thankful for the opportunity and the blessing it will be to our family in so many ways.

Well this will be an interesting school year-my schedule looks like up at the CRACK OF DAWN (well not really, but for a sleepy head like me-645 mine as well be!) get child #1 off to Jr High-meet Kristen at Turley fitness (new 24 hour gym WHOO HOO)work out for an hour (while my sweet child #2 & 3 get THEMSELVES dressed and breakfast made & out the door by 8am to walk to school-I know im SOOO LUCKY i have GOOD CHILDREN!!!)then I will return home and get myself ready for the day and get child #4
to Kindergarten by 1045am and then i am FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE till 3pm--can you feel my excitement!??!?!? I havent quite decided which breakfast joint I will be solo celebrating at!? iHOP, Coco's, Dennys?!?!?

I have been doing a tradition with my girls on the FIRST day of school i make sure i have a fresh batch of my killer chocolate chip cookies ready for them when they walk thru the door (i will pick up Rachel & the other 3 will walk home together)--they ALWAYS remind me and are so happy that i follow thru with that tradition--

Usually with Jon home I have him incharge of Anna's homework, while I help Sarah with hers. Rachel does her own by herself (besides I dont think im smart enough for her homework anymore!??! thank heavens for google.com when im stuck-so i SEEM smart! HA) So this year Rachel will be in the afterschool homework club thingy-so hers will be done before she even gets home, then i will take sarah and anna while jon continues to take Anna. Hopefully that system works. My girls are SO GOOD about just coming home, grabbing a snack and getting to their homework right away so we are done. We usually have it all wrapped up by 330pm--FABULOUS!!!!!!!

Im ready for us to be in bed by 9pm and up and at 'em in the mornings with a routine--I love that we have dinner every night by 6pm, girls do their dishwasher chore, scripture reading is done nightly after dishes--monday nights FHE's are rotated between Me, then Jon, then Rachel & then thru Sarah. I love that we have family prayer each night after scripture reading--these things make life simple and make mom happy.

Bring on the school year!

Rachels Firsts....

2009-07-25T23:00:00.000-07:00

Today was Rachel's first experience at the Temple as a youth-she was there to participate in Baptisms...I completely forgot about telling her how she needs to dress, how she needs to bring extra clothing items, get an interview, questions that are asked, why she's doing this----of course leave it to me to wait till the LAST hour to cram all this information in right!? oops.

So i am on the cell phone & she's fighting me about why she has to wear a dress/skirt-why cant she wear shorts? if no shorts how about just pants--whats wrong with flip flops--on and on --poor thing i had to take a DEEP breath and start over..she kept thinking the "dress code" were our "family rules"...i know..i shouldnt have waited till the last hour..

Then began the conversation of "okay where do i change, how do i do that, will anyone see me, where's the key, i put it in what pocket, what if it falls out in the water, but im all wet, do they give towels, where does the wet jumpsuit go, question after question!! again..i know why did i wait till the last hour...

The bishopric counselor came-& she completed her interview and all was well.

She was happy to see that she was NOT the ONLY one wearing church clothes to the temple EVEN THO we told her OVER and OVER and OVER again-the temple is the Lord's house---we wear our BEST!! not shorts, no flip flops, etc etc..GOOD GRIEF!!!!!!!!!!!

Jon was able to talk to her after our "crammed discussion" about why we do the baptisms--& she felt great.

She also spent the day preparing for Girls Camp which starts for her on Monday--it will be quite nice to have some quiet in the house-she is SO good about playing with the girls doing fun things but when she's BORED...then she even better at pestering them-especially sarah--drives me bonkers--thats usually when i yell...okay enough-everyone's bored out to the pool!!!!!!!!!!

I gave her the list of things she's suppose to bring for Girls Camp-told her to put it all on her bed and then i'd check it off with her--she did manage to get everything off the list checked-WHEW!! it is WAY nice having kids that can do their OWN packing and take care of their OWN things---after she went downstairs and we got all the zippers zipped and ties tied for her luggage and sleeping bag..i wrote a nice sweet "i love you" kind of letter and tucked it into her sleeping bag so when she unravels her bag--she will see my note to her--
i figure that will make up for the cramming of the temple discussion earlier and put me BACK on track for the mother of the year award--right!??!

On my way!

2009-07-19T12:43:00.000-07:00

I have just joined a new company. It is called Nuriche (nourish). www.Nuriche.com

Essentially it is THEE most convenient way to get ALL of your recommended fruits & veggies everyday. None of us are able to get what is recommended on a daily basis. This is a new product line that started in Dec of 08.

The product consists of a powder that contains 30 fruits, 30 veggies plus all the needed enzymes and probiotics your body needs. You just add water and boom there ya go! The most important part is that they take the fruits/veggies from the farms and pulverize them so they are liquid then they heat it at 80 degree's for just 30 seconds to put it in a powder form this makes it THEE MOST live whole fruit/veggie possible. (anytime fruit/veggies are heated or frozen it takes out the good nutrients) but by doing the heat at ONLY 80 for ONLY 30 seconds it makes it a live whole product. So that when you add the water, its as if YOU went to the same garden and picked out the fruits/veggies yourself and ate them. This product has NO chemicals, preservatives, fillers etc. Its all healthy & organic and live whole food.

Everyone, including myself, that have been using it has REALLY felt a difference in energy levels, vitality, clearer thinking, AND a bonus everyone on it is losing weight-like 30 lbs!

Id LOVE for you to try it and just give me your feedback on it!! Feel free to go to the website and look around.

www.mynuriche.com/Hales

on the MEND!!!

2009-07-11T20:23:00.001-07:00

I have spent 2 weeks in my room...thank goodness I have a laptop to keep me sane! I had gone to Urgent care on day 3, tested negative for strep. Back to my regular Dr on day 8, still negative for strep & told to take 1g of tylenol with 800mg motrin, back to a new Dr on day 10 & given a Zpack antibiotic. By day 12 I could tell an improvement but day 11, 12, 13 REALLLY tired -maybe from my body trying to fight that RAGING HORRIFIC sore throat I had for 10 STRAIGHT DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!
Today I am feeling better after being on the antibiotics and more rest...THANK HEAVENS!

Sadly Jon has come down with a Stage One pressure sore on his back. About the size of a dime. It is quite painful and requires him to stay out of his wheelchair and in his bed ALL DAY LONG. He is able to keep working on his laptop which helps to keep him sane and feeling productive. We have to keep watching it to see if it heals or progresses to Stage Two. He will most likely be confined to his bed for several weeks.

The older girls have been gone since Wednesday night with Jons parents on a house boat at Lake Powell, they will get home late sunday night. I am SURE they are having tons of fun!!

Sick mom makes for creative girls...

2009-07-06T18:31:00.000-07:00

I have been up in my room for 8 days now with this terrible sore throat. I went to the dr's a second time only to hear that its still just a viral infection. He did tell me to up my tylenol dosage to 1g 4xs a day and my motrin to 600-800 3xs a day-SWEET! Hopefully this will manage the pain.

Since I am stuck in my room (REALLY dont want to share this with anyone especially jon!) the girls have had to entertain themselves here at home. One day Rachel decided to go all fancy and put a clean white table cloth on the dining room table and completely set it all fancy shmancy including salad plate, bread plate, etc etc--i thought they got a photo of it -but they did not! I was quite impressed.

They also decided to use my fabulous flip video camera and made "A Cinderella Production" in which Anna was Cinderella, who had mean step sisters Sarah & Becca while Rachel was the fairy godmother and film director. Again IMPRESSED! They LOVED doing this--

They also gutted out their rooms. They decided at 8pm last night to take that on (UGH the mother in me kept saying! My summer plan was to go thru their rooms and gut it out get rid of clothes that dont fit, toys they dont play with etc). They did a good job, but the bulk of it ended up in the hallway with the rest of it being "auctioned off" to anna & becca which really just meant it ended up on the floor in their room too. Dang.
They all surprised me this AM and had gotten everything out of the hallway to the trash and cleaned up the younger 2 girls' rooms.

Im beginning to think i need to be sick MORE OFTEN dont ya think!? I am lucky to have older girls that can make their own breakfasts, lunches & dinners when duty calls. I am lucky to have girls with wild imaginations & dont do too much fighting. Right now they are all in the piano room listening to youtubed songs while dancing--good times!

This wednesday the older two leave to lake powell with gma & gpa to go on a house boat the Goodman family has rented. They are WAY excited! The younger two have a couple of bday parties to go to-so they will have fun as well. Jon and I are going to a murder mystery party on friday night (note to self my inhouse babysitter will be in lake powell-better call for a "real" sitter!). Jon is going to be "Bond, Matt Bond-a devishly handsome rich man" I will be "Countess Alice de Ville-a stunning, weathly widow"! Should be fun-its a black tie affair so we will get to be dolled up-we have been to two of these that our friends put on-seriously SO FUN!

I hope to be on the mends-or atleast functioning with the good dosages of meds! I am done being stuck in my room-i am ready to be at the beach or the movies--thank heavens for my laptop to keep me connected to the outside world!!!

sore throat, sore throat, sore throat....

2009-07-01T17:16:00.001-07:00

That has pretty much CONSUMED my life the past 3 days! I am on day FOUR of this retarded sore throat deal. It seriously feels like its sunburned and being scraped with sand paper at the same time. I keep myself loaded up on motrin, halls drops, and LOTS OF SQUIRTS of chloreseptic....bugged.

Ive spent the last days upstairs in my room-I REALLY have to stay away from jon so that he does not get this. Thank goodness I have laptop to keep me company-I would be going crazy. The girls have been good about staying downstairs and keeping themselves entertained. Of course I still manage to keep the laundry going, making dinner (sort of-sometimes its which drive thru!?) etc. I tend to walk down every 3 hours to have the girls pick up the kitchen and put juice away, plates, cups etc. When will they learn huh??

Over the weekend I helped my friend Amy move from one house into another. I am grateful for a time in my life when I am able to help others. There have been many years of me needing to nurse a baby, change a diaper, or as of late see to the needs of Jon. I am grateful to be in this time and season that allows me to help others. It's good for the soul!

I have been TRYING to upload my blog from WAYYY back in 2006 to www.blurb.com but it seems to keep crashing on me etc. So I just give up on it. But I am determined. I have been doing a blog each year and would like to compile it all into a hardbound book as a journal for our family from each year. This idea motivates me to keeping up the blog.

Swim Meets & Sweet Becca!

2009-06-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

Summer is still BUSY with swim practices and swim meets for all four girls-thankfully they are all together which makes sports SO NICE! I have to volunteer for SO MUCH because we have them all on the team which requires LOTS OF LONG hours at the meet. A typical meet starts at 5 (but you have to be there at 430) and ends at 9pm or later--geesh! Atleast the snack bar is grub. It is always fun for me to meet new people and get to know them-I was the "scorer" at the meet & the announcer was hilarious and made the meet go by fast. He got a kick out of embarrassing me as I was scoring too--good times!

Thursday was Becca's 5th bday. I love this little girl-she is just TOO CUTE with her dimple and all. Our friend Russell has taught her that when anyone asks her "how come you are so cute?" to say "because i have a big dimple!" She continues to carry some sort of blanket around with her. I love that she does, Jon doesnt care for it much! One time my dad talked her into throwing IT AWAY!!! she did. I told him when she wakes up in the middle of the night, i'd be calling him. He said "i hope you wont be calling me bad names!?" Of course in true mom fashion, my mom made her ANOTHER blanket-YES! both my dad and jon were thinking.."WHAT?!" so funny. She has been using that blanket, only a few weeks ago left it at my friends house, so jon sweet talked me into having kristen "hide" it in our small garage. It has remained in there, but becca managed to find another one. Surprisingly she isnt as attached to this blanket but we shall see. She loves to just SNIFF the fabric-I have TRIED to just use a little small piece, but nope wants the whole thing. Its pretty funny.
We took the family out to dinner (our tradition) and then she got to open her gifts from gma/gpa. Why are bday squeals from 5 year olds oh so cute!!?? We also gave her the gift cards for toys r us and target. The next day me and the 3 other girls went with her to toys r us to pick out gifts-it was so fun to watch. They would each try to persuade her to pick whatever they brought to her. We kept loading it into the basket, then we told her there was only enough money for 2 so pick your two favorites-best way to do bday gifts EVER!!!! She got her balloon and bday crown from toys r us as well--I still need to take her to Target (this will be just me and her tho, that was wearing taking ALL OF THEM!!)

FUN weekend!

2009-06-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

We had a fun weekend--Saturday we took off to my parents to hang with my bro Brian and his family, clay was there & russell was there..David my cousin came down with his family from Las Vegas too-so fun to see them all! It is weird for me to sit back and relax (since we have older kids) and watch all my younger siblings, cousins chasing kids, changing diapers, filling bottles etc--i love where we are!! I dont miss those days that's for sure!!

Sunday we did church, and then we took off to Todd's house to hang with jons parents and uncle mark. So fun to hang with so much family all the time-we are really lucky to live so close to everyone. We got to "see" Todd's new guns--so fun!

Monday we again took off to OC--Im beginning to wonder why we live here in Riverside!? Chad was down for the evening-he was surprised that we would all pick up and just come down to see him-that's what I love about jons family-everyone is always so willing to drop everything to come visit.

This week we have Swim Meet (tonight), family portraits (tomorrow), jons Dr appt (thur) no plans friday & im still working on saturday's plans!

Being that it was Fathers Day weekend - I think about my own Father and the things I have learned from him. He is a hard worker. He has worked since he was 8 years old. He had two papers routes. He worked so his sister could serve a mission (who served with my mother & that's how they met later on!). He has ALWAYS been thee most generous man i know! All throughout my life he has helped those in need. He is an honorable man. One of thee most honest men I know as well. He adores my mother & I believe that is the greatest gift you can give your children!
I have married a wonderful husband who is the Father of my children. I married him because he had many qualities that my own Father has. I also married him because I ADORED his father and thought if he is anything like his Father-I will be blessed!

bedtimes...better mornings...too much stress!

2009-06-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of bedtimes, my girls keep switching beds to sleep in, Rachel & Sarah like to keep everyone giggling - I start out at the "nice mom" then end up turning into the "mean mom"! I think by the end of the day having everyone home I am just done with it all! I hate going to bed feeling that way...I guess some nights are better then others and I have to remember that. Rachel has been on my case about "her" bedtime being that she's "12" now and it is "summer". Jon & I will talk it over with her and we will come up with an appropriate time. She likes to just stay down stairs and draw, read or play her Wii.

This morning has been a little easier then last night. Woke up, got ready for the day and ran to Fresh & Easy to grab some cereal for the crew here. They had Trix and Coco Puffs for 99 cents each-not the "healthiest" cereal but for 99 cents-Im game! Brought that back home for the girls and told them after cereal starts chores. So they did their required 2 pages of school work,

dishwasher, cleaned their rooms/made bed, brushed teeth/hair and got dressed. Surprisingly nobody complained and they just got it done. They are now all sitting on the couch playing the Wii together. I love that ALL four of them can play at the SAME TIME!

I am under a lot of stress right now. Cant really say what it is about until it all comes together but Ive been under heavy stress for about 7-8 weeks now. Some nights it is hard for me to go to sleep and some mornings I wake up and cant stay asleep! I do my best to not let it get the best of me, but sometimes I do fail. Grateful to have another "day" to do things differently. Most days are good though! I am in a situation which is completely out of my hands. I know it will all come together, but it is all the before stuff that is rough. Again, it's hard for me to really say till it comes together.

Looking forward to the weekend. We will be heading down to my parents house to hang out with family for Fathers Day. Just a simple bbq/swim type thing. My cousin David and his cute family will be visiting from Vegas so that will be fun!

Today I need to figure out somethings for Jon for Fathers Day. Wish me luck!

beach day, swim meets, fevers oh my!

2009-06-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

Sunday Sarah came down with a fever and slept the day away, tuesday becca came down with a fever and slept the day away, today wednesday anna came down with a fever and has slept the day away---time will tell when rachels turn will hit, or mine or jons..yikes!

We headed out to CDM today--the clouds were out, i was a baby and FREEZING! of course the sun decides to show itself 30 minutes before we had to leave...nice. the girls had a blast ( even tho anna just slept on the beach-poor thing!) we met tons of our friends there and have decided my usual "cove" spot will be where we will go from now on-i LOVE that its secluded and we feel like we have the whole beach to ourselves! I am at a time in my life where my kids are bigger so all i have to say is "girls get your swim suits on, find a towel, flip flops and hop in the car" 5 minutes later we are out the door. I felt bad for all the other moms with tiny babies and small children who spent 2 hours just getting their car packed...i remember those days and are THRILLED they are so far behind me now!! I love having our four girls and im so grateful we had them all before jon got hurt. I know that we could have more children even now, but i also know that would throw me over the edge--not cute. People need me here!!! So four will be our number for us. I LOVE that they are all girls and LOVE that they are all so close to eachother, hardly fight YET-im sure the days are coming of clothes borrowing without asking, make up using, boyfriend stealing...good times!

After the beach we headed home in time to turn around and head for the swim meet. I had becca and anna stay home with dad. I had to keep score for the meet-which we SLAUGHTERED the other team (yes im THAT competitive!!) and the girls had a blast. The meets tend to be LONGGGG we got there shortly after 4 and didnt get back into the car till 815!

Hopefully my girls will ALL sleep in tomorrow...we shall see. All in all a great day for us-time for me to go feed jon since he didnt get any dinner with me being gone-poor guy, wonder which fast food joint he will choose!

some family funnies...

2009-06-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

tonights family prayer...sarah had to "excuse" herself becuz she needed to break wind..so we were laughing about it--i finally got everyone settle down to say prayer..only to start and then moments later have my cell go off vibrate style on the leather couch..nice.

sarah was sick allll during church-i dont understand how they can all be hyper then as soon as i say its time to get ready for church begins the "oh why do we have to go? are we staying the whole time? can we just do primary? im not feeling good, i feel tired, my tummy" geesh...as usual i spiritually yelled them all to church anyways with enough time for me to repent before i took the sacrament! apparently sarah really was not feeling well THIS TIME..i told her to just roll down all the windows in the truck and sleep in the back..she did..two hours.

we came home and she slept the entire day away--we headed to our friends house for dinner/birthday celebration-fun times! tons of people from the ward were there which is always fun to visit with. all the kids ran around and around the ungated pool..shocking no one fell in..more shocking that i didnt get to push anyone IN the pool!

Monday morning began our first day of summer! Started off with telling the girls their morning chores which included picking up their rooms, making bed & doing the dishwasher duty. They all SURPRISINGLY did it all without any complaints! I decided since swim practice was cancelled we could go on another hike. We had gone on one on saturday after their chores and they LOVED it-more then i thought they would! So they were excited to go again monday. We went with our friends and it was a little harder then the saturday one-but fun nonetheless. after the hike we all hit up the slurpe machine--good times! Rachel got invited to a birthday party for one of her friends from church. It was an overnighter but we have a family rule of no overnighters, so we let her stay till she called us which was at 10pm --right on! while she was gone jon was in charge of FHE which was on emergencies and what do to--they remembered what we had taught them before, fire: get on the floor crawl out and call 911 at the neighbors, earthquake: run outside to the light pole (our family meeting command center!) if mommy or daddy are hurt, call 911, wrote down our friends, neighbors phone numbers--talked about stranger danger--it was a good FHE..of course jon likes to tell me if any of those things happen--to "just walk away and save myself" vs trying to rescue him--good grief!

today becca woke up with a headache and fever-she just stayed mellow all day--SO NICE! she's too cute to be not feeling good-hopefully its just what sarah had and she feels herself in the morning. The older 3 went to their swim practice, rachel hung out at her church friend's house, & everyone else just layed low watching movies--a nice summer break so far! Later on they all ended up swimmming this evening which for me means GREAT no baths cuz chlorine kills! We had our usual del taco for dinner and all was well.

Today we received their school workbooks which reminds me i better go rip out their answer sheets in the back before they realize they are there!! I have asked them to do their "morning chores" which also include 2 pages from their school workbooks-they seem excited to do it-especially because its only 2 pages!!

Bdays, Graduations, Summer Oh My!

2009-06-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

Let us begin with Anna's 7th birthday. She went to school wearing the tshirt that gma had made for gpa's 60th bday-so it was a black tshirt that said HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY! too funny. She wanted to make sure everyone knew it was her birthday i guess! She came home after school and we opened up her gifts which was a gift card to Target, and a gift card to Toys R us. We all as a family went to Chili's for dinner-so grub! I dropped everyone back off at home, then Anna, Becca & myself took off for Toys R Us. They walked together thru all the aisles trying to decide what to get. Anna decided on a Baby Doll that does all sorts of things, a highchair to put her in and a stuffed spotted dog. We then went to Target where she picked ANOTHER baby doll that does all sorts of things. Took the loot home and began the FOREVER untying, undoing of all those lame plastic wires that keep the toy to the stupid cardboard. Patience! The next morning she was able to take homemade cupcakes to her class--too fun. Anna is such a lovely little girl. She is very sensitive to the Spirit. She once cried when she was 4 in Sunbeams because she said "I am just thinking about Jesus and it makes me happy!" So they were happy tears. How touching! When we have FHE and discuss spiritually sensitive things, she is always teary. She is very loving, kind & gentle. She is my ONE and only child that looks most like ME! Big brown eyes and somewhat dark hair. I love having Anna in our family.

Friday morning was Rachel 6th grade promotion. It was interesting to see the different degree's of excitement from the parents. You had the ones like us who came to show our love and support. You had those that came with gmas, gpas, cousins, neighbors! You had those that had outrageously huge balloons, those that even came with the boat blow horn. It just made me chuckle.
She was in the 1st seat on the front row-talk about GREAT position for her to be in so we could see her! She has been an excellent student & received the Mega Skills Award (which they said is given to someone who really every month could get a student of the month award because they are so good in every subject). She was also given the Prestiges Presidential Award! She was one of the 1st original students to JFK when it first opened 7 years ago in 2002. Kind of special for this 6th grade class. They were also the 1st 6th grade class since it opened to get to go to Science Camp. The ceremony was simple & quick! I then went to her classroom and checked her out for the day. She wanted ice cream so I took her to get ice cream. She had a graduation party at a friends house from 1230-6pm then another end of the school year party with the Mutual kids at 6pm, it was round the clock party time for her!

Summer has official begun! Last night I told the girls, when you wake up please try to be quiet and get your Saturday morning chores done. This AM they did just that. I did have to "rehelp" them but they never complained (SHOCKING) and just got their work done. Once we were done I took the girls on a hike & they LOVED IT! Becca at the beginning was quite nervous, holding my hand the whole time. After a while she "got brave" and was able to let go and be on her own, a BIG kid. I loved that we were able to do that together. We were all bummed that Jon could not join us as the hike was not workable with a wheelchair-but fun nonetheless. I took pictures the whole time and kept posting them on facebook via my cell phone so he could feel like he was on the hike with us-he loved it!

We have no real plans this summer, other then LOTS of beach time, LOTS of swim meet practice & races, movies etc. I will need to get a calendar out and get some things organized. One thing I do plan on doing is renting a big dumpster for like a month and going thru EACH room, EACH drawer, and EACH cupboard. Im SO ready to dejunk again! I love that feeling!! I have also ordered books from Barnes & Noble that the girls will work on each morning. They will have to do their morning chores, a workbook page & the older 2 girls have to teach piano to the younger 2 girls then we can play the rest of the day away. Hopefully this helps to KEEP ME SANE!!!

Rachel turns 12...

2009-05-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

Rachel turned 12 on May 22nd. Fun day for her-I sent 4 large pepperoni pizza's to her class to enjoy. Then we went as a family to Olive Garden for dinner- GRUB! The waiters/waitresses all sang to her-she was embarrassed which made it even more fun for Jon and I! We came home she opened up one gift card to Justice (clothes store) and one gift card to Michaels (colored pencils). She also got a cute sewing basket that Aunt Katie put together for her. Gma and Gpa got her a VERY nice gift...a sewing machine complete with a few patterns and material. Rachel loves to sew--she seems to be NOTHING like me! HA She is very much her daddy--
This morning Rachel received her Primary advancement award from the bishopric. She had to walk up to the front and recite an article of faith. She chose to do #10! She nailed it and I was a proud mama--trying not to cry my head off!
Today was her last day in Primary-I had the primary kids sing "Goodbye, Goodbye" instead of Hello, Hello--it was cute...and off to YW's she went. Poor Becca cried for about 10 minutes after Rachel left--soooo cute! Her Beehive leader came over today to introduce her to all that YW is about--
Rachel has grown into such a lovely girl. She LOVES to be creative. You can find her drawing, making origami, creating anything out of EVERYTHING which leads to me saying "rachel can you pick up what you created here!!", she is sweet to becca & anna, she loves to read-and reads BIG BOOKS!, she loves to play the flute and her latest is the mission impossible theme you can hear throughout the house flute style!, she enjoys volleyball and currently the swim team, she has AMAZING confidence in herself, she is good to always include everyone, & continues to always be smiling..just like when she was a baby.
It is great to see her growing up and moving into this next phase of her life!

Rachel's 1st Mutual activity & American Idol Season 8 Finale

2009-05-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

Rachel had her FIRST mutual activity-they went in the spa at one of the leaders house. She had a BLAST! I took photos of her leaving and then recordered her on the video camera as I drove her there and then as she walked into the house. I drove home quietly thinking, wow we are at the next stage of life for her. She's amazing. I will post more about her on her actual 12th bday on Friday.
American Idol was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am still HIGH from watching the show!!! The guy who won is the person I wanted to win--Kris Allen. I LOVED that he's from a small town, married and humble!
Life has been good-I have been busy with some things-but all is well!
The girls have their first REAL swim meet this Saturday 9-1230pm. Jon is coming with-which is GREAT! He doesnt get to come to a lot of things, but since it is SO hot right now outside..he is able to come. The girls are SUPER excited about that.

Sunday Simpleness...

2009-05-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

We had a good weekend, Rachel had TONS of fun at her 12th bday overnighter. We have a family rule of no sleepovers at anyone else's house and we rarely do them at our house, but decided for their 12th bday's they could have one here in our home with their friends. She had about 7 girls here. They were a lot of fun and were really good. They first swam in the pool, then I picked up pizza for them, then they went on their scavenger hunt & returned back with a bunch of items, one of them being a cake mix WITH frosting-SCORE! So I whipped that up and they DEVOURED that along with rootbeer floats. Then she opened up her gifts, one of them being a hot pink pillowcase where each of the girls signed it so that's a fun memory for her. Then they went on to play hide n seek in the dark, along with taking a twin size mattress and sliding down the stairs with it-classic overnighter stuff! By 1am I told them time to limit the madness to ONE room--so they giggled in the tv room and finally fell asleep. Jon & I were out just after 1am-so we slept good!!
Rachel woke up and made them all french toast-what a hostess in the making huh! They all left by 11am and Rachel cleaned up the mess they made.
We then drove to OC & I took Rachel to Claires Accessories to use up one of her gift cards. She has changed SO much, she matches now, like to use a purse, keeps her hair down instead of pulled back into a ponytail-she's really a cute girl.
We then hit the Orange Stake Talent show..it was longgggggg. Some of them were pretty funny--I recorded some good ones. Grandpa was dressed back in the 50's...he ended up looking like Jack Nicholson! Even his own grandkids didnt recognize him-pretty funny! I love going back to that Stake, we both grew up there and have such fond memories of it and everyone there. It is always like going back "home" when we go to any of their functions-it's like we never left. I kept thinking, I wish I brought my still camera so I could go around taking pics of everyone to share with all my old Orange stake friends!
Sunday was good-we shockingly made it before the Opening Prayer-which NEVER happens, and sadly church is at 1130!! Today was Rachel's last day in Primary..sniff sniff. Next week they will sing her favorite Primary song and off she will go to YW's. This Wednesday they have invited her to go in the spa for her first activity. We are extremely sad that there are ONLY SIX YOUNG WOMEN in our entire ward. We grew up with TONS of youth. We will see what happens.
Enjoyed the rest of our Sunday-we watched Freaky Friday on tv as a family. We hadnt seen that movie-so it was fun to be with just the girls & Jon.
Gearing up for another school week-along with a 4th grade school project looming, it's due next friday-I need to make sure we stay on top of that. I wish the school wouldn't give homework for the last month of school!

1st Swim Meet--too cute

2009-05-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the girls had their 1st Swim Meet (it was a practice one but still!). They all had fun, it was too cute to see Becca working her hardest to get to the other side. I was incharge of getting 150 kids in proper placing for their race, it was 4-almost 8pm..HELLO long time, but I managed to do it correctly with no mistakes-WHEW!

My back is definately on the mend, Im feeling better and the muscles are not as sore as they have been. I have been taking the 800mg motrin with a muscle relaxer before I go to bed and it seems to really help, only it takes me longer to wake up in the mornings! Good thing my 3 girls that are in school are self sufficient enough to get dressed, eat breakfast and head out the door by 755am without any help!

A couple of nights ago when it was hot, Jon asked the younger two, Anna & Becca to roll up his pants so he could cool off. Becca was fascinated by Jons hair legs and kept rubbing them asking Anna to check it out. As they were both walking out the bedroom Becca said "wow Daddy has hairy legs Anna!" Then Anna replied, "Ya I know and someday when you get married and have a husband he will have hairy legs too!"
So funny....

Rachel is excited to have her birthday sleepover celebration with her friends THIS Friday. She's invited 5 or 6 I believe. Hopefully the other 3 siblings can have a fun night at grandma's house. It will be VERY low key-which I like! She just wants to go swimming, spa, pizza & the Wii-EASY!! Her real birthday is next friday-but she has a swim meet that next morning, so we opted for this weekend instead. She is definatley turning into a young lady, although she is still little in some ways, like still hates to take a shower!!! We are working on this...

Rough weekend...

2009-05-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

Saturday I ended up messing up my back doing the food run, I still drove to OC to my sisters house to hang with my family--it was pretty miserable for me tho..came back home to see that Anna had somehow contracted pink eye!? what on earth!
SO sunday was spent as much as i could in bed, with drugs and anna with pink eye--the girls gave me their homemade cards and jon wrote a nice letter. I love that all my girls wrote in their cards "my mom loves to cuddle with me" - it makes me happy to hear that.
There were a couple interesting points..anna in her card said "Please dont brake up with dad"...um nice! And then Rachel's said "I know you are a "single" parent and it is hard but it makes you strong." Interesting to see things from their point of views.
I talked to them to reassure them I would never leave and that I love their daddy. Life would be terribly sad & lonely without him!
Hopefully tomorrow is a better day for my back & I can drive Anna down to the Dr's to get her a prescription poor thing. She's kind of had it rough with sore throat and now this---
This tuesday is a practice swim meet-hopefully everyone here is healthy enough to make it-including me!

Sad news for Rachel...

2009-05-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

Well Rachel did not make the cheer squad for her soon to be Junior HS. She is upset and cried for a good hour. What's a parent to do...sniff sniff. It is definately a learning experience/growing experience for her. We are so proud she even tried out-that takes a lot of self confidence!
Tomorrow is my BUSY saturday mornings, I have to take care of Jon in the morning from 730am-1015am, get the younger 3 to swim meet practice by 9am, then drop rachel off for her practice by 1015am & pick up the other 3 by 1030am, then rush to go do the food run get back in time to pick up rachel by 1130am and then hand out all the food-GEESH its a nitemare every saturday-but somehow i make it happen!
Tomorrow the plan is to go to my parents to swim, clay, russell, heidi & her fam, brian & his fam will all be there, then Rachel will babysit all the grandkids while the adults go out to dinner for moms day..should be fun!
Im excited for Mom's day-jon and the girls do a fun/good job of making it so wonderful for me--they are such sweet sweet girls, im so lucky to have Jon and the four girls.
Anna told jon on sunday she was going to sit ALL thru sac meeting with her hands folded..sure enough 1 hour and 15 minutes she did! Never made ONE peep! So this evening jon walked with her to Kohls and she got to pick out a cute sunday dress and a new pink shirt-she LOVED it--she's so sweet.

Wednesday Funny's...

2009-05-06T22:42:00.000-07:00

Becca was at my friends house whose walls are painted a plum color.
Becca: "Um how come'd you paint your walls purple?"
Tracy: "Because I like purple. Why did your mom paint your house yellow?"
Becca: "My mom didnt paint it yellow, it come'd like that!"
Tracy: "No, your mom painted it that way."
Becca: "No, she didnt."

Becca came outside to the truck after I brought him back from his Dr. appt.
Becca: "Where'd you go?"
Jon: "To the Dr.s."
Becca: "Oh, can you walk now?"
Jon: "No."
Becca: "When are you going to walk again?"

Too cute huh---I cant believe she'll be going to school here soon in a few months.
Life is going well, Rachel is grasping her cheerleading stuff-it's been fun to watch her here at home and be "judged" by her sisters and myself. Anna's comment was "Oh, wow Rachel, it was better then I expected!" Too funny.

It was super warm today-which helps Jons pain level to be at a lower spot. I spent the day cleaning up the upstairs-WHEW THREE HOURS LONG! I need my house cleaner back for sure!

The girls continue to do their swim meet practice. They have their 1st meet next tuesday-that will be fun. Hopefully it is warm and Jon can go. It is 3 hours long tho so we'll see if that is something he's capable of doing or not.

I went to a R/S activity where we talked about the symbols on the temple. It was really neat to see so many on the SLC temple. I was aware of the ones on the Redlands temple here, but not of SLC. Very intriguing!

Anna just came down suddenly with a sore throat and low fever. Hopefully she doesnt throw up during the night as we've had the flu going around the school. Time will tell!

Trying to be a little better...

2009-05-01T17:48:00.000-07:00

at keeping a journal for our family. Life has been good. We are all healthy. Summer is ALMOST here. We have about 30 or so days left of school. We are excited to not have ANY homework once summer comes!
The girls are currently all in Swim. They are conditioning right now and then will be competing in Swim Meets-this is a first for our family so very exciting! Rachel is currently on a special volleyball team that is geared towards 8-9th graders but was asked to come play because the coach sees some potential in her abilities-OH YA!
The girls are all doing very well in school, last month they didnt miss ONE day of school-so they got to have a special party at school with their teacher and classmates.
Jon is busy trying to secure employment. No word on the book as of yet. He is waiting to see if he can get a teaching job at the local college here. We shall see! It wont start till September so we have lots of waiting time.
The food run continues to go well. I have more help on a daily basis now, I decided I just couldnt do it all myself. It works out quite nicely now-although Saturdays are my days and its very hard to try to get Jon ready for the day, all 4 girls at swim practice AND the food run all between the hours of 9-12!! But with help I miraculously make it happen!
Rachel's getting older, cant believe she'll be in YW's NEXT MONTH! She's going to have Cheer tryouts next week-we'll know by Friday if she makes the team or not. Im so proud of her for even wanting to try out- I was never that brave!! She is also doing lots of babysitting-which she loves and enjoys earning her own money.
So life is good, we just keep on rolling!

Trying to keep up!

2008-10-20T20:02:00.001-07:00

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!)

Glorious Week of SCHOOL!

2008-09-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

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--

Back to School

2008-08-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

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!!

Beach, Beach & MORE Beach

2008-08-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

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!!

The cleaning fairy...

2008-07-28T12:41:00.001-07:00

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...

WHEWWWW thats overwith!

2008-07-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

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!

Fun Few Days!

2008-07-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

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!

Now a facebook fan...

2008-07-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

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!!

Trying to stay afloat!

2008-06-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

Yikes Ive been busy! Like the title im just trying to stay afloat right now--
Ive been able to sell all 20 tickets to see Wicked WHEW--Ive sent out the letter Rachel & I put together to help her raise her funds to go to DC (we're up to 2290 out 3500) THANK YOU TO THOSE FAMILIES THAT HAVE DONATED TOWARDS THIS---SO THANKFUL!!!

I have been CRAZY busy with this food run I keep doing 5 days a week-for the past couple of weeks it hasnt been as much food as we typically get-but WOW have things changed!! we've been getting about 35-40 boxes PER DAY--here are some photos of that..

there are many many many families that are just plain struggling right now financially--Im really blessed to be able to feed my family & excited that I can help feed all of these other families (we're up to 40 families now)-they are all so grateful & are so kind to give me hugs & thank me for the hard work Tracy & myself do each morning-its a WONDERFUL way to start your day like this everyday i have to say!! i SO LOVE IT!!!
they continue to donate money towards my gas which I am so thankful for considering gas is 4.35 a gallon!! GEESH!

Here is a COMPLETE meal that was all free from my daily food runs-is this awesome or what!

On saturday we had Nathan Espinoza & his mom mow our FOREST in the backyard-it looks HUGE now that the tall grass is all gone-Jason Scoville started the ordeal by weed WHACKING the heck out of it first--thanks guys for bringing my backyard back!!

School is out this thursday at 12noon--its just been busy with activites..i'll be glad when that is all over---Anna had her graduation today-it was oh so cute--her teacher told us that she just loves anna & that she is just the sweetest little girl--

Kristi is in town from Utah-so we'll be playing lots with them-including the BEACH come friday-WHOO HOO i love having older girls that can just hang at the beach so i can SIT at the beach--the next day we'll be with my family for Dad's Day, followed by hanging with jons family on sunday for Dad's day--so busy busy week followed by a busy busy weekend!

Jon is doing great--i took him to the dr to get a prescription refilled & his blood pressure was 107/82 which is great! he's usually 75/50--so that was fun to hear! He hasnt been able to work out as much due to life just being so busy over here-i continue to work him tuesdays, his mom thursdays & his dad fridays-we're in the works of trying to find someone or a few to work him out for an hour monday/tues/wed so that he has a good system down--he really is doing good though-still waiting to see if we get any bites on his book..he's currently working on ANOTHER website that can be extremely useful to the public-so most of his day is spent behind the computer working on that--he continues to work as the duty to god cordinator & has an entire database he built from scratch (of course!) to keep everyone & everything organized-its quite impressive!!

Well its been a VERY long day & started with little sleep--off to bed!

Moving right along...

2008-06-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

Life has just been busy (with little stuff) school almost over (on the 9th), family portraits taken, Dance Festival entire script to write (22K people are coming to see this), $3500 needed to raise to send Rachel to DC (have 2120 raised), 14 more Wicked tickets to sell, Annas Kindergarden graduation...all of this to be done before the end of the month! YIKES!!

Here are some photos of flowers i ALWAYS have in my house (usually 3 different vases filled with fresh flowers)from the food run...

its so fun to have these in our home!

Kristen's son Noah was blessed so we went to the "after party" im sure there's a MUCH MORE spiritual name for it-but you get the drift...here is a photo of a couple who knew almost all of jons family-

it was fun catching up and seeing who we all knew--The guy was Kim (Loveridge) Bytheway's best friend in HS..hmmm..wink wink!! He also knows Chris Anderton our BIL--I know both me & jon were in the photo to but we didnt look as cute so we cropped ourselves out of it!!

Here is a quick vinyl lettering that Lauralee did for me I SO LOVE IT!

Its for Annas K teacher, this is her last year (married having a baby)so we wrote all the kids names around an apple...SO CUTE!
this one is of sarah's baptism photo...again just oh so cute!

Rachel has already moved on from bfriend Cole..life of an 11 year old oh my! I knew it wouldnt last long--do they ever in the 5th grade?!??! Im just glad school is almost over so the boy drama can cease till sept!!

Life has been good..just busy!

Party Time!

2008-05-23T23:47:00.000-07:00

Thur was Rachel's 11th bday--I was able to get FREE cupcakes from my albertsons run along with 15 other cakes...so i took the cupcakes to her class, and one cake to sarah's class, one to anna's, one to Tracy's grandkids each--SO FUN! I was even able to get a cake for our "family party" and one for rachel's "friend party" can you say SCORE!!!!!
The day started out fun--however after school things quickly changed...rachels friends were coming in & out of our home telling us there was a tornado in Perris (which is RIGHT NEAR US!)but we thought they meant Paris...so we didnt pay much attention to them(i quickly made a run thru the news stations & nothing was on)..they came in like 3 separate times, Sarah was getting nervous and we told her HELLO paris is HALF way around the world-why all the craziness!! then about 30 minutes later my sister heidi calls asking "oh my goodness are you guys all okay???" WHY do people keep asking us!??! whats going on?? she said "what--you're having a tornado!! its all over the news!" so we flip it on and boom there it is all over every channel what in the world???? turns out the tornado was 1 mile from our house---it flipped some trains..

this is the train that is on our frwy off ramp..

this is in LA...it hailed so much it looked like snow..

i had to add this only because 2 days prior to this it was like 105!!

They were telling everyone in our area to come inside & go to the 1st floor of our home, center of our house, lay flat, cover your head with a pillow & put a blanket over you incase of flying debri...so i had each girl bring down their pillow/blanket--we had a quick practice--then just stayed glued to the news for 2 hours!! i was wearing cute high sandals, so i quickly changed into sweats & sneakers & made sure we all had jackets close to us & brought down jons medications..

I took some photos myself of our views--there's also the news choppers going over our house--

It all worked out & we were okay but HOW CRAZY IS THAT????????????????????

Okay so back up to wed: rachel came running upstairs to tell me what had happened that day...she has liked this boy parker L all year long so her friends went up to him & asked "do you like Rachel?" he said "no" so they went to another boy she likes Cole & asks "do you like Rachel?" he said "yes" they asked "do you want her as your gfriend?" he said "yes" so they hurried over to Rachel & told her that Cole likes her & wants to be her bfriend---oh the days of elementary!! so she was ALLLLLL excited to TELL ME about it which i LOVEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!! I reminded her that she can have a bfriend but the rules are no dating & no kissing--she said she wanted to tell dad but that "dad always gets mad at her" which i will say jon kind of cuts her off and does the whole roll eye thing..i keep telling him to try to be involved because she's trying to figure out now if your going to talk to her about any boy stuff..and if you dont even PRETEND that you care..she'll pick that up and not tell you ANYTHING..so i encouraged her to tell dad that he'd be excited for her as well..so she came down & she was telling him so i mouthed to him BE NICE!!! he winked..he said he was excited for her & that this was a big day for her--but reminded her of the rules (no dating/no kissing)--so im glad she feels like she'll talk to jon too..
SO the next day is her bday she comes home to tell me what happend & that "cole gave me a heart necklace for my bday" im like WHAT!! DETAILS!! she totally thought it was funny that i wanted to know EVERY little detail..like what did he say, how did he say it, how big/small was the box, was it wrapped, what color etc etc etc..she kept saying MOM your so funny!! so he came up to her she says and said "Hi rachel I got you this gift for your bday, & i got it at the Riverside Plaza" & gave her a hug..she said thanks and quickly the herd of girls swarmed in to give there "oohs & ahhs & your so lucky's"....
so her day was off to a good start..& apparently now the previous boy Parker L now likes her..hmmm..days of our lives continues!

so after the "storm" i decided to start her family celebration-it was filled with fun gifts! my friend Wendy from Vegas is SOOO good to our family & purchases their bday gifts for the year and mails it to me..i told her rachel REALLy wants gift cards for "cute clothes" (remember the "i dont have ANYTHING to wear!"...so she got lots of gift cards to different places, a handball, an MP3 player & a cell phone..

she has just one of those tracfones & we got her only a 60 minute card to go with it...she FREAKED when she saw the cell phone (because she thinks is a REAL DEAL)its kind of a nice thing, the phone was only 10 dollars

& the minutes were only 20 & there are no contracts or monthly fee's---she has LOTS of "rules & regulations" about the phone with her parents..& its SO NICE to have the MP3 player & phone to take away when she's having "issues"...

So now we are onto Friday & its her "friend party" I needed to go pick up the pizza so we loaded up & hit the store to get soda, then over to pizza hut to grab our pizza's--

i had to giggle at all the cell phone "usage" going on...they were just playing the games on their phones but SERIOUSLY so funny--everyone in line looked at me smiled & wished me good luck with all the girls!

So the schedule for the party was eat pizza then go on a bday scavenger hunt in which i gave them a qtip & they had to go door to door saying "we're having a bday scavenger hunt, do you have anything bigger or better then this?" SO SO SO fun for them to do--they girls LOVED it...

I thought of you melinda (well mainly jason) when we got this! oh SWEET is that!

i followed them IN MY CAR cuz it was SOOO dang cold & enjoyed this little treat thanks to becca (she good mailed me yesterday!)

i let the girls ding dong ditch a few "cute boys"--then came home, cake/ice cream,

followed by gift openings:

what is WITH her "paris hilton" poses???? GEESH!

the last is from Kristen--she had sold purses a while back & rachel spotted this one HOPING one day rachel could buy it from her--she opened it up and SCREAMED!! she was SO DANG excited!!! THANK YOU KRISTEN!! i wish you were hear to actually her her scream!!!! seriously-how nice is kristen!!
then we played 2 truths & a lie--that was fun for them (of course each one was about "who they liked")too funny...
then i let them use a TON of free make up i got from albertsons

& we did before & after photos..

uh not the greatest photo of rachel--oh well!

so now they are watching a movie--
all in all a GREAT success & they all kept telling me i had such fun ideas (seriously i made up the schedule YESTERDAY!!!)& was a "fun mom" -they were a fun group & seemed to have had a really fun time--

laundry....bday parties...11 year olds oh my!

2008-05-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

i usually stay right on top of my laundry (its upstairs right by my bedroom-which i LOVEEE having it upstairs!!) but ive been lazy & so today i get to get "caught up" on that...

i seem to have a busy week this week--tue (homemaking), wed (primary meeting), thur(cheer/vball RACHELS BDAY), fri (rachels bday party), sat (dads bday party)...

Rachel turns 17 oops i mean 11 this week...seriously she changes everyday..yesterday she came downstairs with the "i have NOTHING to wear"...woaaahhh what??? she's been telling me all month she wants gift cards for "cute clothes"..and so it begins..im curious to see what she thinks is "cute" last time i took her..she was bugged that id dragged her to buy clothes...again..changing!! she's discovered make up-which we put a stop REAL quick to that..i told her ONLY lipgloss CLEAR!!! she's happy with that...

We have a family rule of no sleepovers...im sending the younger 3 down to gma's house & letting her have her friends at our house from 6pm-midnight on friday..i asked her what she plans on doing..she said "easy, have pizza & watch a movie!" i said "great, that takes care of only 2 HOURS what about the other 4??" then her friend chimed in "well usually when we have parties, we talk, gossip, talk about how cute zack effron is.."..uh what?? gossip?? i said, "well theres not gonna be any gossiping here! besides what do you have to gossip about at age 11 anyway????" geesh!! which made me decide to send the younger 3 to gma's so i could be more on top of what was going on here---should be interesting!! i did tell them we could play "kiss the lips on zac" to which they said OH COOL, giggled and scurried along...

Moms Day

2008-05-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

My Moms day was just oh so cute--i LOVED every moment of it!!

Friday night we watched August Rush-okay this movie was REALLY good for a family-i was tearing up-i recommend this as a family night in! We've been doing a lot of family in nights watching a movie together-its one of my FAVORITE things to do!

On Saturday we took the girls to go see College Road Trip at the 2 dollar theater-it was SO CUTE and a must see with kids! it was rated G even--how nice! we ravaged thru 2 large popcorns (both refilled twice) & 2 large sodas (both refilled!) the movie was about a girl who heads for college and how the dad has a hard time--it was SO fun because the mom relationship was like me and my girls--they kept screaming and laughing and having silly dances and songs--SO like me with my girls--sometimes daddy gets left out going "what you have a special dance?" i do it all the time with the girls--anyway really a fun movie--it made me sad thinking of the day we take any of our girls to college...sniff, sniff.

I then took my crew to Kohls to "shop" for my moms day gifts. I got to sit in my truck with the windows down, cool breeze, warm sun and chat on the phone with celesta-SO FUN!

Sunday we have church at 9am so NO BREAKFAST for me please-id rather sleep! We got to church-did our thing, then came home and i requested these babies--

OH SOO DANG GOOD!

Its bread, sliced turkey, cheddar cheese, tomatoe then you put it in the waffle maker (WHO NEEDS A PANINI MAKER ANYWAY?!?!) then open it up and put fresh avocado in it--OH SERIOUSLY SOOOO GOOD! i was in heaven! then i got to go hang out in my room alone for 2 hours to sleep...again so heavenly!

The girls were patiently (not really) waiting for me to open my loot...although this is how becca spent her mothers day gift opening--

dont you love the drool coming out!

homemade cards:

YES if you read closely it says "queen of toots" lovely!!

At Kohls jon sat in his chair while the girls ransacked the store bringing him gifts and getting his opinion on them -this was rachels choice:

this was sarahs:

which apparently she 1st picked out a size 4x shirt--HELLO! jon said only get something with an S or an M--too funny!
Becca picked me out this:

Anna picked me out this:

which was really my only request-a cute summer white purse

My delightful loot ended with THIS!!!!

only this year it was 2lbs of it!!!! jon said he got 2lbs so that i could "share" because i NEVER EVER share my see's candy which i get for every moms day & bday--he's always surprised that i can eat every last morsel of it--hello its see's! so this time ive been nicer about "sharing" actually im only sharing the TOP 1lb the bottom lb--BACK OFF its mine! hahah

after it was all over...hugs & kisses all around...jon told me the best part was he left the receipt in my glove compartment in the truck--hahahh too funny...i did take everything back & will use the money towards some fun stuff for me one being some new exercise bands:

ive put my gym membership on hold (because my friend kristen had a baby so i quit going-hmmm i know SHE had the baby not me!) i will also look for a bigger cute white purse for summer...

The next night my girls came RUNNING in to give me their "last" moms gift..it was the BEST EVER!!! how cute is THIS!

and my neighbor helped them put it together--so adorable..i just love it! I love the last photo of their cute bums (bunsies as we call them here)!!
ive got it RIGHT by the front door--i really do have some sweet sweet neighbors who are always thinking of me & my family...

SO all in all--a GREAT moms day at my house!!

Lastly Jon has created this website for those of us with GIRLS who like to play GAMES! www.gamesforgirls.info