Rachel turns 12...

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!

Trying to keep up!

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

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



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

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


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

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

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

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




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

ANNOUNCING NEW BUSINESS!!

It has FINALLY happened-I used my good ol' Bush Tax Credit Check to start my own company--both Jon & I have had MANY MANY late nights working together to make this
happen.

www.scriptedliving.com

This explains why I havent been blogging or facebooking!!!

Please help spread the word-thank you!

Recovery...

Here's a post wishing Dad a speedy recovery....apparently he had some "clearing my throat-rghghhg" surgery---

I imagine Mom is hoping he comes out looking like this:


Im hoping he comes out looking like this:


Although considering his age...he'll probably come out looking like this:


Honestly ANY of these would be fine by me!!! Hope you're doing well--looking forward to the "reveal"!!

What have I been Up to??

I work with Albertsons and collect all of their food they would THROW AWAY that day and bring it to my house, I get food from every department, meat, deli, fresh deli, bakery, produce, floral, & dairy--I typically will get 18 banana size boxes of food--my denali is PACKED top to bottom, front to back & thats WITHOUT the 3rd seat in--quite often its overflowing to my 2nd seat even!

I do it every day except wed/sun--i leave my house at 930am to pick up tracy and we drive 12 minutes to get there, load my truck up and get back home by 10am to my driveway lined with friends/families that need the extra help with food-we quickly unload it then tracy & i get to go thru it 1st to pick out what we want for our families then i open it up to everyone else who is there...
THIS WAS TUESDAYS RUN:









I ask them to donate 2 dollars to cover my gas going back & forth--everyone is SO good about paying and often want to donate more--you typically will walk away with ATLEAST 30 dollars worth of groceries EACH PERSON if not more...

The food is stuff that is out of code, ie close to the due date, stuff they've ordered too much of or it has a dented box etc--its all GREAT EATABLE food! I tell people to just take what they will eat for dinner that night, what they will have for lunch and anything else like milk, bread, eggs, cheese, yougurt etc..it works really well..I tell everyone to be done by 10:15am so I can go on with my day--

This program is called Fresh Rescue & was started only with Albertsons in 2005..you have to have a NonProfit Organization with at Tax ID # to do it--all of the stores in Cali are taken & they are moving the program eastward--
THIS WAS THURSDAYS RUN:





It really is SUCH an easy thing for me to do everyday--it doesnt take a lot of my time and i LOVEEEEEEEEEEEE helping all these families--i have about 25 families that Im helping--1/2 of them arent LDS--just friends of LDS families that come because they heard about what I was doing--

I havent even gone to the grocery store since i started this--Im not even using the church food program either--that gives you an idea of seriously HOW MUCH food im getting--

i wanted to take a photo of my ALWAYS STOCKED fridge--

EVERYTHING literally was free from albertsons...the food run has just been fabulous!

we drove to lake hemet on saturday to meet up with some friends-here are a few photos from that..the girls didnt catch anything only our friend russell did--the guy with the white hair is our friend named jeff--he taught them how to fish..so he had the girls reel in the SAME fish for each girl--too cute...





jeff bbq'd us some burgers & hot dogs, it was complete with smores too--its about an hour drive from our house and was WAY WAY fun for the girls--

Is it cute or what! Jon wants me to know get a license plate that says "Beauty & The Beast"--




LASTLY --you may remember last year how Rachel was nominated to attend the National Young Scholars Program (a camp like thing that you have to have excellent grades, be a leader at the school & be nominated by a teacher..she was able to go to a LA college for a week & earned a full ride scholarship to go)-she was nominated AGAIN to go this year to Washington d.c!! it will be in June--we tried for a scholarship but she didnt get it this time (probably because she got one last year) so we will have to work on raising money for her to go..its not cheap 1880 for her to go & thats JUST the camp part...
on top of that a few weeks ago she was ALSO nominated to attend a program in which she will get to go to the 2009 Presidential Inaguaration!!!! As an Inaugural Scholar and special guest on the National Mall, Rachel will not only bear witness as the President of the United States is sworn into office, she will also meet a major presidential candidate, White House officials, congressional staff, political experts and special VIPs such as Lance Armstrong. Ive already spoken to a few of our friends here that own their own business to see if they can help sponsor her to go..I've got 1k so far (its 2500 to attend)--again we're hoping we can pull this ONCE in a lifetime opportunity for her--we keep telling her SEE what happens when you work hard at school!!

SO this is what we have been "up to"!

60th Bday Bash!

Robert (jons dad) had his 60th SURPRISE bday bash last weekend..here are a LOT of photos from that--ENJOY! Mom did a GREAT job putting it on!!!
getting ready to yell


SURPRISE!!



Robert's Reaction


Chad,Kelly & Cameron (the youngest of four boys)


Jon, Christina


Todd, Celene


Kristi & Chris


Scott, Kellie, Esther (their 1st)


Mark, Jennifer


Katie, Seth


Kellie's family The Wilsons (some of them!)


Seth's parents The Goodmans (also the Orange Stake President!)


Brother Christensen


Uncle Mike, Aunt Diane (Robert's sister)


Hal, Colleen Williams -Celene's parents(also in the Orange Stake Presidency)


The Wilburs


Anna/Becca dancing


these were just a FEW of the guests!!

the next day was "family picture day":
Before the BIG photo-do we look THRILLED to be doing this or what!?!??! too funny!


After!


MOST of the grandkids (there are 17 of them and PLENTY more to come-NO THIS IS NOT ANY FORM OF ANNOUNCEMENT FROM ME!!)


Im certainly blessed to be part of this fantastic family!