Bekah

Jessica and Bekah at the Taylor Swift concert Sept. 5, 2011

Bekah in front of Mr. Gex class, 1st day of school (8/15/2011)

Bekah got a "make over" from Cover Girl at the concert

Bekah & Jessica (9/5/2011)

Rebekah Noel is now in 4th grade. She was so happy have gotten  Lizzy's former teacher Mr. Gex. She is also reading a lot, this summer she read the whole Harry Potter series. She is still taking piano and doing great at it, she also is trying out the violin for school. On Sept. 5th she got to go to a Taylor Swift concert with her good friend Jessica, Savanah was bummer that her little sister got to go to a big concert before her, but I told her Bekah has connections ;)

Lizzy the 5th grader

Lizzy at Activity Day's with McKenna, Devry, McKayla & Addison

Lizzy showing off her cupcakes after Activity Day's (summer 2011)

Lizzy sporting new eyeglasses and earrings  (summer 2011)

Elizabeth Rose just stated 5th grade in Mr. Brown's class at Sandra J. Gallardo. She got her ears pierced for her birthday, which is a big deal in our family when the girls turn 11.

She is reading a ton, right now Percy Jackson, and watching her new favorite show "Dr. Who". She loves doing art work, she is really good going miniature sculptures.   

Tre the travler

 Gary Oddous, Jane Oddous, Christy Asay &  Steve Asay, (France 7/2011)

Bekah, Savanah, Lisa, Tre & Lizzy  during FHE (home 8/2011)

Savanah next to "To Tall" Tre (9/11/2011)

Tre playing Mine Craft on the computer (9/11/2011)

Tre is now 14 and a freshman at Folsom High School. He has grown a ton, it seems like over night.This summer he got to go to France with his grandparents, Steve and Christy Asay, his great Aunt Jane and Uncle Gary Oddou and his cousin Shawn Oddou. He got to go for also 4 weeks. I think he had a great time, it's hard to know since he doesn't talk much. His sisters are hoping to make that trip with their grandparents some time in the future.

He also got to go on a High Adventure with the teachers in our ward for a week.
Now besides school and boy scouts he sends as much time as we let him on a game called Mine Craft, ask him about it sometime, that really gets him talking :)

Savanah is 16!

Savanah looking super cute on the 4th of July 2011

At Savanah's birthday party with Kira and Amanda (7/22/2011)

Savanah, Kamree and Katie at Savanah' & Kamree's party

Savanah turned 16 in July. We had a big sweet 16th birthday party with her good friend Kamree who also has a summer birthday. My wonderful in-laws gave us a car for her to drive so she now drives herself and her brother to early morning seminary, to Folsom High school (we started school back on August 15th) them home after tennis practice. I'm so proud of her this year. She is also taking French in school after 2 years of Spanish. Rich really wants to take all the kids to France sometime and now he can help her with her home work :)

Now that she is in her Junior year of High School we are starting to look into collages, maybe BYU- Idaho?

Rich and Lisa

Rich and Lisa hanging out at Costco

Ok, so I have not added anything to our Blog in almost a year. so I thought I would give you an update on our little family.

I started an exercise and eating better thing back in January and have lost about 45 pounds (yeah me!) I hope to lose another 30 pounds sometime.
Since January I have been  working  with the Cub Scouts program in our church.  And now with the kids back to school I'm hoping to spend  more time on family history and developing my art talent.

Rich started a Masters Degree in business at Sacramento State in March. It is a 15-18 month program with classes on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings and days. As well as meetings/ study groups during the week. He is still working full time (crazy hours) with Cisco/ WebEx. This program is taking all his time and changes many things for our family, but I'm so proud of all his hard work to provide for us and better himself!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I realize the older I get that if I want a happy Birthday I need to make it happen, so this year as I turned 43 I had a birthday weekend.

On Friday my good friend Khristine Pettingill arranged a birthday lunch with some of my friends: Allyson White, Janis Harrison, and Jennifer Marchek. We went to Chili's and had a great time! That night Rich and I had dinner at Yummy Kitchen (a Chinese restaurant on Blue Ravine next to Mr. Pickles) and then a movie.

Saturday after Bekah's soccer game and Savanah busy with a fund raiser car wash, I took Lizzy and we got our toes done.

That night Rich took me out again to dinner at Olive Garden. We then picked up some beautiful cupcakes from Beth Wallburger (she has a side business called Little Delights Cupcakes http://littledelightscupcakes.blogspot.com/) She made me chocolate cakes with a pumpkin filling and topped with chocolate fall leaves, so yummy!

Sunday was church and then that night a friend brought over a super yummy Indian dinner with rice and a chicken tiki marsala. Every year our RS does a service auction, where you donate something and are given points so you can bid on other things. I won an Indian dinner from Danielle Post, with her brining it over on Sunday I didn't even have to cook on my birthday ;)

Rich surprised me with a Kindle reader for my birthday. I'm so excited about it because I love to read and there are 1,000,000 free book you can download as well as all the ones to buy, you end up saving a ton of money because e-books are so much cheaper!

Below are my pretty and yummy cupcakes

We had our friends the Marchek's over to share our cup cakes and ended the night with singing "Happy Birthday", eating yummy cupcakes and hanging out with friends. What a great weekend!

Remember for your own birthday not to wait for someone else to plan something but do it yourself, for yourself!

It's Time to Fly

When the kids went back to school I started a big project, I decided to clean out our garage. I started and wanted to surprise Rich because I didn't know if I could really do it and I didn't want him expecting something I couldn't really do. You have to understand that with the 5 moves we have done in Folsom everything that didn't have a home went into the garage including all the unpacked boxes that just kept being moved instead of tossed. You couldn't even walk though it. I wish I had taken a before picture so you could see the difference. Well Rich started to notice all the things I had found that made it back into the house. He said "Are you cleaning the garage or just rifling though it?"

I told him he just had to come see. I had done enough work that you could see a big difference, he was so excited, but was afraid that I would quit now that he knew. No way I was going to be able to park my car in there!

It took me about a month to finish, with a little help from Uncle Joe and the family at the end. It makes me smile every time I can park my car in there!

Soon after this Rich and I were talking and he was complaining that the kids can't have any friends over because our house was always a mess. After I got over being mad I knew I had to do something so I signed up for http://www.flylady.net/ again,

she helps you set up cleaning routines, declutter your house (you can't really deep clean with stuff in the way) and helps you feel good about what you get done. I knew it was working when after clearing off the dressers in my room Rich said" it's like our house is finding itself" so sweet!

My house is coming together, I'm even inviting the in-laws to Thanksgiving, I'm spending less time on the computer and just more happy with the work I'm getting done. If you haven't check her web site you should!