5th Annual Rogers Family Christmas Party

Latisha is loving this gift. Every year we do a white elephant gift exchange. I am listing a few of my favorites from this years party.

Shaylee entertained the kids with a game of Duck Duck Goose.

Okay this gift was awesome. Lanise was sure surprised when she opened the box and silly string exploded everywhere. This was Dylan's gift. He and Blake had some fun in the garage before the party started, so we all knew that we were in trouble.

Latisha makes this squirrel look cute, but when Shaylee dumped it out of the box and all you could see was a blob of fur it wasn't so cute.

This was my favorite. Zenica got a surprise when she opened her gift. It was alive. We played the left-right game with our gifts, so we passed them around for about ten minutes. This poor mouse probably had a concussion by the time she unwrapped him. This was all Latisha's doing. But he was pretty cute while in his cage. He was actually fun to watch.

Our First Tree

This year I set up this tree in our bedroom. Duane thinks I am nuts but I really like having it in our room. I told him it's our night light for December. I love to just sit on the bed and stare at it. I guess it calms me. It is the tree we bought for our first Christmas after we got married. We lived in an apartment in Mesa and didn't have room for a very big tree. This one was just right. When we moved into our house we strted getting real trees but a few years ago I bought a big 7' fake tree. It is in the front room with all the family ornaments on it. But I still like to put up our first tree. The second photo was taken when the room was dark and so the glow looks a little strange.

Mom it snowed does that mean it's Christmas?

We woke up to about 2 inches of snow today. The kids couldn't wait to go out and play. Wiley had school so I didn't get any pics of him, but I'm sure he played in it at school.

Janae is our little snow bunny. She has always loved the snow. As soon as we walked outside she started making this snow angel. She is the one who asked if it was Christmas because it had snowed.

Kinzie likes the snow but no where near as much as Janae. She didn't like it covering her shoes when she walked. I put them in the back of the truck and let them play back there they loved it.

Santa's Back and this time he brought Mrs. Clause

This cute couple came to our ward Christmas party last Thursday and handed out goody bags to the kids. It was fun to have Mrs. Clause there to help Santa.

I was in charge of decorating again this year but they forgot to ask anyone to help me. All the decorations are stored at the other end of the building and some upstairs. I did a lot of walking and bending. Not fun when you're 7 mths pregnant. After it was over people took stuff down and set it on the stage, but guess who had to put it all away. Duane was at least there by then to help. My friend Mary had to work, but came and helped me for a little while. Needless to say I was a little sore afterward.

Wiley gets his Wolf

Wiley received his cub scout wolf patch last Tuesday. He was pretty excited. We had to rush to get all the requirements done, a mistake we will not make again :0]

Here he is trying to put on the mothers pin. He told me I could just do it myself, but they are supposed to do it so I held out my shirt for him. He was pretty embarrassed.

Santa Clause isn't comming to town - He's here

Tonight was the town lighting and Santa was here. Kinzie didn't cry, but she wasn't sure about him either.

Janae asked for a barbie. We made lists a long time ago and she has never mentioned a barbie. The shopping is already done so barbie will have to wait for another year.

We waited in line for 1hr and 45min to talk to Santa. It was a little chilly but we were waiting in the the parking lot of the grocery store and they were handing out hot chocolate. Wiley also asked for something that was not on his list. We are two for two.

Across the street they had a live manger scene. Kinzie and Janae had fun petting the sheep. There was also a donkey and a goat.

Duane's New Job

Duane finally graduated in May from Nursing school. It was a long road trying to work full time and go to school, but he did it with honors. I'm so proud of him.

I took this picture while he was doing clinicals. He just looks tired. I know he missed out on a lot of sleep.

The kids and I attacked him the other day with silly string when we threw him a party celebrating his new job. He is going to be working at Summit in ShowLow. He got the position he wanted working in the OR. He just started working there Tuesday, and seems to like it so far. He just has to get used to being on his feet all day instead of sitting behind a desk :)

Grandma's Doo-Rag

The other day Latisha posted a picture of Grandma Nielsen in a doo-rag. She mentioned that she wasn't sure how anyone convinced her to wear one. Well I have the answer in the next picture. (Isn't she cute?)

The old we'll wear one if you will trick {c: It was a little windy and she didn't want her hair to blow so we talked her into it. And if you know Breanne you know she has an endless supply of these things. I don't know why she wasn't in the picture with us so below is a picture of her with Kinzie the same day.

Indiana Turkey

Wiley had to Dress Up this turkey for School. When he brought it home it was just a cut out on brown papaer. I should have taken a before picture. He wanted to make it look like Indiana Jones so we went to Wal-Mart and bought a pack of the sticky back foam. It worked really well.

Here is the finished Turkey. I think it turned out looking pretty good. Wiley was excited to take it back to school and show his friends. All of the 3rd graders made one and they will be on display in the cafateria for the month of November.

Undefeated

Soccer is finally over. Wiley's coach this year was Leslie Papa. She did a good job with this team.

The town is in charge of Soccer, it's not AYSO. They don't take professional pictures so Wiley and I had our own photo shoot {c:

His team was undefeated. Usually the score wasn't even close. They usually won by quite a bit. Too bad they don't have a tournament. They would have won easily. Next year he moves up to the older bracket. I guess we will find out how serious he is about playing then.

Wiley's 9th Birthday

Happy Birthday Wiley. We ordered his cake from Bashas and he saw the Scooby Doo candle and wanted to make sure it was on his cake.

We told Wiley that he could invite one friend over for his Birthday, so he invited Zack Wilson. They have been friends for a couple of years. They are a lot alike and get along well. We took them to the Dog House to play arcade games and they had a blast. They were both in heaven and went through the quarters quick. Wiley kept saying this was his best Birthday ever, and Zack was saying it was the best party ever. They both had a great time.

After we got back from the Dog House, Debra & Brian came over for Cake and presents. They brought this Transformers set. Wiley was excited because one of them was Optimus Prime.

Duane and I got him this skateboard. He was excited and wanted to know how we knew he wanted a skateboard. I'm glad we got it right. When they get this age you never know.

Wiley was most excited about getting this lego set from Grandpa & Grandma Rogers. He had been wanting this exact set. When he called to thank them he wanted to know how they read his mind. He is still amaized that they got the exact one he wanted. I didn't tell them which one to buy. They just happened to get the one he wanted. Zack brought a gift card from Dairy Queen worth ten dollars. I'm sure he will be asking to use that real soon. He was also excited that his teacher did not assign any homework either. I'm glad he had a good Birthday.

Trick-or-Treat

What a Cutie. Kinzie the Lion.

Janae is always happy to be with a horse. This is a flying unicorn but she doesn't seem to care.

Ninja Wiley. He's always ready for battle.

Duane doesn't know how to take very good pictures. The first one he took was too far away, so I told him he needed to use the zoom. As you can see he zoomed a little too much and cut off the top of Wiley's head :] We went to the trunk-r-treat in ShowLow. It took about a half hour to walk through and the kids buckets were full. They were happy with that so we took them to the new arcade that just opened tonight. They had a great time. We were having so much fun we forgot to go to Aunt Debra's house so she could see their costumes. I guess she'll have to just see the pictures.

Pumpkin Heads

During fall break we went to Grandpa Rogers' house and all the grandchildren (except for Lanise's 2) got together for a pumpkin carving party. Thanks to Dylan for growing all the pumpkins, and to Zenica for making hot chocolate to warm us up after we were all done.

Kinzie is holding the pumpkin I (Autum) carved for her while she watched.

Wiley carved his own pumpkin but he made Randon pull all the seeds out for him. He thought it was gross to stick his hand in the pumpkin. Janae and I worked on hers together. She drew the face on and I cut it out. Everyone had a great time. Happy Halloween !

Ready-Aim-Fire

On Saturday our family went shooting with Uncle Brian & Aunt Debra. We took cans and the tile we just removed from our house. We had a fun time and can't wait to go again soon.

Duane is holding the shotgun he got for Christmas last year. He and Brian had a fun time throwing cans and tiles in the air and shooting at them.

Wiley likes to use this tri-pod that his uncle Brian made. He does really well when he is using this. He hit quite a few cans.

This was Janae's first time shooting. She really enjoyed it. She even hit a few cans. She had so much fun that she told Duane she wanted a gun for her birthday.