Merry Christmas! 2008

December 10, 2008
Dear Friends and Family-
This year has flown by so quickly. Our big news of last year’s letter was that we were going to buy some land and build a house on it. We had a reality check on how long it would take to pay it off and on what we could afford for a house (we thought we’d be in a house by now). We are still paying for the land and hopefully will have it all paid off by next year. Our big news for this year is that Baby Rogers #3 is due on April 24th and it’s going to be a boy. Dale, as all of you can imagine, is as excited as a dad can get to have a boy! He can’t wait for fathers and sons campouts and scouts. I’m excited for less drama and one head of hair I don’t have to fix every day – especially Sundays.
The girls and I had the opportunity to go up to Salt Lake City with my family for a Bjarnson Family Reunion in July. We had lots of fun and it was great to see the cousins and my grandparents again. Almost everyone was at the reunion! In September, we went on a family camping trip to Alpine with Dale’s parents. The forest was so beautiful and green! It rained on us every day or night we were there and we loved every bit of it.
Dale is still an assistant manager at Home Depot and enjoying his job. It has its ups and downs, especially the long hours and having to work on an occasional Sunday. However, he has pretty good job security and with people all around us losing their jobs, we are thankful for it.
Joy played soccer this last fall and enjoyed it. Little girl soccer is the biggest organized bunch of chaos you’ll ever see. It’s hilarious when they’re out there trying to make friends with the other team, picking flowers, or tattling on so and so from the other team because “she took the ball away from me.” Good entertainment! She’s taking dance at the academy owned by her Aunt Jenny, and in “Mommy and Me” preschool with a few other girls in our ward. She is very smart, hates going to bed, and loves to dance, sing, draw, read, and play with her sister. She’s very excited to have a baby brother and just knew it was going to be a boy. She is very sweet and a big helper.
Lucy is a very independent little two year old who is always saying, “Let me do it.” She enjoys storybooks, dancing, singing, and is taking mom and tot dance with Aunt Jenny. She loves playing with her big sister and they are so cute together. They pretend to be kitties, play dress up, and take turns pushing one another on the swings. She gets a kick out of Joy squealing and running away whenever she tries to pinch her bum or says, “ding dong” and pokes at her bellybutton. She’s our little sweetheart and is very much the baby of the family (for now).
I am staying busy just trying to keep up with all of the mommy and housewife things that a girl has to do. My house is never perfectly clean, I always have one project or another in the back of my mind that I’d like to get to, and I always want to play outside with the kids or snuggle on the couch and read or watch a movie. My new hobby for the year is blogging and I’ve had so much fun with that. I’ve been able to find out what old friends are up to by finding their blogs, and I’ll have a better journal now because of doing one.
I hope this letter finds everyone well and happy. We have been so blessed and have so much to be thankful for. The Lord’s hand is truly seen in our lives. I am so thankful for Him and all that He has done for us.
Love, Dale, Amanda, Joy, and Lucy Rogers

Dishes

The other day we were doing dishes the girls thought they needed to help. So here is some pictures of them working together. I am so glad these two girls enjoy being together. They have a lot of fun together.

Locks of Love

I decided to get my hair cut short and donate it to Locks of Love. Joy cut her hair a few weeks ago and I have not sent it off so here is a picture of our hair.

So, the ultrasound tech said...

"Merry Christmas, Dad, it's a boy!" I was too glued to the computer screen to see Dale's reaction, but I wish I would have looked at him now. I bet he had a big goofy grin on his face. Dale is finally getting his Buck!
Joy called it! She said that we have too many girls in this family and we need a boy. She also didn't like the idea of Grandma Emma keeping the baby (Emma threatened to keep it if it was another girl since we'd have "too many girls"), so it just had to be a boy. He was being a stinker and not cooperating with the tech when she was trying to get a look at the vessels around his heart. He was awake and very wiggly. He is healthy and we're excited.
I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. If any of you have changed your email addresses or if I don't have them, send them to my email at abearnbaby@hotmail.com
I'll be doing my annual Christmas letter pretty soon.

Mission Call

For those of you who are interested, my baby brother, Stuart, received his mission call on Friday. He is going to the Columbia, South Carolina Mission and will report to the MTC on our dad's Birthday, February 25th.

Lucy had her Birthday last week. Lucy love elmo so we made her an Elmo cake. It took so much red food coloring to dye the whip cream. We had a little birthday party for Lucy at Uncle Isaac house. We had a little BBQ and then got down to bussiness. Lucy took a long time to blow out her candle she just looked at it. All the other kids wanted to help her. Lucy did not know what to do with her presents she got some help from her cousins and then she got excited. The cake was such a mess all the kids had to take off there shirts to eat it. Good times were had by all. Now the real fun begins!!!

good stuff

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

bunkbeds

With our new addition coming this spring, we decided to kick Lucy out of the crib and put her in a big girl bed. Joy is on the top, of course, and loves it. Lucy also wishes that she was on top, except she can't get down by herself. The first night we had it, I had to get Lucy down from the top 3 times before she finally stayed in her own bed. The quilts were made by Grandma and Grandpa Rogers.

Tights and shoes

Lucy wanted to go outside to play so I told her to go get socks and shoes on. This is what we ended up with!

Kids say the darndest things!!

A few weeks ago, Dale took Joy to a cashier appreciation party at Home Depot where they played games and hung out. One of the cashiers asked Joy if she was going to be a cashier at Home Depot when she grew up. Joy replied, “Sure.”
Then the cashier told her that she ought to go to school so that she could be the boss like her dad (Dale’s an assistant manager) and asked her if she would want to be the boss. Joy replied, “No, I just want to be a mom. My mom bosses my dad around.”
She knows who wears the pants in this family! Love ya, Dale!

Boy or Girl?

December 3rd is when we have the sonogram to find out what we're having. Dale is impatient and was hoping we'd get to find out by Thanksgiving. What do you think it'll be? Joy says it's a boy. I think I felt the baby move for the first time last Thursday. That's one of the few things I like about pregnancy. Right now, I'm really not enjoying the stuffy nose, itchy tummy, sciatic nerve pain, and pretzle legs when I have to sneeze pregnancy syndromes.
Good luck to Obama. I didn't keep up much with the debates, so I don't know what the viewpoints of each candidate were. I just hope he is able to keep up with everything that is going on and I really hope that he's got good morals.
On Halloween we got one picture of the girls and it's not that good. If you look up "Ike and Jen's" blog you'll see a good picture of the kids. We couldn't find the camera after that initial bad Halloween picture. Last Saturday, we went horseback riding at a lady's house that Dale works with. The girls loved it! Especially Lucy! She had a big Lucy smile and DID NOT want to get off the horse. We still couldn't find the camera for this event, so unfortunately we don't have any pics.

IT'S A...

Another Rogers! Okay, so I wanted to keep it a secret from my mom that baby Rogers # 3 is on the way until I saw her next month because I'd be in maternity clothes by then. Well, I talk to her on the phone too much and she picked up on it but decided not to say anything, but I realized she must know because of my mistake on the phone and she did. Anyways, we are 15 weeks (3 1/2 months) today and we'll have the sonogram around Thanksgiving to find out what we are having. The due date is April 24th.
We haven't told Joy or Lucy that we're having another one, but Joy has picked up on it through listening to our conversations and she decided that my tiredness and tummy aches (morning sickness) were because I have a baby in my tummy. Out of the blue, a couple of days ago, Joy asked me, "Mommy, how old will I be when my baby brother comes out of your tummy?"
"If this next baby is a boy, you'll be 5 years old," I replied.
I guess we might be having a boy.

Bobbin' for apples

For family home evening we went bobbing for apples. The girls decided it was fun to put the apples back into the water after bobbing them out and trying to eat them while they were in the water. You know how kids are around water. We had lots of fun!

Pink Dresses

Some Pictures of the girls on Sunday.

Temple!!!

The spot for the Gila Valley Temple has been officially designated. No more rumors about where it'll be. The temple will be located next to the baseball fields in Central, a small town between Thatcher and Pima. The ground breaking should happen in early 2009 and will take about a year or 2 to build. I can't wait to drive just 5 minutes to get to the temple instead of 3 hours. We'll get to go a lot more often, too. So if any of you are considering moving here, this is one more reason to do it!

Family Pictures

These pictures were taken by Flint this spring thought you might like to see them. Thanks for the pictures Flint.

Little Lucy

Yes we do have two daughters thought I post something about Lucy. Lucy is a fun little girl and is really learning a lot. Lucy has begun to potty train she will sit on her little potty and go pee but then she gets too excited and stand up in the middle and pees on the floor. Lucy love to play with her sister. One of there favorite games is kitty Joy is the person and Lucy is the kitty, Lucy will crawl around and meow. If you are sitting on the couch Lucy will crawl behind you put her arms around you and say baby back ride. It is a fun little game.

Hair cuts

The other day we took the girls to get a hair cut. Joy sat in the chair and the lady asked Joy how she wanted her hair cut. Joy said she wanted it short like Lucy's hair. So Amanda had the lady measure Joy's hair. Joy's hair was long enough to donate to locks of love so she got a short a hair cut and someone will get her beautiful hair. Lucy got a trim nothing crazy for her.

Soccer

Joy has begun playing soccer. Joy is on the pink butterflies team. Joy plays in an all girls league with girls who are 4 or 5 years old. Most of Joy's team is four years old. Joy's team has yet to score a goal in the right net but has scored a few times for the other team. The pink butterflies are a young team and are at a disadvantage to most other teams because almost all of them are 4. However the last couple of games were very exciting since the girls are starting to figure it out. Sometimes Joy will growl to intimidate the other team.

The Rogers Family Begins Blogging!!!!!

Well here we go many of you thought this day would never come. Our lives are buzy and we figured this would help keep us in touch. More to come very soon.