Lets Get This Party Started....

Haylie's birthday party was at Monkey Bizness. A great time was had by all.

Nothing important - just stinkin' cute pictures.

And then.......

I came home to a delivery of these from my wonderful husband and two sweet girls!

Toto - We ARE In Kansas!

The girls are out of school today for parent teacher conferences. We decided to have a play day. After birthday pictures this morning we went earring shopping at Claire's. Then we headed up to the Crown Center. This is the 70th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz and they had a wonderful play area set up. Then we went to Fritz's. You call in your order from the table and then a train delivers your food. I love all the activities and stuff this city has to offer!!!!

School Shopping

Went shopping today for the girls' school clothes for next year. Bought $351 worth of clothes and only paid $98! LOVE THOSE CLEARANCE SALES!

Happy 7th Birthday Haylie Bug!

WE LOVE YOU!!!

LOST........... and found

OK OK. Now we know what all the buzz is about. For whatever reason we did not catch on to the ABC series LOST when it premiered in 2004 - (that long ago)? But we have seen the light. Mike's cousins suggested we start watching it. So of course we couldn't start with this year which is Season 5, we had to start with the beginning. Even though it is available to watch online, we figured the tv would be much better. So I checked out Season 1 from our local library and we started watching it. Last night we got done with Episode 5. Only 17 more go go. I will then go to the library for Season 2. What can I say - AWESOME SHOW and I highly recommend it.

As Sharpey says...... I Want Fabulous

And thats what I got. Fabulous weather. Midwest. First week of February. Expecting ********* 72 degrees ********** today!

5:00 AM and the ER

Today started out with a bang. First of all Haylie was sent home from school Wednesday afternoon for a fever. Nurse said if it was gone by Noon the next day she could return. So I took her back Thursday afternoon. She then proceeded to attend her friends birthday overnighter at Great Wolf Lodge and played in the water that night and most of Friday morning. She played outside yesterday as it was 65 degrees. But last night she was complaining that her ear was hurting. Of course I gave her Tylenol at 10p and she was up again this morning at 2:00. Gave her the Ibuprofen. She was up again at 5:00 just crying because her ear hurt. So off we go to the ER which thankfully because of the new Shawnee Mission Hospital built by our home, is right across the street. We were the only ones there and got right in to find out she has the dreaded EAR INFECTION. Back home by 6am and I'm in the shower so I can be at the pharmacy when they open at 8:00. Guess we'll see about church tomorrow.

Lacie

I haven't said much about Lacie our little Yorkie. She is such a joy to our family. She is now 20 weeks old and weighs 2.75 lbs.

Show Me The Money

I LOVE tax season. I LOVE doing our taxes. I LOVE filling out the forms and watching our return grow. Got them done this morning. I do have to admit that I got onto TurboTax from the recommendation from my sister. It is SO SLICK. All I do is fill in the answer to the question and BOOM its completed. The $29.95 they charge every year is well worth getting our money back in 8 days instead of several weeks. Granted its just our money anyway that the government has had use of over the last 12 months without paying us interest, but just the same its fun knowing we're getting our money back instead of having to pay them extra at this time. And as much as we like to eat out I don't think we'd be as disciplined in putting the money away if we changed our exemptions anyway. Here's to the green!

Old McDonald Had a Farm

We haven't said much but we bought into a cow. This came about a few months ago. Someone in our ward approached us about buying into a cow and splitting the meat. We thought this would be a good way to fill up the rest of our freezer in the garage so we got into it with 3 other families. So this gives us 1/4 of the bovine. We get to pick up all this meat on Feb 7 and it comes out to $2.03 per pound. Can't get that good of a deal at Wal-Mart!

Deal of the Day

Everyone knows I love a good deal. Hence the reason I only shop at my WalMart Supercenter. WalMart will match any ad from any store. So why waste the extra time and gas driving from store to store to take advantage of their deals. Just take the ad to WalMart and they'll match it. So, my deal for the day was this. I needed some more cans of soup for our food storage. I bought 4 cans of Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup and 4 cans of Tomato. WalMart's regular price was $0.58 per can. Our local Price Chopper had them on for $0.49 per can. PLUS I had a coupon from the Sunday paper that saved $0.40 on 4. In the end, each can was really just $0.39! Now, one can will feed one of my girls. Add a glass of milk and a orange and I've spent maybe $1 per lunch. Too bad you can't get that at McD's.

Best Time EVER!

Now that the new year is here we finally have the 11:00 block for church. Yeah! In 2008 we had the 9:00 and I hate that - especially trying to get us all out the door. Prior to that, because the ward we were in and then our move to the new ward we had the 1:00 timeframe for about 3 years and I HATE that. Nothing like feeling the day is wasted. You sleep in, have brunch, get ready, go to church, eat dinner then its time for bed. We'll see what happens this summer. Our new Stake House which is literally 2 minutes from our home is supposed to be done in July. At that point both our Stake and the Olathe Stake boundaries will be re-alligned. We're crossing our fingers that we keep the 11:00.

Whew!

It has finally arrived. After 20 days - yes 20 days (including weekends), school has started again. I do love my girls, I really do; but this last week they were really getting on my nerves. Granted, summer time is a lot easier to deal with as they mostly play outside all day with friends or we're at the pool or doing some activity. But being winter and too cold to play outside, they were going stir crazy along with me. So joy of joys, on the bus they got at 7:30 and I am back to peace and quiet for the next 8 1/2 hours.

Merry New Year

It took me three hours but I'm done. Christmas has been put away and the house is back to normal. Now some may call me Scrooge for getting tired of the trees and decorations; but in our home they have been up now for 34 days and I say that is plenty of time. I did have to do this on my own as Mike is working a 24 hr shift today and the girls are playing with friends. But to have the peace of mind that my home is again in order is well worth it. The only thing left to do is for Mike to put away his 27 nutcrackers. Yes - 27 of them. I don't touch them; if they happen to break I don't want to be responsible. So there ya go. Happy New Year Everyone!

Happy Holidays from the Rogers

Christmas 2008

Christmas Vacation

The girls were off for the Christmas holiday on Friday so we decided to put together this little gingerbread house.

New Addition to the Rogers Home

This is our 3 month old Yorkie. Her name is Lacie and she is a whopping 2 pounds.

Stringing up the lights........

We got our two trees up on Friday and Saturday. I ended up having to go get three more strands of lights because I got ticked off trying to find what bulb was out (even with a tester) and it was worth the $2 just to buy another strand. We have our regular tree. And we have our Disney tree that has all our disney ornaments we collect every year. I'm sure glad this is just once a year!

Rogers Thanksgiving

Mike's parents came for the holiday but his dad went on down to southern MO. So we spent the majority of the time with Grandma. We were originally planning on 11 people at our home for dinner, but because of unforseen circumstances it was just the 5 of us.  

We did a turkey with a recipie from the Food Network, mashed potatoes/gravy, garlic green beans, turkey stuffing, hickory pit bbq beans from Jack Stack (yummy!), rolls,a veggie tray, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, a pumpkin roll and the great carbonated grape juice that our girls call the "burping drink" because well..... it makes you burp!

Blessings In Heaven

Many of you know it is not my favorite thing to feed the missionaries. I will probably be struck down by lightening, but I don't think it teaches these 19 year old men any responsibility if these women are taking over mama's job and cooking them dinner every night.  Yeah, I know, I know: their responsibility is teaching the gospel and converting people and it helps offset the cost - I've heard all the arguements. But still, I think these young men need to cook for themselves, clean their apartments, and do their own laundry - not instill in them that some woman is going to do this for them the rest of their lives.

But I digress. Last night an opportunity presented itself that I just couldn't resist. One of our favorite places to eat in town is Longhorn Steakhouse. Their food is awesome and if anyone has been there before, it isn't cheap. The average price of a meal is about $17. We decided a good steak sounded good for dinner last night so we went. Lo and behold waiting for a table were two elders. I believe they are serving in the Olathe Stake because I did not recognize them. They said a friend of theirs worked there and said they should try it out. Elder Bradshaw kind of chuckled, as a steakhouse isn't a typical eating establishment for a missionary budget.

After they were seated I tracked down the manager and asked how we could pay for their meal. I told her what they were and said it was something we'd like to do. We were seated in a different section than they were so we had a different waiter. Towards the end of dinner, the elders' waiter came over and wanted to know if it was ok to have dessert added on to the bill. He said the elders changed their mind when they found out dessert was about $5 a piece. I said go ahead and let them order. 

To make this long story short, we paid for the dinner and the restaurant picked up the tab for the dessert. I told the manager that we wanted to remain anonymous. Her story to us was she had gone over to the missionaries asked how their dinner was and if the dessert was to their liking. They said everything was great. She told them that this is how it was going to be: the restaurant was paying for their dessert and someone dining was paying for their dinner and wanted to remain anonymous. She said they were so pleased and grateful almost to the point of tears of joy. So what could have easily been a $60 meal for them was free.

If that doesn't bring blessings in heaven, I don't know what will.

Stars of the Week

Each class at Cedar Creek Elementary has a "Star of the Week" student. It just so happened that Savannah and Haylie were each the star in their classes just a week apart. Here they are with their bulletin board display inside the class.

Christmas Countdown

Yes, its that time again. How many more shopping days until Christmas?? But I am DONE (mostly). 

I say mostly, because we do save the shopping for our girls until December and we do it as a date with

dinner included. But since the girls are in school all day, we can do it as a daytime date. But I digress.

I am not one of those people that thrive on last-minute shopping or the obscene amounts of people in the

store. In fact, I have completed my shopping from the comforts of my own home. What a novel idea that

internet is! And even though I have done it only once - I do not participate in Black Friday and get up at

some ungodly hour to get a deal on some item that neither I nor anyone else on our list needs or wants.

Whats the point? I will relish in the thought that I can now enjoy the sights and sounds of these next

two holidays without the stress of what to buy, where to buy it, when to send it, etc etc. Happy Holidays 

everyone!

KS vs UT

No, this is not about football or basketball or baseball. This is just something I have been thinking about for a long time and decided to put it out there for others to read. Now, my entire existance was in Utah prior to my family re-locating to Kansas 5 1/2 years ago. I am by no means trying to dis family or friends who still reside there. However, I have been told in no uncertain terms that some will never come to Kansas because there is "nothing to do". I beg to differ. Mike and I married in 1998. So we lived in UT for 5 years as a married family. We have now lived in Kansas for the same amount of time. And...... we have done more here in that same time period than we did in Utah. So just for my peace of mind I decided to compare the two. So here is my results in KS vs UT.

Kansas Utah

Worlds of Fun  (no contest) Lagoon

Kansas City Zoo  (huge) Hogle Zoo 

Union Station

Science City

Oceans of Fun Seven Peaks

Paradise Park Boondocks

The Legends Shopping Gateway

The Plaza (14 blocks of shop/dine)

City of Fountains (over 200 of them!)

Plaza Lights Lights on Temple Square

Deanna Rose Farmstead

Kansas City Chiefs

Kansas City Royals

Zona Rosa

American Royal Parade Pioneer Day Parade

Schlitterbahn (2009)

Celebration at the Station (Mem Day)

Lakefest Fireworks (annually)

Christmas In the Sky Fireworks (Nov)

Crown Center Ice Terrace Gallivan Center

Alpine Slide

Camping at the lakes Camping in the mountains

Snow skiing (sometimes) Snow skiing

Utah Jazz

1,985,429 people in 253 square miles 2,150,000 people in 111 square mi

And the winner is..........   KS 23 :  UT 13

I'm sure I could think of more, but I don't have time to sit in front of the computer all day. I welcome any rebuttals.

Happy Halloween!

We had an awesome halloween. There are 15 families in our part of the subdivision and 12 of them attended our first ever block party. It was a great turnout. We had a chili cookoff and most of our neighbors who are Hindu brought food from their country which was really good. We have decided that we want to do this on a monthly basis during the summer. Mike took all the kids around the rest of the neighborhood trick-or-treating. A good time was had by all!

Absolutely Incredible!

The Lion King is in Kansas City until Nov 16. 

We went with the girls today downtown at

the Music Hall. First we ate lunch at a great

burger joint in the Power & Light District called

Chefburger. It was most AWESOME.

FHE Activity

With 4 days left until the big day we decided to carve our pumpkins for Family Home Evening. This is the result.

Cute Bathroom

This is one of the "themed" rooms in our home. It is our guest bathroom. Before we even moved into our home I had started buying Disney stuff to decorate it. And these are the latest additions. I had seen these several years ago on our annual trip to Disneyland and finally got around to purchasing them. Aren't they just the coolest drawer pulls you've ever seen! :-)

Marvin Has Left the Building

If you've noticed Marvin's picture is no longer in our list of pictures. Before we left for the weekend we took him to the vet and had him adopted out to another family. The girls will miss him terribly but we just could not get him potty trained. We had him since June and he is now 7 months old. We thought we had crate trained him correctly. He would go outside just to come in and go again on our carpet. He spent most of his time either outside or in his crate and not very happy. This new family is willing to start from scratch in training him and he will be much happier. We'll miss you Marvin!