Who doesn't love a great pair of shoes?

Miles has wanted basketball shoes for a long, LONG time.  Mike and I decided if he wanted them, he would need to earn the money to buy them.  After a long time (at least 6 months) he finally had enough money to buy his shoes.  He placed his order and waited "patiently" for them to come.  

Once they came he was the happiest boy in the world!

Morgan looks like she is excited for him, but really she was mocking him.  I guess she just doesn't understand how cool basketball shoes are.

He's only had them for a day, but he's already used a rag to clean them up twice.  Mike took him to the church to test them out, and they work.  He is now a better basketball player.  He says he will never wear them outside and I think he is going to take great care of them.  I love that he earned them himself.  Good job Miles!  

Never mind about the new blog address...

So a fellow friend/blogger taught me the trick to keeping my same blog address without paying for the additional space.  I already had another google account, so I just linked that up to my blog as another author!  If anyone else runs out of space, this is a much better solution than creating another blog.
THANK YOU KRYSTAL!!!

Death threats don't scare us!

Gosh, I didn't realize one innocent little comment about someone's gingerbread house belonging in a gingerbread trailer-park could stir up so much hate.  I think our little gingerbread men, living in their amazing gingerbread castle, could be in trouble...  I don't think the live-in personal chef and nanny are  safe either.   How could anyone hate us and our amazing stain-glass candy windows?   Jealousy brings out the worst in people.  It's a shame. 

Don't worry, we are pretty sure we know which "friends" left this on our doorstep last night.  We are on the lookout and we don't plan to go down without a fight.

If Meg hears anyone outside she has to see what they are up to.

  

And it breaks her heart that she can't be out there all day long...

Life is full of disappointment Meg.  You better get used to it.

Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving was great this year.  We didn't have any extended family plans on the actual holiday, so that gave us some freedom to do other things.  Mike and I decided a few days before Thanksgiving that we wanted the kids to do some kind of service for Thanksgiving.  After quite a bit of thought and phone calls, we decided on taking the kids to a local hospital to visit long-term patients.  The kids colored a bunch of Happy Thanksgiving pictures, we bought a stack of children's books, and off we went.   We met some incredible people that day.  The kids read books to the sick children that for the most part couldn't even talk, but the smiles they gave them when they turned each page was one of the most touching things I've seen in really long time.  Then they delivered their cards to the older people that were all alone for Thanksgiving.  Will surprised me the most.  Since he's 3 I thought he would stare at their tubes and deformities and ask all kinds of questions, but instead he showed so much love and walked up to each person and said "Happy Thanksgiving" in his sweet little voice.   I knew we would feel good afterwards, but I wasn't expecting the overwhelming amount of gratitude we left with.  Gratitude that we are all healthy and that we have each other to spend each day with.  We are so blessed!  

On Friday we got together with my family for Thanksgiving.  After we ate, we made the traditional ginger bread houses.  My mom is amazing... She spends days making each family a gingerbread house with candy stained glass windows.  Then we come along and get to decorate it.

I love Will's face here!  

The finished product! 

Here it is on my table.  My favorite part is Santa's sleigh on the roof and Santa popping out of the chimney- that was Morgan's idea.  

The best part is, my mom added lights inside so when we plug it in, it lights up!!  And after about 5 minutes the lights warm it up inside and the house smells like gingerbread.  It smells amazing!!  

Then we drew names for the cousin gift exchange.  I thought it would be fun to make scratch off cards with the name hidden underneath.  The kids loved scratching off their ticket to see who they had.  It was fun! (And I sticker coded the cards to be sure they didn't draw one of their siblings... It worked perfectly!)  

Meg was happy with her name.  She wouldn't put down her card :)

Another fun tradition on Thanksgiving that we've done for years is getting money from my parents... Oh YEAH!  Let me explain.  My parents have to buy Christmas presents for a million people, well, quite a few people anyway.  It's overwhelming for them as you can imagine.  They get presents for around 30+ grandkids plus 11 adult children.  So for the adult children they give us money on Thanksgiving and ask us to buy our own present.  (Then my mom can focus on buying for the grandkids, which if so much more fun!)  After we buy our present, we wrap it and bring it to our Christmas party and open it in front of my parents.  They love it and we love picking out something we really want.  It's a win-win!    

Happy Thanksgiving!

New Blog Address

Apparently I've used up all my free space for this blog.  And since I am cheep and refuse to pay for a blog, I've started another one....

Our new blog address is:

http://dehnerfam2.blogspot.com

Winter came in with a bang!

We got a little snow over the weekend...  I guess that's one of the "perks" of living on the hill.  On Saturday the kids had to miss their Jr Jazz class because the roads were too bad.  They were bummed so we had to try and cheer them up.  Morgan had the idea to make homemade donuts.  I've never done that before, but we gave it a go.  They were delicious!  (Except I doubt I will make them again - I ate so much I was sick all night.  You definitely can have too much of a good thing.)    

And it just kept on snowing all weekend...  By Sunday we had over 20 inches.  Not bad for the first snowfall of the season.   (I think there was a few more inches if we measured by the door)

Our poor deck had so much weight on it.  

Meg checking out the snow...   

 

Morgan eating  icicles.  

This guy spent a few hours over the weekend helping clear snow not only from our driveway and deck, but also helping quite a few neighbors dig out.  He's just that kind of guy.  I stayed all cozy inside with Meg and let him go at it.  I felt a little bit bad watching from the window, but he seemed to be enjoying himself.  He takes good care of us.  And he looks pretty dang cute with a cold, red nose.  I have a feeling our snowblower is going to get plenty of use this winter.  Bring it on Old Man Winter!  

Birthday Girl

Our baby turned 1.  sniff sniff.  It's sad, but she seriously gets cuter every day so it's okay.  

Here she is with her birthday balloons from Grammie and Grandpa Dehner.

Notice her hair was done for the occasion... One little sprig for one year old!

ONE YEAR STATS:  

She's a petite little lady...

17 pounds 3 ounces (dropped to the 4th percentile - not a shocker there - she is one of ours.)

28 inches (40 percentile)

We had a last minute change of plans and decided to go to Scheels to hang out for her birthday.  Mike went there for the first time last week and told me it's his new favorite store... It's a really cool sporting goods store with an indoor ferris wheel and huge aquarium.  The kids loved it.

Happy Birthday Meg.  Sorry it was kind of lame and you didn't even get cake, but we love you anyway.   

Happy Halloween!

We started Halloween on Sunday with the cousin party at Grandma & Grandpa's house.  17 of the Grandkids were there dressed up (and Uncle Mike too of course).  

Dehner kids are the bottom left.  Miles is a zombie, Morgan is a pink skeleton, Will is Spiderman, and Meg is a princess... Yes, yes she is!   

I think Meg wore her costume a total of 3 minutes.  Good thing it's Morgan's old costume and I didn't buy her anything.  I should have dressed her as a accident victim with all the bruises on her forehead.  Hey, that wall jumped out at her.  

We played Halloween BINGO - the kids never get tired of that.  

Then we did the traditional piñata (actually 6 of them for this many kids).

Miles giving it a good whack...

Morgan was much more gentle, but still did some damage.  

Then it was Will's turn... I don't know if it was his muscular superhero costume, but man, he blew that think right open!  

Halloween day - school parade!  Look at that smile... The cutest!  

Morgan walked by fast so this was the best I could get.  She is the cutest skeleton there is.

I didn't get one picture of trick-or-treating...  I'm sure you're devastated.  Oh well.  

After trick or treating, Mike took the kids to the Jazz game.  It was a late night for them, but that's okay once in a while, right?  It was a packed day full of all play, no work, and tons of sugar!  

Now if only I could stop eating their candy.  I swear I have no self control.