Boy's First Birthday - Sept 11

Games galore...

On her birthday, we changed Hannah's bedtime from 8:00 to 8:30 since she is getting so old (she's 7). So now we stay up every so often and play board games with her. Her favorite game is called Aggravation and she also likes Sorry! and Chinese checkers. I recently got them a game called Boccerball, which is like a miniature soccer game that you use marbles to try to get the ball in the opponents goal.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are some totally unrelated pictures:

More house pics...

Some pictures to go with the last posting. The kitchen, living room and game room respectively.

(The latter Hollye uses for home schooling too).

Home sweet home...

Many of you have asked about our new house, so here it is (click for larger picture). Since I work from home, I use the downstairs formal dining room for an office and we eat in the breakfast room next to the kitchen. Bedroom #2 is the boys room and the area marked sitting room is really a bedroom for Hannah that exits into the hall. Alena and Erilynn are in Bedroom #3.

We really love it. I never imagined that I would own a home this nice. As we approach this Thanksgiving I just want to remind everyone (and myself) to not only be thankful, but to remember who we should be thanking - God.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17)

Boys...

2006-07-27

2006-07-25

2006-07-23

Look Ma, no training wheels!!!

We kept telling the girls that once we moved, they would be able to ride their bikes without the training wheels (we didn't want to in our previous neighborhood because it was so crowded and busy). So, the day that we moved in, they started asking to go out. After my Dad, John and Amanda helped us unload the pod, we took the training wheels off their bikes and went out and let them practice.

They did very well and we took them out the next two days to practice. Suddenly, Hannah just took off and we had to run and catch her and we decided it would be a good time to explain how to use the brakes. About 10 minutes later, Alena did the same thing. After another couple days they were doing "tricks", like letting go of the handle bars, lifting their feet up and crashing (that last part usually a result of the former).

Alena Grace Denninger

2006-07-29

The Family Circus... (Aug 28)

When we were staying with Glenn and Margie, the girls decided to entertain everyone by hosting a circus. They spent most of the day planning it and after dinner we all sat down and they performed for us.


They dressed up silly, like clowns. Alena created a mask and cape with some pony tail covers and a blanket and clip. They put shirts on as pants and pants on their heads. Then they came out and did various flips and acrobatics. They also sang some hymns for us and demonstrated ice skating with crushed plastic water bottles on the smooth brick floor.


Erilynn enjoyed her part as the lion.



Glenn and William definitely felt that they got their money's worth.

Hannah's many birthdays...

Aug 9
The night before our moving day, Hollye was surprised when our neighbors Sat and Donna said they and their boys would come over about five the next evening for the party. Hollye tried hard not to act like she did not know what was going on but she did have to ask something! It turned out that Hannah, who's birthday is August 23, had invited a few people over for an early celebration, and hadn't bothered to inform (or invite) us. The next day, Nancy Bernstein called to let us know that she and Fred were coming over for the party and that she had a gift for Hannah and what kind of cake would Hannah like?! The next day the Bernsteins, Chinapens and later the Khalids came over and had ice cream and cake and Hannah got some nice presents. She was pretty pleased with herself, I think.




Aug 19
We were in Texas at the time, staying with the Berry's. We celebrated both James' and Hannah's birthday by going to a Mexican restaurant. They let them wear a big sombrero and sang them a silly song. Then we all walked to the Berry's shop to open presents. The whole Berry clan came and James and Hannah had lots of presents to open. The girls favorite thing though was their cousin Steven. He nick-named them Randy (Hannah), Michael (Alena) and Hank (Erilynn). They were so pleased with their new names, they gave him one too: Silly Billy Barbie boy.


Aug 23
Since the 23rd was Hannah's real birthday, we had to celebrate it yet again. Apparently, only twice was not enough! Her aunt Margie bought her an ice cream cake. Yummy! If the other children figure out how to swing 3 birthday parties, I'm in big trouble. Let's see 3 x 5 =15 plus Hollye will want a whole week...

Moving Days (Aug 9 - Sep 2)

We worked like crazy to load the Pod, trailer and van. The girls were so good and helped clean out the garage. I would pick up one thing after another, hand it to one of the girls and say "Pod", "trailer" or "trash" and they would put the thing wherever it belonged. They helped so much! By evening we ran out of room so Paul gave away a lot of things that would not fit to our neighbors the Chinapens and Kahlids. We pulled out of the drive about 8:30 p.m. with friends waving goodbye.

Drove all night to Tennessee and looked for a few days at houses with our realtor Sonja Scales. She was super nice and helpful. Erilynn kept referring to her as "my friend". Tried to start working remotely on Monday, but could not get my computer to recognize my work's internal computers. Tried a different hotel and even at Sonja's place, but had no luck. So, we hopped in the van and drove all the way down to Texas over night. We got there in the morning and I was able to start work from Glenn and Margie's house. Thank the Lord!

We stayed there a couple days, then went to try to work at the Berry's. Could not get a connection through their satellite hookup, so we stayed the weekend and drove back to Glenn and Margie's. Spent about a week and a half there working and buying our new house that we found in Tennessee. It was extremely stressing.

We scheduled to close on the 31st of August, so I stopped work at 1600 on Wednesday and we drove all night back to Tennessee. At about 2300 on a deserted stretch of highway, in the middle of Arkansas, our rear van tire blew. I spent about an hour putting on the spare, with tractor trailer trucks wizzing by about 2 feet from my head. The wind from them would buffet the van and trailer, making them rock (the children slept through it all). All that and the tire turned out to be almost flat!!! We were pulling our small trailer absolutely loaded, which made it even harder. We drove on the side of the road for about 2 miles, pulled off on the first exit and found a gas station with an air pump! We thanked God for hearing our prayers.

We were praying the whole time from then on that the spare tire would make it all the way to TN. We were supposed to do an inspection of our house at 830 and we got there at 833. The closing went pretty smoothly, except I kept falling asleep. We were so happy to get into our new house. It is awesome. My dad and brother John and his wife Amanda came and helped us unload the pod over the weekend. Oww, my back!

Count Down to Moving Day (Aug1-8)

August 1 - The packing began
August 2 - The Pod arrived
August 3 - We picked up our mini trailer
August 4 - William and Christian climbed up all the stairs and keep trying to eat the boxes
August 5 - We had a garage sale, at which the girls asked for donations for pot holders and purses they had spent hours and hours making. They are saving to buy Bibles for neighbor children.
August 6 - Our friends from church had a going away celebration for us
August 7 - Paul and Sat, our wonderful neighbor, loaded the heavy furniture into the Pod
August 8 - Nearly everything inside is packed and all the large items have been loaded with much thanks to our neighbors, Sat and Donna

Attack the daddy!!!

"Saturday School" circa July 17-29

Sometimes we read a story to the girls out of a book called "Missionary stories with the Millers". I read one of the stories to them on the 17th of July and they quickly decided that they were going to "pack up" and go on a mission trip. They had their backpack full of miscellaneous stuff and create a big scene as I was going off to work.

When I got home, Hollye took Alena shopping and, at the insistence of Hannah, we went for a walk around the neighborhood. She gave out "gift bags" to all the children that we met. The bags had toys, candy and gospel tracts that she had made. She also gave them a note to stop by our house at 0830 on July 22nd if they wanted to learn more about Jesus. She told me she had been practicing what to say with her baby dolls.

So when Saturday came, we all had to get up early (why did she say 0830?) and go outside for "Saturday school", (like Sunday school only on Saturday). The Chinapen's children came over and Hannah and Alena had a whole itinerary planned out. Hannah led the older children in her class "Big Fun" while Alena took care of the smaller ones in her class she called "Little Creatures". They are so creative! They played games, read Bible, sang hymns and
basically had a great time!

VBS (circa July 10-14)

VBS began this week at a nearby church (Grace Baptist), so we took the girls and dropped them off. I volunteered to help, but they said that they had plenty, but the next day, I brought them and they told me that they needed my help, so I helped out for the rest of the week. It was tons of fun. The theme was snow days (good for July in Florida). They had snow-ball fights (paper balled up), sled rides (blankets going down a big slide on bleachers) , snow cones and all kinds of crafts and treats.

They were also raising money to buy Bibles for Russia. Hollye and the girls went around the neighborhood offering free cupcakes and asking people if they wanted to donate. Many people gave and the girls collected around $75 dollars. It was really cool. :)

Ballet (circa July 10-27)

We wanted to have our girls enroll in ballet and a good friend of ours, Tom Walker, just happened to be starting a new ministry (Expressions of Joy). It is a really cool dance studio that emphasizes spriritual development alongside traditional and modern dance. Their goal is to teach young boys and girls dance that is God-honoring, instead of self-glorifying. Unfortunately we were only able to take them to 3 classes because of our move





I brought my camera for one of their classes and went kinda crazy. I'm not a ballet expert, but some of the pictures of Hannah looked like she had been doing this for years. She is a very good student.

Hint: Click on the pictures to enlarge...

What Happened!?!?!

Did the Denninger's fall off the planet? Not quite. We are sorry it has been so long since we've posted. We moved from Florida to Tennessee with many adventures in between and have been a tad busy. I plan on playing "catch-up" and blogging some history because a bunch of cool stuff would otherwise go un-blogged.

Stuff-Mart

Now I know that this blog is supposed to be about the family, but I am going to indulge just this once and talk about some things (that moth and rust destroy, I know).

The first item is my 67 Camaro RS convertible that I've had for the last 6+ years. After 40 years, it is still, IMHO, one of the coolest cars ever made. However, it burns through fossil fuel like a semi, so I chose to sell it. The good news was that I got more than I paid, the bad was that Hannah got a little upset at me, when she found out.

Other stuff related, uh.. stuff. I recently bit the bullet and bought a digital SLR camera because my current digital camera was so slow that I kept missing all the "priceless" shots while it was busy "thinking". I opted for a Nikon D50 which is about as low-end as you can get and still get a good dSLR. So far, it has been an incredible camera. William really took an interest in it as you can see at right -->

The cool thing about it is that you can take 2.5 pictures per second. The following link is a movie I created with the camera taking photos full-blast. The film is 7 seconds, but it really took place in only about 2 seconds. You can see William's expression change as he hears the whirring of the shutter clicking rapidly.

William.mov

Our Main Squeeze

Little Christian is the best hugger! When I pick him up he wraps his arms around my neck and holds on super tight.

MEALTIME ANTICS: When Christian realizes he is about to be fed he holds his arms to the sides and rotates his hands around while doing his heavy breathing. William rocks back and forth in his chair with just enough force to make us nervous. As soon as their crackers or bits of food are gone they begin the ruckus all over again - it sure does keep the food coming!

The angel next door...

This is our neighbor Donna Chinapen. She has been such a blessing to our family. She helped out in the middle of the night when we were rushing off to the hospital and volunteered to come and clean our house while Hollye was recovering from the twins birth.

She often comes over and ends up playing games with our poor, bored children. They end up climbing all over her and making her flip them over and give them piggy-back rides. Erilynn (pictured at right) really has taken a liking to Donna, although for the life of me I can't figure out why...

Meet the Granddad and Granny...

So who are these people? No, they aren't Denningers, but they are the children's Granddad and Granny. James and Doreen Berry (I'll let you guess who is who) take serious their duty of spoiling their grandchildren.

The last time we visited, James was trying to persuade me of the health benefits of soy milk over the cow stuff. Needless to say, as a former dairy farmer, I was not easily swayed.

Anyway, we received a package from them not long ago. It contained goodies for the children, like a giant bubble maker and other fun stuff. There were also two boxes of cereal that I am told James insisted on getting. One was "Princess Cereal", which is kind of like Fruit Loops with marshmallows and the other was "Chocolate Lucky Charms".

So, here's the question of the week:
How much soy milk does one add to Chocolate Lucky Charms to make them a part of a nutritious breakfast?!?

Father's Day

I've been a little lax in my posting, my apologies. We had a very nice Father's Day last Sunday. We went to church and then Hollye made us some delicious fish for lunch while I played with the girls and read some stories to them out of their book "Missionary stories with the Millers".



Hollye made me the delicious banana-split cake in the picture (it is soooo good) and the girls gave me some nice cards that they made. Hollye got me a fishing rod and reel, since I had been waxing poetic about going fishing lately.



I took the girls outside to play with their latest toy (a stomp rocket), and then they rode their bikes some.



Meanwhile, Hollye was inside making one of my favorite dishes of all time, Panang Curry. It is a hot Thai dish with chicken and rice. Mmmmmm. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. I'm starting to really like this holiday!

Erilynn loves to sing!

Erilynn seems to have a real gift for singing. She learns melodies very easily and we will catch her humming and singing parts of a song that she only heard once or twice.

Recently, on our trip to Tennessee, we were playing a game in the van. One of us would hum or whistle a song and we would see who would be the first to guess the name (Name that tune!). Erilynn was the best among the children. She would yell out the song name while Hannah and Alena were still trying to hear it.

Here are some sound files of her that I recorded on my mobile phone and then re-recorded to the computer. That is why the quality is really lacking. You may need to turn your volume up all the way to hear it. (Don't forget to turn it back down afterward)

The B-I-B-L-E
Jesus Loves the Little Children
Everybody Outta Know

After 6 years, she's still just 29!!!

We celebrated Hollye's birthday on Friday, (June 2 for all you procrastinators out there). I baked her a German Chocolate cake but ruined the icing. Who knew it was supposed to be 4 egg yolks, not 4 eggs (nothing like an omelet for the top of your cake).
We had a "slumber party". Hollye laid out sleeping bags for everyone on the living room floor and we ate popcorn and watched kid movies with the children.
Poor Erilynn was sick with the flu and tossed all over her sleeping bag. The excitement never ends with 5 children, let me tell ya.
The cute picture of Hannah and Alena was over-exposed, but that gave it sort of a "dreamy" quality.

And now a message from our sponsor

I am amazed oftentimes at the immaturity of many adults, especially those claiming to be Christians. So it is refreshing, to say the least, when I see such wisdom and purpose in Hannah, who is only six. She created a card on her own initiative and without help so that she could share it with someone as a tract.

Cover page:
1. Dear Parents do you know
Jesus Christ the son of
God? God gave his only
Son Jesus to die on the
cross For our sins.
Jesus died on the cross
.But three days later
he rose from the dead.
That was his way of
Saying I Love you.
2. If you want to learn
more about God and
Jesus read the Bible

3. do you believe that
Jesus died on the cross
for your sins? Do you
want to ask Jesus in
you heart if you do
turn the page

Open card (written across entire page):
4. okay if you want
to ask Jesus in your Heart. Do you beleive Jesus died on the
cros do you believe he rose again
after that good
Say what I Say
Dear God I believe you died on the cross for my sin and
I believe you rose again three days later will you
Please come in to my Heart in Jesus name Amen_
if that was real you will go to Heaven!

Close card (back page):
When your throu
Please give this to
Your children (child)
or somebody you
dont even know!
and how old are
you! No your a
Newborn!

(misspelling and punctuation left uncorrected)

Saints 5K Family Fun Run

We had a good time this morning at the Saints Fun Run. The run was to help raise money for homeschool students who can not afford to attend sports. The girls ate their first snow cones. I ran and just kept thinking "breathe, breathe, don't pass out in front of all these people"! The girls must have had a good charge from all of the snow cones, cookies and popcorn - Hannah and Alena ran one mile and even little Erilynn ran a victory lap with me. She is so cute and likes to hike up her skirt when she runs, or maybe its that her underwear is falling down.


Hannah and Alena finished their year of sports with CHAA Saints (Christian Homeschool Athletic Association) on Thursday and received their certificates. We celebrated by going out for ice cream. Alena had mint ice cream with gummy bears on top. Hannah had blue ice cream with Kit-kat on top and Erilynn who is two and loves blue had blue ice cream with two gummy bears on top. Then Hannah and Alena each picked out a new outfit and here they are wearing them for the first time.

If you would like to make a donation to the Saints or find out more about them here is the address: http://www.chaasaints.com/