HANUKKAH AND HEARTS

We have a silly tradition of celebrating Hanukkah by watching The Fiddler on the Roof and eating blue candy canes.  We love this wonderful movie! And it's fun to watch it together every year at this time.

We were also "attacked" by hearts last week.  Don't know who did it... but we feel loved!

WE ARE BLESSED!

Louisville in the background...
Kotten Kandy, Lollipop and Key Lime Pie

What a fun weekend!  What made it fun?  People:  Friends and Family!  We are so blessed!
Friday started the party off.  Scott and I went to a Celestial Companions Date Night Party.  We had a blast!  Scott and I agree that the group was AWESOME!  We really like the four couples that were there.  The Schmids hosted the event.  They are an amazing couple who are tons of fun!  (They are the ones I hope to someday share my grandchildren with because their son is so awesome.  It's cuz his parents are also great!)  The Bettenhausens were also there.  (Anyone who reads my blog knows how much I love Amy and Mark.  They aren't just friends, they are family!)  And the other couple is the Pinas.  I LOVE this couple!  We have recently done a few get-togethers with them and the more we get to know them the more both Scott and I are impressed!  We hope to become even better friends with them as we go!  We did get a picture at the end of the evening... but it was a bit blurry.  Oh well.  Here are our WONDERFUL friends!  We are blessed!

Schmids, Pinas, DeGooyers and Bettenhausens

Saturday we went to another fun Christmas event.  The Foreign Exchange Students Christmas Party.  The food was divine!  The company was great!  We had a good time visiting and eating different kinds of food from all over the world.  I led a short sing along of Christmas carols.  And some of the foreign students shared some of their traditions with us.  (I tried to get pictures, but the venue was really crowded and all I was able to take was pictures of backsides.  Nobody looks good in those kinds of pics, so I'll spare you the shots.)  Of course, Lollipop is the absolute BEST foreign exchange student EVER in the history of foreign exchange students!  We are blessed!

"The cold never bothered me anyway!"

After the Exchange Student Party, our small family of five, decided to visit the Louisville Walking Bridge.  It was a blast!  We walked from Kentucky to Indiana.  The girls were adorable!  The weather was pretty good, a bit cold, but not freezing.  And I got to hold hands with my cute husband.  The only negative was that the pictures are a bit grainy because of the dark.  But I still took lots of pics because all three of my girls were as cute as could be.  We are so blessed!  Check it out:

One foot in Kentucky.
One foot in Indiana.
Both feet over the Ohio.

Indiana side...

Lollipop, Key Lime Pie, Kotten Kandy and Scott

Looking over the Ohio River...

"I'm tired."

Here's the bridge we just walked...

Key Lime Pie doesn't really like heights.

Kotten Kandy, Lollipop and Key Lime Pie =
Quite possibly the cutest, sweetest and most fun girls in the entire world!

NaNoWriMo AWARD CEREMONY

We had a record amount of participants attempt NaNoWriMo this year.  To celebrate a successful month of writing and attempting to write more than we normally do, we had a small award ceremony.  Here are the pictures of the people who wrote and supported those of us who wrote a lot....

Three of us completed our entire goal:  Me, Kotten Kandy and Amy

I wrote 60 poems and the other two wrote over 50,000 words!

Amy got the awards and passed them out - 

it was her idea!  Yeah, Amy!

These two were cute little bits of inspiration... but they didn't write.

I just loved this picture of Apple Pie and Jelly Bean

Lollipop was our cheerleader throughout the month of writing!

Marmalade actually wrote 1000 words - not too shabby for a 9 year old.

Nuts also wrote a bit.

And Juice wrote 13 pages of his story on an old fashioned typewriter.

It was fun to listen to the sounds of the machine as we wrote a few times....

Scott started a fairy tale story.  He was really excited.
But life got busy and he didn't finish.
He'll finish someday.  Glad he had fun with us writing!

Key Lime Pie made a great effort.  Her goal was to write daily.

She didn't quite make it, but she did write a lot!

Chris wrote ONE poem.  And he only wrote it so he could have

some of the NaNoWriMo kick off treats.  It made us all laugh!  He's great!

We all teased Hammond that he was writing a romance novel...

Actually he wrote quite a bit of his Sci-Fi novel.

Mark nearly made the 50K goal writing his memoirs.

He got 40K+!
I can't wait to read about his life!

Kotten Kandy wrote the most words out of EVERYBODY - over 50K!

She's not done with her novel.  She's only about half way done.  She's still writing.

And she loves it!  I am soooo excited to read her novel!

I think her and Amy are the true novelists in the group!

I didn't get pictures of Amy and I getting our "awards."

But we did it!  I'm excited to read her novel too...

My award was for the "Best Non-Novel!"

I'll share an excerpt from Kotten Kandy's book and my poetry tomorrow... or the next day.  It's late.  And I need to get to bed.

DECK THE HALLS....

Key Lime Pie, Kotten Kandy and Lollipop

So... it takes us 4 days to put up ALL of our Christmas decorations.  And it's only day 2.  I think that Lollipop is most excited about getting her own stocking.  Thank you, Aunt Kerri, for making her one too!  It was a HUGE hit!  Here here is a preview of our decore:

Lollipop and Key Lime Pie decorated the tree...

Scott and Kotten Kandy put up almost 100 nativities...
only about 100 more to go.

I love these girls!

Also...  Lollipop got to "do the wishbone" with Key Lime Pie.  She won!  Her wish will come true!  She'd never pulled a wishbone before.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

How pretty is our table?  I thought it was so pretty!!!

The three girls decorated the table and the flowers are from our friends the Youngs.

I love Thanksgiving!  I love Thanksgiving for all the same reasons that everyone else loves it!  It is truly wonderful to pause and give thanks for ALL we have.  And Scott and I have truly been blessed.  Yesterday I made a list of things I am thankful in my journal.  The list was so long and I realized how much God has truly blessed us.  I won't share my entire list, but I am truly grateful for family: NEAR - Scott, Key Lime Pie, Kotten Kandy and Lollipop!  FAR - Mom and Dad McCallister and DeGooyer, and our brothers and sisters!  and CHOSEN - Bettenhausens and Thorntons!  I'm also grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  And I'm glad it is still beautiful weather in Kentucky!  Yeah, warm!
We got to spend Thanksgiving with some AWESOME people!  We even had to have two tables - adult table and kid table!  Just like Grandma T used to do!  I felt so blessed.
I have to brag on my husband for a minute:  He's AMAZING!  He single-handedly made the turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes.  He's so talented and giving and kind.  He's my biggest blessing here on earth!
Here's pics:

Lollipop and Key Lime were peeling potatoes...

Kotten Kandy photo bombed.

I'm actually washing dishes...

Kotten Kandy can't believe it.

Kotten Kandy is in disguise - she's playing with the kids.

Apparently they were spies and had to infiltrate under cover.

Aren't these the cutest kids ever?

Jelly bean wouldn't look at the camera -

Nuts is grinning on the top right.

Marmalade looked beautiful in her new dress.

Eggplant is one of my gorgeous new piano students.

Apple Jacks is so cute and LOVES the color turquoise.

Cocoa Puffs is only two, but sweet as can be.

Apple Pie is so loving and gives me tons of hugs.  I love Nuts hugs!

Clockwise starting with Scott in the center.

Lollipop, Kotten Kandy, Key Lime Pie, Juice, Mark, Amy, Heather, Stuart and Brian

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE THANKSGIVING...

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving!  And we have so much to be thankful for.  One of the things we are thankful for is all of our family and friends we are celebrating with tomorrow.  (We are also grateful for the family and friends that won't be with us....  But this post is about Kentucky DeGooyers.)  So to get ready for all of our company, we cleaned house today and made LOTS of homemade rolls.  We ended the day breaking bread for the homemade stuffing while watching The Mentalist (season 1 on DVD).  Lollipop joined in our breaking bread tradition.  (I broke bread too... but somebody had to take the pictures... so I'm not in the photos.)

THE END OF A TRADITION

Yesterday we celebrated our final Hunger Games tradition.  It was bitter sweet.  Amy, Key Lime Pie, Kotten Kandy and I have spent the last 4+ years celebrating the release of the Hunger Games movies by watching them together and eating Steak and Shake afterwards while discussing our love of Peeta, our disgust for the Capitol and the implications of the out of control government in Panem.  This year we shared our tradition with Lollipop.  She loved it too!  The movie was BEAUTIFUL!  None of us were disappointed with the final installment in this franchise.  We laughed, cried, screamed and fell in love with Peeta AGAIN....  The only true sadness about last night's activity is that this is the last one.  Afterwards we went to Stake 'n Shake again.  Mmmmmm!   Lollipop was soooo cute when she saw this restaurant.  She said, "It looks SO American!  It's how I imagined all American restaurants to look like!"  She took lots of photos of the fast foot place....