THE BIG BIRTHDAY REVEAL

This girl is 18!  It's weird not celebrating with her.  But she is definitely in our thoughts and prayers.  I am really proud of my eldest daughter and the good that she is doing.  She is working hard, growing spiritually, and becoming an amazing woman.  Anyways, 18 means no more nicknames.  Sooooo...  Happy Birthday, Kiara Lea!  We all love you!

A FAMILY OF FRIENDS AND FHE

I LOVE these kids!

Family Home Evening is AWESOME!  And I love that the Bettenhausens love it as much as we do!  So... tonight we decided to do FHE together....  We had a picnic, took a walk to see how beautiful everything is, and everyone shared their favorite General Conference experience, talk or thought!  It was soooooooooo much fun!  And I think another tradition has been born.

Nuts, Marmalade, Fig Newton, Raisin and Kotten Kandy

My cute husband is looking cuter every day!

Poor, Jelly Bean.  He got a shiner when he fell into a piece of furniture.

Riding in the back of the truck!

Saw a patriotic balloon!

We all sang "My Country Tis of Thee" from the back of the truck...

Running ahead...

These two girls have stolen my heart!

These seed pods remind me of black roses.

They are so unusual looking....

Fig Newton's "on top of the world!"

Kotten Kandy and Marmalade enjoying Heavenly Father's beauty!

These crazy men are BFFs!

Mark, Chris and Scott

Jelly Bean - Apple Pie - Nuts - Juice

I don't have boys, but I'll claim these four!!!

Fig Newton - Kotten Kandy - Marmalade

"MY" KIDS!

THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR

Watching General Conference like...

My heart is full!  I'm so glad we got to spend the weekend listening, learning and enjoying General Conference.  I am especially grateful that my daughters love this "holiday" so much.  And even though one of them is far away, we called and shared our favorite talks, etc. I'm glad to know she was watching this special conference "with us."

Actually, Key Lime Pie started "celebrating" the weekend on Friday night.  She went to a concert with her grandparents and cousin.  Mil joked with the girls that they were the youngest people at the program.  But they really had a great time and enjoyed the western music.

I'm related to both of these beautiful Cowgirls!!!

The Show...

These girls are gorgeous - inside and out!

Saturday and Sunday we watched our prophet and apostles.  We feasted, physically and spiritually.  Here's our photographic story:

Scott's Sweet Rolls are aways a HUGE hit!

Taco Soup - YUM!

And Key Lime Pie feasted on Colorado family's traditional Orange Danish Rolls!

Jelly Bean sat with me for a bit....

Mark needed a short siesta with Raisin and Jelly Bean....

Kotten Kandy and her Dad were enthralled with the talks!

Fig Newton and Marmalade enjoyed the sessions too!

And in Colorado...

My Hufflepuff Princess was also partaking of the spiritual feast!

I loved that Kotten Kandy braided her hair.

How cute!

Games before, between and after conference....

More games!

In Colorado they created music during the breaks.

This guy hid in the box... soooo...

She decided to hide also?!

Fig Newton

Nuts

Apple Pie

Jelly Bean

had all sorts of "emotions!"

It truly is "the most wonderful time of the year!!!!"

GERMAN UPDATE #2

We really love and miss our Lollipop!  She'll always be our German daughter!  It's fun to hear from her - and I thought everyone would enjoy hearing her "report!"

Hey everyone,

It's way about time to keep you up to date. My holidays just started and I really needed the time off. First of all, last week I went to the German ministry of defense to talk about transatlantic security policies with a couple of army officials. It was great but in some ways disappointing because there are problems in the world you can't solve that easy.  The same week I hand my exchange student meeting with my organization. I'm volunteering now to train and prepare  the next generation of students who are going abroad. It's a great way to spend time and get to know a lot of people. Business@school started and my group and me are head starters! We are going to win this!!! To prepare we went to the Leipzig university of business management and we took a couple of classes in order to prepare. Tomorrow is my friends 18th birthday. I already bought tons of food! It's going to be awesome! On the pictures attached you can see my fellow exchange students  and the region we had our seminar in, and me in front of the army building. Also there is a picture of an great book called "all my friends are dread" one of my friends showed me the KY page. By the way I still haven't tried KFC. I'm hoping to catch up on that soon.
I hope you all have a wonderful time. Let me know when we can skype and what you are up to.

Love and miss you
Lollipop

WOMEN'S BROADCAST TRADITIONS

Saturday marked the beginning of our holiday celebrations!  We celebrate for 3 1/2 months!  Amy described the holiday celebrations best this way:

Soooo... General Conference, Halloween, NaNoWriMo,

Thanksgiving, Winter, Christmas, and New Year's Eve!

Kotten Kandy, Fig Newton, Me, Amy
Marmalade and Raisin

General Conference is the first holiday that we get excited about at our house!  And last night was the Women's session for the event.  For the past 3 years, we have celebrated the broadcast by all the DeGooyer and Bettenhausen women go out to eat for oriental food.  Then we go to the broadcast together and watch, while taking notes.  We love sharing our favorite talks with each other. 

Last night we ate Thai food with the gang....  (We really missed Key Lime Pie, but we knew she was celebrating the Colorado way with her cousins.  Thank you Shortbread, Shaved Ice and Mariah for taking care of our almost 18 year old daughter!)  After dinner, we congregated with other women in our ward.  We have a great ward with great sisters in the gospel!  We  LOVED the broadcast!  It was was AMAZING!  Every single talk was gold!  Amy and I decided that this was the best women's broadcast ever!  (Of course, we probably say that every session!)  I loved learning about charity, doctrine and faith!  Key Lime Pie's favorite talk was President Uchtdorf's.  He talked about faith - and Kotten Kandy turned to me and said, "that's my sister's favorite talk!"  Kotten Kandy also said it would be "cliche to say Uchtdorf was her favorite talk last night...."  She loved them all.  Fig Newton said she loved the choir!  She thought they sounded beautiful!  I also didn't have a favorite talk, but I realized that I need to think of strengthening my faith and my charitable feelings more like a quest.  I can change for the better!  I love growing and learning and becoming more of what my Heavenly Father wants me to be!

Excited to watch our leaders and prophets!

Key Lime Pie and Shortbread also enjoyed General Conference!

They had a dinner before the session with their stake...

It's hard to believe that those two absolutely gorgeous girls looked

like this only a few hours before as they worked HARD!!!!!

SPIRITUAL DISCUSSIONS, WALKS, CAMPING, AND MAKING MEALS

What a fun, and exhausting, and busy week it has been....  But I love this crazy family of ours!
Sooooo... Scott had this AWESOME idea!  He decided that once a month we should feed our DeThorntenhausen family and have a spiritual discussion.  We've done it for two months now.  It's loads of fun, delicious and spiritually uplifting!  Everyone participates... and the kids keep entertained by coloring (and they love the Jets bean bags that we finally got out of storage {aka. Chris' house}... Karmel loves the bean bags too!)

The gang - while we "discussed!"

Little Artists

Little Dancers

Nuts

Jelly Bean

Yes, I think Karmel is cute... sometimes...

And spoiled...

Our walks are still wonderful!  I love the beauty of Beckley Park.  And it's fun to see Amy's kids get into the spirit of it!  They all started stretching without any encouragement from us.  It made me smile... so I took a picture.

Marmalade, Nuts and Apple Pie stretching before their run....

The ward camp out was last night.  I don't like camping.  But Fig Newton and Kotten Kandy do.  They got to go with the Fieldings.  And they had a blast!  (Thank you, Trina and Doug, for accepting two more daughters into your crew for the night!)  I REALLY LOVE these 5 beautiful girls!!!!  And Fig Newton liked "American camping!"  (Apparently Taffey and Maple came out to play games last night... but since I wasn't there I couldn't take pictures.  They had fun hanging out with them too!)

Fig Newton, Kotten Kandy, Apple Jacks, Chex and Red Hots

Eating Breakfast....

Marmalade, Nuts and Apple Pie went camping too!

Chili Cook Off

Chex, Fig Newton and Kotten Kandy

Chex, Kotten Kandy and Fig Newton putting up the tent.

Today was spent making freezer meals.  Amy and I decided to make over 10 meals for our families.  It makes meal prep during the week TONS easier and the cost is better when you buy in bulk, etc.  Yay for freezer meals!!!!

Each family gets: 3 pans of chicken enchiladas, 2 pans of pizza casserole,

2 small pans of meatloaf, 4 bags of pulled pork (and lots of leftover ingredients)! 

Our little "helper" loved hanging out under the desk.

Isn't Raisin adorable?

It's been a fun week!  More tomorrow....