Saturday, January 31, 2009


hi!! Abigail again!! I still don't get the blog that much, so I didn't get to add these to my last post. I hope you enjoy these pictures of our pets!!!!!

Friday, January 30, 2009

hello!!! this is abigail!!!!!!!!

The Birds

Hello! This is Abigail doing my blog duty!!! I thought that it would be very easy to right an entry on the Knowles family's beloved pets!! Snitch is my bird. She is yellow and is snugly! She squawks like a fire alarm and is my baby dragon!! I got her about a year ago for my birthday and she has come a long way in becoming the favorite thing in my life! Towards the end of March (i think) Snitch broke her leg and a few toes. It took her about 2 and a half weeks to get better, and then she was fine. Mommy thinks she has arthritis in her foot that she broke. Lately I've been teaching Snitch some tricks and one of them is sitting on a boat in the bathtub. She also likes mirrors, listening to Wicked, waking up at 7:45 a.m., attention, scout, eyelashes, bells, and chewing on glasses. Scout is mom's bird. We got her about 1 and a half years ago. She is best friends with snitch. Scout doesn't snuggle and she certainly isn't yellow. She is white with black and blue marks. She is mellow and likes less attention. She also likes staying up late and waking up later than 9:30. She also likes Eliza's taste of music, the tallest shoulder, water and playing in water, being in her cage, bells and balls, hoods, music coming from the piano, and sitting in the tree.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Christmas Eve

Part 1 -- The Pizza
Homemade pizzas have been the tradition for sometime now in the Knowles family. We buy about any topping you can think of and everyone gets their own pizza. Rhodes dough is the crust. Spaghetti sauce for the base. Then the sky is the limit (or the amount of toppings we bought). Eliza and I do soy cheese. Homemade pizza is the best!! And the leftovers get us through Christmas Day and Boxing day!


Part 2 -- The Treasure Hunt
For some years now, I (Todd) have put together some kind of "treasure hunt" for a special Christmas Eve present -- which, remarkably enough always turns out to be pajamas. I think it's now officially called the "Pajama Treasure Hunt."
It's gets harder and harder each year to come up with creative places to hide them and creative clues to get them there. Last year was a "National Treasure" theme -- complete with a secret message written on the back of our framed copy of the Declaration of Independence (or maybe the Constitution -- I'll have to check. But I would have to check with a special light that will reveal the "invisible ink"). This year the weather limited my hiding places and my ability to go get special things for clues -- like ideas for invisible ink. I finally decided to work with the weather. I've included a video clip below of the discovery -- you'll see what I mean about working with the weather.
This year's clues centered around movies that each of the kids have watched . . . over and over again (usually as younger children). So each child got to be an expert for a clue. Nothing too spectacular -- but the clues were rather tough, very much riddle-like that took some thinking. But, as usual, they solved the mystery and uncovered the treasure.















Part 3 -- The Puppet Show
As a new feature this year, Abigail and Thaddeus put together a little puppet show that was sort of a take off on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Thaddeus' contribution also included a "Boise State Bronco" puppet -- which he helped make. (All puppets were homemade by Thaddeus and Abigail from the cardboard core of a toilet paper roll. Mr. T.D. Knowles contribution to the dialogue was that when the reindeer games were played, they "played football." 2 other times in the story Abigail paused and Thaddeus added, "And they played football" and the stage went crazy for a minute. Pretty much had us in stitches. You might notice, by the way, the Boise State theme colors for the tie-dyed pajama shirts for the older members of the family. Pink tie-dye for the younger girls.















Part 4 -- The Christmas Message
I (Todd) finished the evening with a Christmas message from Luke 2. I emphasized the role of the angels in this story. It seemed to me that the last General Conference had a more-than-usual discussion of the ministry of angels. We had talked about it some in our family in the previous couple of weeks and this was one more opportunity.