Crocheting Hats

Since Lindsay announced that she is having a boy, she talked me into trying my hand at crocheting again. I seem to get into projects, do a few things, and then don't do any for a long time and have to reteach myself what to do. I'm totally self-taught and still have to rip a lot of stitches, but I enjoy it once I'm into it. Here are a few of the hats I've made in the past month.

Mooooore Christmas

Maci got a piggy bank that calculates how much money you put in it. She spent the rest of the day trying to get people to feed her piggy.

Emmi loves Costa Vida but could never afford to go even though she lives a couple of miles from it. She's excited to use her gift card and treat herself. In the picture, however, is a digital frame to put all of her many pictures.

Linz and Ronnie are always fun to have around. They got several gifts for their baby to be born in February. The cutest one was a little set of golf clubs. Ronnie got a kick out of the prospect of taking him golfing with him. Their little dog is named Mercedes.

Nate & Rebecca donned their Christmas pajamas. They have vowed to get in shape this year and asked for exercise stuff. The waffle iron Rebecca's holding isn't one of them.

More Christmas

Doug got a new wedding band because he gave his original to Logan when he got married and has been wearing a CTR ring for the last 4 1/2 years.

Rachelle gets a Barnes & Noble gift card every year because she loves to read so much. Also, she got a Nook this year so she was doubly excited.

This was Brendan's first Christmas since his mission. It was fun to have him here. Notice the rug on his face. We talked him into shaving it as you can see in the new family picture at the top of the blog.

Merry Christmas!!

We had a really great Christmas. All of our family was here. There are 13 of us now. We count our blessings each year that they can all come. We know the day will soon arrive when they will want to have their own little family Christmases or will be spending time with other relatives. But we relish every moment we have with them while they are here. Christmas morning was a lot of fun as we watched each gift being unwrapped. Gwen and Phoebe were fun to watch because they got so many things that they wanted to stop and play with each one. But children are what makes Christmas fun and we enjoyed them.

Here is a picture of the Christmas tree before we started unwrapping gifts.

Logan helping Phoebe with one of her gifts. I think Logan's favorite gift for himself was a complete set of every Far Side cartoon that has ever been published. What a hoot!

Gwen after opening her first gift

I'll have to put other pictures on later. For some reason I can't add any more to this one.

Too Bored

Maci and her friend, Kaelyn are equally weird and love to be spontaneous and random. Today they decided to be themselves and paint each other's faces. One would think that it would be a Halloween caper but they said "No, we want to be 'men' for Halloween." That should be interesting.

An Exciting Weekend

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Ronnie, Lindsay, and Brendan came for a visit this weekend. They, of course, brought the granddog, Mercedes. She is a little Morkie (Maltese and Yorkie) and is about 4 pounds. Our dogs weren't sure what to think of her, but at least they didn't eat her.


That was exciting, but not as exciting as the news they brought. They told us they had a present for us in the trunk of their car. We took the keys and went out to look. There was a rock that said "Baby boy Thinnes" carved into it. My first reaction was elation that we were going to have another grandchild. Then about half-way into the house I said to Doug "Wait a minute. How do they know it's going to be a boy?" She is actually 22 weeks along and has kept it a secret all this time! We're talking about Lindsay here!!!! She doesn't keep secrets! But this one is one she really kept, even through the announcement that Logan and Rachelle are expecting again. She is due 3 months before they are. After the shock, we are all very excited to have our first grandson in February and another grandchild in May. It will be fun for the two of them to grow up together.

Volleyball Cookies

Maci has her last volleyball games tomorrow. It will be a JV tournament in Montpelier. She decided to make cookies for her team. She always goes all out. She used a knife to score each one to look like a volleyball. She also made heart cookies. She loves the sport even if she doesn't get to play as much as she wants to. GOOD LUCK GIRLS!!!

Rhoda's Bath

Bath day for Rhoda is not fun for anyone. Maci has bravely taken on the bath duty, which I appreciate very much. The bath ends up being more of a fight and the bather ends up wetter than the bathee. Anyway, she looks and smells better afterwards. However, she dispises baths so much that she avoids Maci for a couple of days after each bath.

Warning! We'll Never Know For Sure

Still catching up but I found this picture that I hadn't posted. I came home one day and found this sign sticking in a pan of muffins sitting on the stove. Apparently, Maci wasn't too impressed with her own muffin-making skills. None of us dared try them with this warning, so they got thrown away without knowing for sure.

Moving Weekend

Shockingly, it wasn't us moving ourselves, but us moving our children. First we helped Nathan and Rebecca load their things into a moving truck on Friday afternoon. Then on Saturday morning we formed a caravan of 5 cars and the truck and headed for Boise. Rebecca and her sister didn't stay in line with the rest of us. They beat us there by a little bit, but Doug drove the truck, Nathan drove his car, I drove our car and Brendan followed us to Pocatello where he left his car in the Wal-Mart parking lot so we didn't have to take him back to Idaho Falls, and he got in with me. After only 2 short stops, we got to their new townhouse, which they had only seen pictures of, and unloaded their things. Their townhouse was really cute and we spent the rest of the day trying to get things into place. I'm not sure if we helped much because setting up a house is kind of a personal thing I think. Sometimes others' suggestions only tend to frustrate the situation. But I think it looked pretty good even though they still have quite a bit to do. Here are some pictures of their house.
Their townhouse is on the right. The sliding door is theirs and their front door is around to the right side.

The kitchen

The living room

Master bedroom

Second bedroom


Then on Monday we moved Emmi over to Pocatello. When we got there, the manager wasn't there and we had to have the assistant manager let us in. None of her other roommates were there, so we set up her bed and helped her get settled in. Then we went and got something to eat, buy a few groceries, walked to the campus and to the bookstore, and back to her apartment. It was hard to leave her there because she was all alone. But I'm sure she will be fine. I probably will be too.

Her kitchen

Living room

Bedroom


The best thing about being a mom is watching your kids grow up a be successful. The worst thing about being a mom is watching your kids grow up and move on. Thank heavens for the gospel and eternal families.

More Girls' Camp

I just got ahold of Doug's camera and he had so many more shots of girls' camp than I did so I just had to show a few more of the cool things.
A big net to jump and launch each other off from.

Kareoke Night

Girls cooking in the outside kitchen

The main house where the girls slept. Had a kitchen & restroom inside.

Canoes that hold about 20 people each that we used to go down the river

Doing crafts

The bunkhouse where the junior leaders slept

A cabin for leaders and restroom/showers

The Barn--the main meeting area

Pampering Ourselves

My Beehive girls wanted a spa night, so I found some homemade facial recipes and had a fun night. We each chose which recipe we wanted to use--recipes with yogurt, oatmeal, baking soda, orange juice, peaches, avocados, and various other things, and we soaked our feet and put cucumbers on our eyes while we relaxed. It was a lot of fun and giggles. It's amazing how soft our skin felt afterwards.

These are some of our concoctions.


All of us getting beautiful.