Good Bye Little Albert

We lost our little dog Albert today to a swather. He was no match for that big piece of equipment and we had no idea that he was even out in the field when Darin was cutting hay. We will miss our little friend and all of the happiness that he brought to our family. He loved to play with the cats and was Abigail's best friend. I have never met such a cheerful dog and don't know that I ever will again. Good Bye Little Albert.

Storytime with Elizabeth

Elizabeth has been "reading" the past couple of days. She will just sit down for several minutes and read to herself. You will have to watch the video to see what I am talking about. Pretty funny.

Abigail's First Day of Kindergarten

It's official, Abigail is now a school-age kid. I can't really call her my baby anymore, well, I can, but I just need to accept the fact that she is growing up right before my eyes. She was SOOOO excited. I had no problem waking her up at 6:30 in the morning. When I asked her what she was excited about she said, "I get to ride the bus, eat in the cafeteria, and play outside!" All social things of course. We dropped her off at school for the first day and I got a little teary-eyed as I was driving down the hill to the school. I didn't think, I would, but I guess those overwhelming mom emotions took over. Good thing kindergarten is only 1/2 day here in Rockland, Idaho.


Abigail is so proud to wear her Tinkerbell backpack.

Ready or not Mrs. Taysom her I come!

Getting off the school bus in front of our house.

Albert was ready for Abigail to come home and play with him.

Where have the twins been?

For those followers of the Ralphs Ruckus blog, you may be wondering why there hasn't been anything posted about the twins lately. Well, let me tell you, they are really hard to catch for a picture these days. My friend took some really cute pictures of the twins the other day, so hopefully you guys will get to see them on the blog soon. The twins are 19 months old now. They run everywhere, get into everything, and we are getting to know their personalities a little better every day. I thought I would tell you a few things about each twin to keep our best blog readers up to date.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth loves to play outside. She loves the new sand box and throws a fit when I tell her it is time to go inside. I don't know what we are going to do with her when it is winter time. She loves to chase the cats and they love to run away. Elizabeth's favorite inside toy are Abigail's dress up purses and she gets very angry if you try to "trade" her in Abigail's words. Elizabeth is dangerous if she gets her hands on a pencil, pen, marker, or crayon. She knows no boundaries when it comes to the places that she likes to display her artwork. She is starting to say a few words (that only mom, dad, and Abigail can understand) like, "all done" "out" "cheese" "drink" "side" "hello""bite" and her favorite word is "MINE!" She is a great eater, she will eat almost anything I offer her. She is a great sleeper too, but she still falls asleep with a pacifier, which is something we really need to work on. She is totally weened from her bottle and loves to drink juice. She is a little apprehensive about nursery at church, but doesn't scream, which is an improvement from the experience that we had with Abigail.

Emily Emily also enjoys playing outside. She loves the teeter-totter swing, LOVES the cats, and loves to ride wildly on the rocking horse. Emily loves to play with baby dolls. She carries one around almost all of the time if she doesn't have a cat in her arms. She loves shoes. Dress up shoes, her shoes, my shoes, Abigail's shoes, but she never keeps the ones on her feet that I want her to wear. Emily says words like "go" "mine" "sis" "baby" "kitty kitty" "moo" "cookie" "dada""go". Her vocabulary is not quite as extensive as Elizabeth's and I think that this can be attributed to the fact that she is too busy getting into EVERYTHING in reach and climbing anything that can be scaled. I am sure if Emily could talk she would say, "but mom, there is no time for talking when there is so much exploring to do." Emily is a pretty picky eater, I never know what she will be in the mood to eat when we sit down for a meal. If she doesn't want to eat something she just simply throws the food item on the floor to let me know that she is displeased with what I have served her. Emily is weaned from her bottle, but struggling with being away from that comfort item. She has decided to make bedtime quite difficult because she is protesting having to fall asleep with out her bottle. We hope that this will end soon, but she is very strong willed and has continued her protest for several weeks now.

Family Photo - Better Late Than Never

Last December (2008) we had family pictures taken just before Shane and Heather got married. We finally got the pictures back. I am so excited to have an updated picture of the Stocker family. I think the last picture we took together was at mine and Darin's wedding. There have been four people added to the family since then, so it was time for an updated picture. It is exciting to watch our family continue to grow. I wonder what Harrison's future wife is like? I wonder how many kids Heather and Shane will have? I wonder if Darin and I will have more kids? Only time will tell. That makes life more exciting.

Papa with Emily, Grand Nan with Elizabeth, & Abigail (happy to be with Grand Nan & Papa)

The NEW AND IMPROVED Stocker Family

(Minus Lonny & Tonya and their kids - maybe one of these days we will have everyone in the picture all at the same time. Wouldn't that be amazing?)

Ballet - Spring 2009

These are dance pictures from this Spring. I finally got around to scanning them in. Abigail can't wait for another year of dance!!! She did a ballet dance to Allegro in G Major (Mechanical Clock) by Beethoven. I don't really think there was anything "allegro" about it, but she looked beautiful.

Disco Diva - Jazz

Abigail is the second one from the left.

Abigail is the on the far left.

Cat In The Hat - Tap

Abigail was so cute in this tap routine (notice that she is the only one actually moving her feet in this picture - this is an improvement from last year).

I am going to put these pictures up in Abigail's room. They will go perfect with the Dr. Seuss theme.

Lemonade Anyone?

Today Abigail and her friends had a Lemonade Stand at our house. It brought back alot of memories of when I would sell lemonade after school. They had alot of fun and had quite a few customers for the not-very-traveled road that we live on.

Making Crayons

So, we have 500 gazillion broken crayons, and they aren't really fun to color with. I mean, Who wants to color with a broken crayon? So I gathered up all of the broken crayons and found a recipe for making circle crayons from old broken crayons. Abigail had so much fun "cooking crayons." We made 24 circle colors and didn't even make a dent in our broken crayon collection. I will have to find a time when there are a lot of kids at my house to make more crayons. I think even older kids might enjoy this activity.

What You Will Need

Broken crayons
An old muffin tin - don't use a nice one, the crayons will ruin it.
A knife

Here is How

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees.
2. Gather up all of your broken crayons, and cut them into small pieces. (Peel the paper off of the ones with paper still on them).


3. Fill the muffin tin with an inch-thick layer of crayon pieces.

4. Bake 15-20 minutes, or until the wax is melted.

5. Allow the tin to cool; then pop out the crayons, and they're ready for use.
I used my refrigerator to cool off the crayons quicker.
To get the crayons out of the muffin tin, just turn the tin over and bang on each crayon with the end of a knife and they will pop right out.

Tips:
1. If you don't have a muffin tin to devote to crayon making, you can line your regular muffin tin with foil cups.
2. Candy and soap making molds can also be used to create fun, shaped crayons.

Sand

After living in Idaho for almost two years, we finally got sand for our sand box. The girls LOVE it. We went to a concrete place and got 1/2 yard of sand for $8.00. The twins actually sat still for 30 minutes and played in the sand without moving. That was a miracle. Now if I can only figure out how to keep the cats out. (By the way, Abigail is not in pain in this picture; she is just excited).