Kindergarten Graduation

Abigail has officially completed Kindergarten and she is still alive and her teacher is still alive. I consider this quite the accomplishment.

This is Mrs. Taysom's last year teaching. She is retiring after Abigail, I don't blame her! Abigail's class was a very high energy class, they wanted to send Mrs. Taysom out with something to remember them by. Mrs. Taysom's first year teaching was 1981-1982, which happens to be the year Darin was in Kindergarten. She had Darin her first year teaching and Abigail her last year teaching. It isn't often that parents and kids are taught by the same teacher. Abigail had a great year and loved kindergarten and it was because of Mrs. Taysom. Yea, Abigail!

Little Piggies

These are the latest addition to our farm. We will raise them all summer. I like pigs cause they eat everything, they aren't picky eaters.

Lost My Groove

The girls and I were having a dance party to a few Black-eyed Peas songs and we were each taking a turn doing a solo. When it was my turn to do my solo, I got up to dance and Abigail said, "Mom, I think you need to do your dance in the dark!" She promptly turned the lights off. Was I really that bad? Am I officially a mom that can't be seen in public with her five-year old? Mind you we weren't in public, but she certainly had seen enough of my Boom Boom Pow.

Elizabeth's Shiner

Elizabeth took a tumble off the porch yesterday and got this beauty. It actually looks much worse in person. It instantly got pretty swollen and pretty much ruined the rest of Elizabeth's day. At least she did this on her own and wasn't pushed off the porch by one of her sisters and I am grateful that we didn't have to take another trip to the ER. Elizabeth is pretty tough though and after the initial shock, some Motrin, and an ice pack, she went back to playing a little more cautiously for the rest of the afternoon.

Gardening Season Has Begun

We were able to start planting our garden yesterday. The girls love working in the garden, and the soil is so great! It is soft and rich and easy to work in. We planted raspberries, strawberries, potatoes, onions, and peas and there is much more to come in the next few weekends. Planting Peas

The garden is like a big sandbox.

The dirt is so soft it just squishes between the toes. Abigail loved planting the potatoes.

Happy Mothers Day to Me

So, I decided that I would potty train the twins this weekend as a mothers day gift to myself. I noticed that I had five days on the calendar that had hardly anything scheduled on them, so I decided now, is the time. I think the twins are ready, we just needed a few days that I was willing to be home bound to get the job done. We started off the day by me showing the twins their potty, big girl panties, and their sticker chart. I gave them a sippy of juice and turned on Elmo's Potty Time movie. We then, tried to go and it worked, they were so proud to put a sticker on their chart and get a chocolate chip to eat. I have a bowl of chocolate chips on the top shelf for them to have after they have gone and washed their hands. It is noon right now and they have attempted to go about 10 times and they have had no accidents so far (cross your fingers). Man, will this be a great mothers day if I can say good bye to diapers and hello to pull-ups. By the way, we don't use pull-ups for potty training. I just have them wear pull-ups if they are going to take a nap or go to sleep. My kids have never taken the time to stop what they are doing to go potty if they are in a pull-ups. It is too convenient for them to cheat.


Emily is really trying in this picture, she wants to get as many stickers as Elizabeth.

So proud of their sticker chart!

Family Weekend

We went to Logan for a family weekend. Just the 5 of us. We were going to go camping, but our camper wasn't quite ready yet, so we decided to stay in a motel instead. Abigail had a dance competition on Saturday and we were able to swim in the motel's pool, go to the zoo, and play at the park. It is nice to just get away every now and then.

Logan's Willow Park Zoo

We went to Logan's Willow Park Zoo. It is a really small zoo, but perfect for our crew's attention span. The girls loved it and it was only $0.50 per person. Almost Free!

A Perfect Play at the Park

The weather was perfect in Logan, so we couldn't resist going to the park.

Emily is braver than most 6 year olds (and she is only two). She went straight for the tallest slide on the play ground and did not want any help. We were standing below hoping that she wouldn't take a tumble down those stairs.

Elizabeth is trying to work up the courage to climb the little stairs to the little slide.

Abigail needs to build that upper body strength she didn't quite make it all the way across the monkey bars.

Another Trip to the ER

You can't really see what happened in this picture, which is probably a good thing for our blog readers, but I will tell you what happened. Last Wednesday, when Abigail came home from school she was playing with some flowers that I had made with wooden dowels used for the stem. Abigail still puts everything in her mouth and she was chewing on the end of the stick, when she tripped and fell into a chair. The wooden dowel went in her mouth and punctured her soft palate. OUCH! There was so much blood that I couldn't really see what happened, so I rushed her to the hospital. They got the bleeding to stop and did some X-Rays and told her to take some pain medicine, rinse her mouth several times a day with salt water, take an antibiotic to prevent infection and stay on a soft foods diet for a while. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was and we are lucky that It wasn't as bad as it could have been. I sure hope all kids aren't this accident prone.

Gearing up for another swim season.

We are getting ready for another swimming season with the Stocker Swim School. The Stocker Swim School website is complete (for now) after only 27 hours of web designing!

Check it out, and let me know what you think! http://www.stockerswimschool.com/ Also if you live in North Texas tell your friends about it and sign up on June 1st for tuition discounts! Can you believe it is my 16th year doing this? (Yes, I started working for my mom when I was 12) I thought it would end ages ago, but the water and sun (and money) keep sucking me back for another season.

Whirlwind Weekend

On Thursday (April 1st) Grand Nan, Papa, Harrison, and Thomas came for a weekend visit. It was no joke this time, I really knew that they were coming. We had every minute of every day scheduled for a weekend full of fun and fun we had. The family arrived at about 6:00 p.m. on Thursday. We celebrated my mom's birthday and my parents wedding anniversary with a home cooked dinner and a chocolate fudge cake. Heather and Shane were able to come and celebrate with us, so it was a lot of fun.

The cake said "85 great years and counting." It was my dad's idea, he has a weird sense of humor. (Sorry, dad). It was my mom's 56th birthday and my parents 29th wedding anniversary (56 + 29 = 85). Get it. Ha Ha.

On Friday, we went out to eat at Ruby Tuesdays to keep celebrating. The twins got all dressed up for the occasion. Emily is making her "popeye" face for the picture.

An Early Easter

On Friday morning we pretended like it was Easter and got up and had a late breakfast and an Easter lesson, then the kids went to play in the playroom while the Easter Bunny Came. My parents were in charge of the Egg Hunt and I think that they forgot that I only have 3 kids, not 30. There were so many eggs, that Abigail's Easter basket broke and she resorted to using a feeding bucket as her new and improved Easter basket.


Elizabeth

Emily

Elizabeth - checking out her loot.

Abigail's feeding bucket full of eggs.

Farm Tour

After lunch on Friday, we took the family on a farm tour. Thomas and Harrison enjoyed gathering the eggs, checking on the cows, and bucking hay to feed the cows.

I haven't really explored the farm in a couple of years, so I decided to take some pictures of old stuff on the farm. I am not a great photographer or even a good one, but I like looking at old things sometimes.

Abigail

The old farm houses are made out of lath and plaster.

We were snooping around an old tool shed and came across a nest of baby rats. I am sure glad that I didn't find them first, I probably would have peed myself.

We went to Rock Creek, which is just about 7 minutes from where we live. It is beautiful there, but it was too cold and windy on Friday to stay for a long time.

Conference Weekend

On Friday after we went to Ruby Tuesdays we said good bye to Heather and Shane and the boys headed to Salt Lake and the girls headed to Idaho Falls. On Saturday morning, the boys (Carl, Darin, Harrison, and Thomas) were able to attend the first session of general conference. The girls went to another one of Abigail's dance competitions and we were pretty happy with the results. Abigail's team got 1st and 2nd place in her age group and category. After the dance competition, we rushed to Salt Lake and made it there just in time for the second session of general conference. I loved it!!! I can't remember when I started liking conference, but I really enjoyed myself this time. If any one is needing direction in their lives or wants to better understand what mormons believe, general conference is the place to get it. You can go to https://beta.lds.org/general-conference?locale=eng

My two favorite talks on Saturday were given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland the name of his talk was "No place for the enemy of my soul." He basically talked about how immorality is destroying families and how to protect ourselves and our families from being destroyed.
and Elder David A. Bednar his talk was named "Watching with all perseverance." He talked about how we can give our children spiritual guidence.