A plague on both your houses!

Bee invasion and basement flooding all in the same week, same day actually. SERIOUSLY!!!

See the 3 tiny holes in the metal plate not covered by stucco? That is where the bees would fly in to their giant nest in our wall, from there they got in the house.

Bees in the house you say? Why yes. Isn't that totally normal? You mean you don't typically find 4-6 dead bees in your house when you come back from a weekend away? We thought that was normal.

When we started finding live bees in the house however we got suspicious. After weeks of speculating where the bees were coming from we finally figured it out. After hiring someone to come and kill our bees we ended up with over 100 bees in our house! By spraying from the outside it forced them all inside! The kids were getting quite good at bee spotting! All in all, I would say we had about 150 bees in our house over a course of 3 days!

To top that all off a pipe burst in the basement causing some major basement flooding. In the picture above you see the current state of our basement. We are doing some research to determine what we need to do to keep all future water out of our basement a believe a sub pump and drain tile system are in order.

As if we didn't already think there was a curse on our house, last night when we got home there was a giant branch that had fallen on Mike's car! I thought for sure there would be a dent in the car but there wasn't. It is a fairly large branch though!

Soccer Sidelines

2007 (6 months old)
2008 (one and a half)
2009 (two and a half)

Emily's last year of cheering or should I say last year of being silly on the sidelines?
Next year Emily will get to play and she is thrilled!

3 years of Soccer

2009 Soccer "Tigers vs. Lions"

2007 Wildcats Soccer Team

2008 Soccer Team

Soccer times three

2007 2008 2009

A B C D Emily

A is for ADORABLE

B is for BEAUTIFUL

C is for CUTE

D is for DARLING

E is for EMILY

Crocs

Based on my very scientific study I have determined the following:

1. Pink Crocs are for girls and red Crocs are for boys.

2. If you want to get a picture of more than 3 kids in one place just ask them to make funny faces.

3. You should never run in Crocs.

4. I'm not sure what the fashion police would say about Ben wearing a Super Mario Brothers T-shirt and Lighting McQueen Crocs at the same time. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that his underwear are probably Thomas the Train too! Oh whatever!

Suzette

Suzette is our Nanny's daughter and she is wonderful. Emily just adores Suzzette and is currently going through some Suzette withdrawal symptoms now that school is back in session. Suzette recently got her drivers license and Emily now keeps asking me if she can drive! I'm serious. Tonight while reading a bedtime story (about a pig, Mercy Watson, that wants to drive) Emily asked me again if she could drive. Before I could even give my standard reply Emily said, "Me drive, when older?" Yes Em when you are older you can drive and while she thinks 16 is a long long time I know it is just around the corner.

Minnesota State Fair 2009

Time Warp

The difference a year makes. The top picture is from September 2008 (Ben 4, Emily 1), the bottom from September 2009 (Ben 5, Emily 2). Going to the park and watching the kids explore the play ground always makes me stop and reflect at how much they have grown, developed and changed. Ben now walks across the chain fence and hangs upside down, Emily runs across the wiggly bridge and goes down all the slides by herself.

My fun new hat

Love Love Love

No they do not always get along this well.

Seriously, where do they get those looks from?

City Kids on the Farm

Why yes I did forget their swimsuits!

For some reason as long as I take one photo of Emily showing me her belly she will let me take whatever photos I want. I'm just going with it.

Any day now baby Noltnerwyss will be here!

Ben and Em actually planted those sunflowers earlier in the spring.

Daddy's Popcorn

We love movie night because Dad makes the BEST popcorn!

Sassy Pants

I wish on a bad hair day I still looked this ADORABLE!

Baby Newa

After an entire week of dry pull ups Emily got to go to the American Girl Store at the MOA. There she picked out a new baby. Emily does not feel the need to name her babies despite my best efforts to help her name her babies. She kept calling this baby "New Baby" and she eventually turned it into "Baby Newa" and it stuck. Baby Newa goes just about everywhere with us now. You will note that Baby Newa always wears her pajamas which is a step up from her other babies which are usually naked. In addition to not wanting them named she also doesn't want them to wear clothes.

Emily has also taken to a new game where she will walk up to me lift my shirt and point to my belly and say, "Baby in there." You will note she doesn't phrase it as a question more of a statement. Thankfully there is not a baby in there and better yet just her saying so will never make it be! Both of my sister in laws on the Noltner side are pregnant and thus she has learned about where babies come from. I think she would very much like for me to have a baby until she would realize that would make her not the baby any more and then she would quickly be singing a different tune. So now when she says "Baby in there" I just respond with "Be careful what you wish for, Baby".

Duluth 2009

Another great fall trip to Duluth, MN. For the third year in a row we have gone to Duluth in the Fall to watch Adam Wheeler play football. We stay at the Edgewater Hotel and have a great time. This year we actually had 11 people in one hotel room! After the evening game the gang came back to our room, we had pizza, wine and cookie cake. Yes it was the RETURN OF THE COOKIE CAKE! Amazingly enough the kids slept through our little party even though they were just in the front room of a two room suite.

What is it that they say about the apple?

Like Mother Like Daughter.

Like Father Like Son

Mothers note: Even though he is looking like a teenage at the age of 5 it pleases me that he is wearing his Thomas the Train socks and proud of it! He is also wearing his "Ear Mouses" I hope he continues to call headphones that forever. I can just envision him in college asking his roommate to please use their "Ear Mouses". I want to be the fly on the wall when the first person tells him that they are not called Ear Mouses but actually called headphones!

Tin Fish

Lake Calhoun Minneapolis, MN

We enjoyed a beautiful Sunday afternoon lunch with our friends. The ice cream cone you see Emily eating was mine, I was going to share it with her but she apparently did not think she was sharing it with me. I will note that Ben was way to busy playing to even think about taking time to eat an ice cream cone! If I didn't carry that kid for 9 months I would swear he belonged to someone else!

Game Night

Dockerty Family Game Night

We have a few games that we can now play as a family although they often need to be modified to accomodate a 2 year old. One of of favorite games is called Hiss, and yes it is a snake game. Thankfully the snakes are cute colorful creatures if you can believe such a thing even exists! Here we are playing a twist on the game "Guess Who" it was pretty fun but the kids mostly just enjoyed trying the different frames on. Emily very much enjoyed being the baby. I'm not sure I enjoyed being the pig though! Other games we play are:

Go Away Monster

Chicken Cha Cha Cha (Grandma's favorite)

Mr. Mouth

Let's Go Fishing (aka Gulping Guppies) **

The kids of Carcassonne

Feed the Kitty (one of the kids favorites)

and I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting.

**Noltner family legend says that one Christmas all I wanted was Gulping Guppies and apparently it was the hottest Christmas gift that year my parents apparently searching high and low for one and then were very pleased when they found one, legend goes on to say that I only played with it once.

July 2009

Emily's first time #2 in the potty chair!!! Proudly calling anyone who cares!

COUSINS!

Highland Fest 2009

Okay so I thought Ben wouldn't do this if I didn't do it first and I was secretly excited as it gave me an excuse to try it. WRONG, Ben was all about the jumping thing and he is the one that went first!!!

Ben and Sophie's joing 5 year old birthday party. Mario and Princess themed.

Lifetime Fitness Triathlon 2009

Kid Mania at Woods Family home