Like a waterfall in slow motion, Part One
2 years ago
A photo Dock-u-mentary of our life.

In my opinion Elmo Live is the cutest of the robot toys. Emily just loves Elmo only she calls him Melmo. I'm just amazed at the toys they have these days, to a 2 year old I think they actually think Elmo Live is the real deal. When Elmo falls over he says, "Uh oh Elmo fell over, can you help Elmo?" then when you pick him up he says, "Thank you, you're Elmo's best friend" or "Elmo loves you". It is down right adorable.
My niece Sophie loves to play dress up. When she opened her Christmas gift she literally screamed with delight. She immediately left the room with her chest of Disney princess dress up clothes and proceeded to model them all for us. It was all we could do to convince her to open her other gifts. I think she was happy to receive her other gifts too as both the pink pig puppet and the Madeline doll also received shrills of delight. I am proud to say the gift I picked out for her, a princess castle with princess dolls that have snap on clothes and the tiniest of shoes ever, was also a hit. If you asked Sophie what she wanted for Christmas she would tell you a pig puppet, we were all a bit perplexed by that one but Sophie was thrilled to receive it.
Emily mimics everything I do now from shaving my legs to carrying a purse she wants to do whatever I do. She received this purse for Christmas and every time her and I go somewhere she always goes to find her purse and keys. Just this morning her and I were off to get my morning coffee and she had to bring her purse and keys with her. (Thankfully she knew right where they were) You should see her try and put her leg up on the ledge to shave her legs its pretty darn cute. If only she could get the potty training down as she mimics that too only she doesn't ever actually get the concept of using the toilet she just likes to sit and wipe. I won't be posting any photos of that!
The Rochester Bounce House a great place to take the kids to play in the winter! Emily loved the bounce house and wanted to do everything on her own but Ben was a bit scared at first. After about an hour of him just wanted to ride the train (the one that Uncle Ryan gave him for Christmas 3 years ago) we finally forced him to go down one of the slides. He of course LOVED it and after about 4 times he was off on his own having a blast!
This years Christmas PJs, were cow PJs purchased in Alaska. They read: Pasture Bedtime.


Emily playing - let's pack up the van after Christmas! The van overflowing with My Little Ponies looks very much like our van after a week of celebrating Christmas with friends and family.
Dockerty family Christmas. Due to more snow predicted in Madison we drove to Rochester one day early. This ended up to be a smart plan as we ended up having great weather for our drive. The kids were very excited to have an extra day with their cousins Owen and Sophie. Sophie really liked Emily's Wolf Wolf named Biscuit. The kids also loved Grandpa's new theater seating.

A Christmas Quiz: The Kruchten, Tracy, Noltner, Dockerty, and Noltnerwyss families all took a Chistmas quiz to determine the order of picking gifts for the white elephant exchange. Some of the white elephant gifts were pretty funny. This year the prized gift was a snowman cookie jar. Some of the gifts to make the rounds were: a set of CDs from the 80's and 90's, A Chia Pet, old Christmas lights, a lamp, a law school text book, a $15 gift certificate from 1999 and a set of colorful knives.
A gathering with good friends Amy, Nick and Jack. Jack has recently learned to walk, he is just five months younger than Emily and it amazes me the difference five months can make (as Emily now runs and jumps and gallops around the house). Jack is just two cute in his frog sweater and his wobbly legs! The kids just love having Jack over to play.