Saturday, January 17, 2009

Friday, January 16, 2009

A Roaring Good Time

Nice James, you have your machine gun pointed at your daughters head!  Blake, James, and Cheryl Hartung  Cheryl and Blake had the fabulous idea of carrying candy trays!  All night they delivered gum and chocolate to everyone.

Tony a soon to be Hartung and Heidi, Michelle and BeJoe Hartung
Mom and Dad

Aunt Tara, Aunt Rosemarie Hartung and myself.


Sister in Law Vanessa and brother Ryan.  Ryan surprised his wife by renting this fabulous red suit.  Up until 10 minutes before we left for the party Vanessa didn't know what Ryan was going to wear as he had told her he didn't go and rent a suit as they had discussed.  We were all very impressed with Ryan's effort!  However he did try and convince me to give Vanessa my red dress as her black dress is the exact same dress as my red one but I convinced him that her black dress would look a lot better with his red pin striped suit than my red dress!
Jen and Neil, you have to love a man that is willing to wear a yellow suit!
My cousin Heidi Hartung, and myself. 
  • Kathy & Don Hartung and Julie and Dan Hartung (the Hartung Twins) I'm told they didn't plan their complimenting suit, tie and hat choices.  


Last weekend was the Hartung Brothers, Inc. 34th annual holiday party.  Growing up a Hartung I can tell you that the Hartungs know how to have a good party.  I'd like to say I've been to every Hartung Holiday party as the company started the year I was born but some how I bet there were a few years in there I wasn't allowed to attend.  This year Hartung Brothers, Inc. is celebrating its 34th year and they threw one was especially fun party as it had a roaring 20's theme and dressing up as a flapper is just down right fun.  Many of the ladies were totally into it along with many of the guys.  I was very impressed by my twin uncles Don and Dan they actually managed to wear suits with opposite accents.  As if dressing up as a flapper isn't fun enough they also had a casino night which was quite fun despite the fact that it apparently was the slowest game of craps ever known to man.  I apparently didn't pick up on that but it could have been due to the fact that I had a few Brandy Old Fashioned Sweets.  I've totally turned into my mother.  Which isn't really all that bad.  I really wanted to win at craps as I wanted to win Ben a tractor that didn't happen but I did get to keep one of the center pieces which was a giant martini glass full of flowers.  I hope to use the giant martini glass as a festive M&M dish.  This was such a great party with so many great costumes!


Sunday, January 4, 2009

The Chocolate Bar

I really wanted to get a picture of Emily in this cute outfit but she was not having it.  I decided to bribe her with chocolate and here are the results.  Like I've said before the girl will do anything for chocolate and as you can see from the photos she is very serious about her chocolate!

The Lorna in her

My Grandmother, Lorna Hartung, was the most fashionable woman I ever met.  Emily loves being pretty when we found this outfit in Las Vegas I knew she had to have it.  I came home from work to find her wearing this outfit and she was thrilled to show it off.  


Melmo Live

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.  

Night Night time for Emily


This one speaks for itself.

Disney Dress Up

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.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Monkey See Monkey Do

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!

I shouldn't say Emily mimics everything I do she actually mimics everything we all do especially Ben.  Whatever he does she wants to be doing it too.  Just take a look at a few of the photos and you will see that she is often looking to him to see what she should do.

Emily's words update:  Her new word of 2009 is "Yes" with a long drawn out sssssss at the end.  She has also added the word Juice to her vocabulary.  

12 Days of Christmas - Day 12

One afternoon the guys took the kids to The Bounce House and the girls stayed home to watch Mama Mia.  We went all out and had margaritas and chips and guacamole too!
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.


12 Days of Christmas - Day 11

Getting ready for bed after playing Mr. Mouth and running the remote control truck.

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.
Christmas Day with the Wheelers.  Cathy demonstrating her bottle tree.

12 Days of Christmas - Day 10

Merry Christmas from the Dockertys



Christmas Morning

12 Days of Christmas - Day 9

Christmas Eve



Biscuit the robotic dog, one of several robot toys.

Christmas eve dinner.

Friday, January 2, 2009

12 Days of Christmas - Day 8

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.

12 Days of Christmas - Day 7

Hartung family Christmas with a visit from Saint Nicholas.  

12 Days of Christmas - Day 6

A Christmas playdate with Sydney and Talon Stoenner.  Ben always loves to play with Sydney and he had a great time showing off his new Dinosaur Spike.  Talon and Emily enjoyed Roaring while the big kids operated the big dino.  

12 Days of Christmas - Day 5

Bed head.  Emily tends to have very crazy hair in the am.  
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.

12 Days of Christmas - Day 4




Cleaning up the house to get ready for a gathering of friends.  

12 Days of Christmas - Day 3

Christmas Morning Noltner Family Style (Sunday December 21, 2008)
Opening our stockings!


Hauling the gifts from under the tree to the living room.

Waiting ever so patiently for the go ahead to open the gifts.

12 days of Christmas - Day 2

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.  

12 Days of Christmas - Day 1

A visit with the train store Santa.

The Christmas Dress