Fun times

Here's what we've been up to the past week since Bri's been out of the hospital. Last Wednesday was Emily's first "Tumbleweeds" class -- a community ed gymnastics class. Here they are at the end twirling their ribbons, and that's grandpa John in the background twirling his, too. Jon K can thank me for not putting the picture on of him twirling his leopard print ribbon. :)

Grandma Margaret and Emily making "runzas." If you don't know what a runza is, it's a German food I grew up with, and it's also a restaurant in Nebraska and a few surrounding states, I believe. It's basically a dough filled with a meat/cabbage mixture. They're delicious!

Heading into the Maplewood Mall to ride the . . .

. . . Carousel!

My parents left on Sunday morning. Thanks, mom and dad, for a great time! They were in town for Jessie's musical "The Fantasticks" which WAS fantastic! Great job, Jessie. And if Katie or Jill are reading this, thanks for coming over!

This morning Susanne and I took the girls to "Build-a-Bear" at Mall of America to use a giftcard Bri got for her birthday from Aunt Erin. We had never been there before, and it was a lot of fun! Here are the girls picking out their stuffed animals. Emily chose "Snazzy Kitty" and Bri chose "Cinnamon Swirl Bunny."

Now they are putting the stuffing into their animals. They pressed a pedal on the floor to put the stuffing in.

Here they are "washing" and brushing their animals.
The last couple steps were to pick out outfits and to print a birth certificate for their animals. Here is grandma Susanne with the girls and their boxed-up bears.

It was a fun morning at the Mall of America. We also walked through the "Nickelodeon Universe" and saw the rides and the Dora statues. When we first walked in, Emily looked up and said, "It's Beautiful!!!!!!"