Family is the best

This weekend, we made a quick trip to St. Cloud to spend some time with family. Saturday was a Riesgraf party, complete with a ton of food, the Twins on TV, seventeen simultaneous conversations, and generalized loudness. Always a blast. I love my family. I feel sorry for the new-comers.....

Sunday was more low-key. Church, a trip to the fabric store to buy halloween costume stuff, dinner, and a visit to Mike's grandparents.

Here are two of Mary and Julia's great-grandparents: Carl and Adeline, posing with the girls and Papa. Great Grandpa Roger and Gramma Beth with baby Mary
Gramma Beth is playing with a two-year-old like she was born for the job. (Gramma is wearing Julia's bear's outfit on her head...) Julia loves her gramma Beth, eventhough she is kind of a nut. I guess it takes one to know one. :)
Here's great Grandma Schwartz. Yes, these pics are out of order. Oh well...
Speaking of pictures being out of order, here is one of Julia in her bunny ears. She is holding a "prize" that I brought her from the hospital. The Similac man brought us these enormous pens. You can't even write with them they are so huge. I think they would be a great gift for a giant. Anybody out there know a nice giant who needs a pen? We have two....
Here's a snapshot of the Riesgraf side, all four generations.

....I just realized something: Mike LOOKS like a giant in this picture. I think we should have had him sit down. I assure you, he is not a giant. He doesn't even want the Similac pen....

Signs of Fall

Ahhh...Fall is in the air. I have learned to love Fall. I used to hate it...because it meant I had to go back to school, which meant I had to start getting up early in the morning. Fortunately (unfortunately?) I am no longer in school, so there's no "classes starting" business about fall. So, now, I can just sit back and enjoy the lovely weather (cool, sunny, breezy) and the fall produce. I can't wait to have a mega garden of my own where I can grow my own mega squash and zucchini.

In the mean time, my hedge made of pie cherry bushes will have to do. Mike and Julia were kind enough to pick the cherries for me while I was on call. Now all I have to do is figure out how to pit them and we will have a TON of cherry jelly! Hooray! Any ideas?
Here are some random photos of us over the weekend.
Here is Mary, taking her morning nap, and along came a Bunger and slept beside her. I think he likes his new sleeping buddy. Now all we have to do is teach him to fetch a clean diaper.
We went to Fall Fest over the weekend at a park near our house. Julia picked out a pumpkin and we browsed the crafters, etc. Grandma Ruth was visiting, she bought us a big fried onion thing that was bigger than my head. mmmmm...it was reminiscent of the state fair.

Mary got the chance to hold the pumpkin, too.
When the day grew cool, Papa got creative...he dug out a sweater that I had bought for Julia and put it on Mary. she looked ridiculous, but toasty warm. I kind of wish I could wear an enormous sweater on cold days. People might think I was smoking something if I tried it....
Julia loved the merry-go-round. There were a million other kids at the park, and she was the littlest one to brave the merry go round....there were a bunch of boys that were pushing it at mach-3. Instead of being scared, Julia grinned and begged for more. One kid flew off laterally and landed about ten feet away. Good thing they put some new sand in around it...
Here is Mary, ready for church. She *hates* the car seat.
Mary has been trying out her Johnny Jump-up and LOVING it. She posed for a quick pose before resuming her jumping and twirling around.

"food" for thought...

Thought this was pretty funny....nothing like a new diet plan!

A visit from Megan, Derek, and Allie

We had visitors from the cities over the weekend. My classmate from med school, Megan Gladen, her husband, Derek, and (most importantly) their two-year-old, Allie came for a visit! Julia was just elated to have somebody to play with for the whole weekend!!!

Julia and Allie are sharing a cookie. Julia is smiling for the camera, Allie can't because her mouth is too full of cookie....

Yes, it rained all weekend, but that didn't stop us! We gave the girls umbrellas and set out for a walk in the rain.

Morton Salt commercial, anyone?

Wet feet

The girls found a wet monarch butterfly in the UMD parking lot and are examining it very carefully. And NO, they did not decapitate it or rip the wings off!!!! It actually stayed whole, and when they were done looking at it, Julia gently put it in the grass. THIS is the difference between little girls and little boys.... A butterfly would never survive two two-year-old little boys....

As if there wasn't enough fun to be had already, Julia found a "swimming pool," which is actually a run-off basin for the huge parking lot. She begged to "go swimming, mama???" Natually, since her papa was nowhere to be found, I allowed her to go in, and took pictures. We got a good laugh.

Soon, the jeans were saturated and slowing her down...so off they went. At least I made her stay in the diaper.
No commando today.

Soon enough, Allie was in the water, too. Megan made the comment that we were two physicians standing in a cold, wet parking lot, allowing our two-year-olds to play in a big pool of run-off.
....a picture of health!

Of course, a bath was in order. A vertical bath.
...I have no idea why this picture did this. I have a love-hate relationship with this computer, and I have to pick my battles. The rest of the pics came out right, so I will just pretend that everything looks just fine. :)

hooray for computer skills...

Hi-
To start things off on a good foot, I would like to share my excitement with you: I just figured out how to post more than one picture at a time on the blog. You got it...I don't have to sit there and click every minute or two while I wait for each individual picture to upload. Now, I can pick up to EIGHT of them and then come back to the blog in five minutes and they are all there!!! Yippeee!!! (Ok...now you can stop laughing at me. I am pretty sure most other bloggers out there have already made my discovery, but give me some slack and share in my joy.)

Here are a few shots of the girls (and one of Mike that I probably should have deleted and that probably will be deleted when he reads the blog...) We spent the weekend cleaning up the house and also spent some time at a friend's house. The girls are such a joy. I miss staying at home with them, so when I get the chance, I skip doing everything around the hosue and just play with them. Tonight we decided to go to the UMD parking lot and play with Julia's bike. Mary had a stroller ride. What a fun time it was....except for when Mommy was on the phone with grandma Beth and Julia escaped to explore the huge, fenced-in air conditioner for the entire campus. Getting her out of there was a treat.....

Here's Julia hanging out in a papasan chair. I think we need to get her a bigger t-shirt.
I love this one....she looks just a little bit evil. Deliciously evil...
Riding a trike...
Here are some pics of Miss Mary. She likes the camera, and we were bored.

Mike's gonna kill me for this one.....

Our littlest girl is already three months old!

Mary is growing like a little weed. She has almost outgrown her 3-6 months clothing...and she just turned the big "3 months" on Saturday. What an overachiever. Her current interests include "tanning up big girl" (standing excercises), batting at her toys that hang above her head, and giving kisses...with her tongue. She also longs for mama and papa to let her sample the watermelon when we're eating some. I can't believe how big she is already. It seems like only yesterday that I was desperately mowing the lawn....
:)