Children's Museum and other fun

We took the girls back to the Children's Museum today. They've loved it there the other times we've brought them, but this time they were just completely different girls there. They could do everything on their own, they had so much more autonomy, and you could just see their joy in getting to experience it all.

Ever since the Nutcracker, the girls have loved ballerinas. Elena, especially, has broken into dance often saying "I a ballaina!" That's what she was doing here.

Two of a kind - they loved to experiment with everything.

Cheers, sister! We scream for ice cream.

The

The noodle forest - always fun, and not quite so panicky for Christina and Steve as it was in the past, when we wondered how we'd find the girls again!

A new addition to the noodle forest - stone painting!

Of course, with their love of cooking, they adored the kitchen section.

What was surprising, since they don't particularly love the grocery on our regular trips, was that they liked the grocery at the museum so much. Clara was especially enchanted. She started out as a shopper, but soon used her manners to move herself into the clerk position.

We tried to get the girls to stick together a bit in the crowded hallways - that ended up being pretty cute. As always, we got many comments about them looking just like the Olsen twins.

A new exhibit this time was a car section -here's Clara in her ride.

And Elena, just so casually cool.

This wrench xylophone was so cute!

We attended a class at the museum on drumming. There was a bit of trepidation (mostly on Elena's part) about being separated from us (we were only over in the chairs behind them) but they were thrilled to get a chance on real drums.

Clara, especially, LOVES the drums!

And she was not about to share, either.

After the museum we headed to our magical Mexican restaurant (not it's official name, but last year we had the first truly nice meal we'd ever had with the girls while we were there, and we had an even nicer meal together today). They are so polite, and good at waiting, and were just delightful little companions.

Today ended with a boat ride around the lake that Nana and G-Daddy live on - it's not a good picture, but here are the girls in the life jackets. They were pretty excited to go on a boat, and we saw lots of lights and decorations. The fact that Nana and G-Daddy's friends catered the ride with chips, salsa, hot chocolate, and candy didn't hurt, either!

Christmas Day

The girls waited until a respectable almost-7:00 a.m. to wake up, and woke the whole household up to go see what Santa had brought. Nana showed the girls how the cookies and reindeer chow were gone!

Then it was straight to the living room to see what had been left. Christina and Steve had stayed up tracking Santa with Norad, so we know that he arrived in Arizona at 11:36 last night.

He left fun stockings and a play cash register for each girl...they had lots of fun, since this is the first year they understood what was going on with stockings/presents.

A little impatience set in as they wiggled their little arms around their stockings trying to find all the things they saw their sister pulling out of the other stocking, so eventually the stockings just got dumped out on the floor.

The registers were a big hit - they are similar to the ones their friend Charlie has, so Santa probably knew that they would like them.

They got these fun bears from their Oma El - they can practice snapping, zippering, buttoning, tying, and more!

New love.

Santa left one big toy outside - and the girls spotted it very early on! So even in the cooler weather at 8am, they ran out to play basketball (like Sarah Ena and Shaunte).

A little worn out from all the fun, Elena rested on Mom while Nana Rose and G-Daddy made us breakfast.

And as soon as Clara saw that, she needed a turn, too.

The evil eye - Steve was being very silly on the other end of the lens.

After naps today the girls awoke to all of Steve's extended family, who had come over for a Christmas party. Clara called them "The flamily." Nanny brought the girls two keyboards that hook into the tv with a tutorial to teach them how to play piano!

And their Aunt Rose gave them candycanes - always a hit.

Clara, out in the sunshine, pretending to be shy:

And then swinging together again, with their cousin Rachel pushing them. Oh, how they loved Rachel!

That swinging quickly turned silly!

And was followed up by riding on their new stick ponies.

And finally, here the girls are with cousin Rachel. They were SO showing off for her!

We hope you each had a very merry Christmas, wherever you were!

Christmas Eve

'Twas the day before Christmas, and at Nana and G-Daddy's house

Daddy and his girls put together a train, not much bigger than a mouse.

They put the tracks together with care,

And examined with Nana the ornaments hanging there.

The children were outfitted with hats on their heads,

Dressing up to bring cookies so the neighbors would be fed.

With G-Daddy carefully arranging their caps,

Two excited girls could not be further from taking a nap.

Out to the front yard they ran with a clatter,

With hats pulled over their heads the glaring sun did not matter.

After delivering cookies they ate dinner in a flash,
so that they could open a few presents, before taking a bath.

Then what to their wondering eyes did appear?

But brand new pajamas, with their names written on the rear!

G-Daddy sang them a goodnight song, so lively and quick,

Then it was straight off to bed, to wait for St. Nick!

Arizona Amusements

As part of their Christmas presents, Clara and Elena got tickets from G-Daddy and Nana Rose to go see a production of Frosty the Snowman at a local dinner theatre.

It was a production especially for kids. The girls were excited to go, and had fun with the "up and down" seats. Elena settled right in for the production, and watched wide-eyed.

Clara decided she was more interested in a treat about halfway through, but unfortunately, this performance did not include treats. We gave her a few chances to behave nicely for the performance, and in the end, she was able to get all the way through behaving well. And so, we asked her what treat she wanted. She told us "Pink one." Hmmm. There was a gelato shoppe next door to the theatre, so we took her in to see if pink gelato might do the trick. It did.

Elena got Nutella gelato - both were very yummy!

The best thing about Arizona, according to Clara and Elena, is that they get to SWING! We've taken them to the nearby park several times, but today they remembered that there is a swing in the BACK YARD!

That just brought us hours of joy today. Such fun!

Lately, Elena and Clara have been very sweet to eachother. Steve heard Clara the other day say "Yena my best friend." We asked them about it again, and they both agree that the other is their best friend. "My sistah my best friend." We're not quite sure where they learned the term, but it is adorable!

Moving locations has not stopped our cooking any. Since arriving we made gingerbread cookies, and today decided to make chocolate mousse to go with a french dinner Christina was cooking.

Sugar rush, check.

Julia Child's recipes leave lots of pots, pans, and spoons for taste testers!

Bring on the chocolate!

Tonight we kept up an annual tradition, going to Cherry Lane to see the Christmas lights. People from all over the valley come to this one street, because they go really crazy with lights. Every single house on the street has committed to having lights up, and it goes far, far beyond just lights. It's paradise for light-loving girls like our own.

There were beaches made up in front yards, with Santa tanning by the side under palm trees. There were carousels and ferris wheels where Frosty, Santa, and friends whirled around. There was a scene of Santa on a motorcycle getting pulled over by a cop. There was a full-lot, full-scale walk through Bethlehem. But there were minor beauties, too, like the twinkling lights in this simple tree, with the moon shining in the upper light like one more fairy light.

It was a lovely, lovely time.

Full of wonder.

Happy Christmas Eve Eve!

Going to the Nutcracker!

On Saturday we took the girls to see our local performance of The Nutcracker. A friend of ours, Maeve, was a party girl, and she did an incredible job! We also think Clara and Elena did pretty great themselves - we made it all the way to intermission.

They were enthralled by the lights, dancing, and excitement. We all had fun being dressed up and being with our friends. The plots seemed somewhat manageable to the girls until the end of the second scene of the first act, when the full-sized Nutcracker turns back into a prince. The girls wanted that Nutcracker head to stay ON, and it did NOT!

Realizing that the head was never coming back in the performance, and also that the girls were unlikely to let it go, we decided to cut our losses and head out early from the performance.

We went to our neighborhood cookie-making party instead and the girls insisted on making Nutcracker head cookies. So we did.

And since we showcased Clara's photography in a previous post, we're including one here that Elena took during her non-nap before the Nutcracker. You put the camera safely on a tripod and the girls go crazy with the picture-taking! Quite the entertainment - who knew?

Safe travels to all of you traveling this week, and good luck to those of you shoveling out from under the snow. We are happy to say we are doing neither, but are content and happy to be on winter break all together.

Grinch Cookies

How to make Grinch Cookies. Come home from work to a Clara who says: "I make cookies a Mama. Blue Cookies. PLEASE." So, of course, cookies will be made. Easiest cookie to whip up? Hands down the chocolate chip cookie from the back of the bag. Plan to put in blue food coloring to make "Blue Cookies." But the blue looks a bit off, with a slight greenish tinge. Have a Steve grading at the table next to the cooking girls who says: "Add some yellow. That will help." Have a tired Christina, who has also been grading all day, who says "Oh yeah, thanks" and dumps in a bunch of yellow food coloring. Hmmm... it's not yellow and blue that makes more BLUE, of course, it's yellow and blue that makes things MUCH MORE GREEN! And so, Grinch Cookies are born. (They still taste yummy).

In which we do not quite go wassailing...

Christina had wanted to get the girls involved in more community service this holiday season, and we had lots of plans. Somehow, this season just goes so FAST, though, that we have ended up using this week in particular to focus on our giving spirits.

On Monday, the girls went shopping for a family we are sponsoring at work through the Salvation Army. It was their first grocery experience where they walked by the cart almost the entire time, instead of riding. Christina told them we needed to find food that kids would like, because some kids don't have enough food at home. They picked olives, marshmallows, fruit cocktail, fortune cookies, and rice. Christina supplemented their picks a bit to try to round out our offerings. We were proud that the girls dropped all the food in the donation bin themselves, without asking for any of the food back for themselves. :)

For today, it had been our intention to visit a few nursing homes to say hello to the residents and entertain them with the two-year-old spirit (Christina had visions of Jingle Bells being sung, the girls' magic tricks being done, some hugs given out, etc.). Sadly, since we last checked with these homes, they had all instituted a policy of not admitting anyone under 18. Even though the girls are fully vaccinated and not even sniffly at the moment, our wassailing among leaves (hallways?) so green was not meant to be.

We decided to still keep up our idea of a giving spirit, though, and the girls spent the morning drawing on cards that Christina had stamped:

Then we headed to the kitchen to bake up the most colorful holiday treats we could find.

God bless an egg-free recipe that they can just chow down on! Don't worry, the forks never went back in the bowl after this business started.

Brown sugar buttons - a new favorite cookie to make, since the girls' favorite ingredient is brown sugar!

Second batch of cookies - red velvet shortbread. LOTS of red is needed to get any color in these chocolatey cookies.

Somehow, as Christina was doctoring up with the red, Clara got her hands into the blue food coloring. At least it matched her pajamas.

By the end of a very giggly morning, we had four batches of cookies baked.

After the last step of the last cookie (dipping the shortbread into white chocolate) Christina let the girls have the white chocolate bowl. Very spontaneously, Elena started feeding it to Clara.

Not surprisingly, she seemed to expect some reciprocity.

Dismay! Clara had a very hard time sharing and following directions all day today, but here it at least stayed on a small scale, and she was guilted into sharing with her sister. (Now, the flopping down in defiance on the floor of the mall this afternoon ended as a different story...)

Fine motor skills are still not really a strong point, so as the girls napped Christina packaged the goodies:

And then when the girls awoke we took the goodies out to "the people" as the girls kept saying. "Merry Christmas a the people" was their exact phrasing.

So, in the end, it was only a Merry Christmas through the door. And waving at one smiling older woman in a wheelchair who was keeping pretty close tabs on one of the doors. We tried to remedy the lack of interaction by having the girls put quarters in all the Salvation Army bell-ringer's buckets we came across. There, they shouted "Merry Christmas" quite merrily each time. Still, not wassailing...but perhaps we'll try again in the sunny climes of Arizona.