Many Faces of Elena and Clara

Clara and Elena are really starting to develop their facial expressions, which is showing us even more about each of their personalities. It's fun to watch them imitate us, or initiate an expression (especially a smile!). Although we couldn't possibly love them more, we are having more and more fun together the more variety we see in their activities and expressions.

So here are some fun new things from this week! First, we have the girls starting to have more control over their hands, which has meant that they sometimes "hug" us around our necks while we're holding them up near our shoulders. Here, Clara was going to sleep and got her hands around her Dad's shoulders to pat him a bit while she drifted off:



Both girls, but Clara especially, has gotten really interested in finding fingers lately. Clara has been kind of sucking her fingers for about a month, but it happened only when she randomly got her hands near her face. Lately, she's been working hard at purposefully getting her hands up to her face:

And this week, she's found success! She's sucked her thumb like this several times now (here she was doing it while cuddled up to Steve in the sling):

Elena has also been doing her own thing this week - one of those was perfecting her signature look. She kind of looks at us sideways (and she looks at her sister this way, too) with a sly smile - it is so adorable!

Elena also has a really wonderful look of surprise that she flashes us a lot:

Finally, this week the girls have been playing side by side some more this week, although this is the week they've begun outgrowing being in the gym together. To get these shots, we had to angle each of them diagonally, and they each kicked their legs right off the mat!