Dinners at Grandpa and Grandma Mary's

As we said in our last post, this visit to New York was the first for the girls to meet their Grandpa and Grandma Mary. We tried to spend lots of time with them, and we went down to their house for dinner twice while we were there. Sadly, the girls hated the hour drive down to the house, but happily they loved the time they spent there.

We were joined there by the Auntie Melissa/Uncle Jeff/Calynn trio and Auntie Cyndie. One time we attempted a sisters with sisters picture on the steps (excuse Christina and Elena in this shot with their goofball smiles - we were being silly):
Grandpa scored big points by showing the girls his snowglobes. They adore snowglobes:


Grandpa also took the girls to the big mirror in the living room to show them their reflections. Clara happily poses:


But Elena poses with a pout - we have to watch out for this little attitude!

But the girls didn't come all that way to pose. Oh, no. They were there to WORK. First, they helped inside the house. Clara helps load the dishwasher:

And Elena helps out with the oven:

Grandpa and Grandma Mary own a vineyard, and one day we told the girls we'll take them out their for a picking and pressing of the grape harvest. But they weren't content to wait, and got right down to busy cleaning up the wine room and inspecting this year's vintage:






Afraid of violating child labor laws, we took the girls back inside and they had another round of stocking-opening. But these had a unique twist - CANDY! The girls have rarely ever had candy, and never any wrapped up as gold coins or foil-covered Santas. But don't let this look fool you:


Elena somehow knew that these foil-wrapped beauties were going to be tasty, and she ripped the foil and ate the heads off of both her Santa and her sister's Santa.

Then she started on the candy canes:

Clara didn't seem to get the candy aspect at first, and was happy with her toothpaste and orange:


But soon, she figured out what Elena was on to, and then she jumped right on that bandwagon.

We had an idea that it would be fun to get a shot of our little family up on the hill where Grandpa and Grandma Mary live. Usually, this might have worked fine. But enter in two children hopped up on sugar and one dog running around everywhere BUT near the photographer, and you get something like this:

Even when the dog had gone away, the pouts had set in, and this is the best we got:

Alas, family portraits are elusive. We'll keep trying!