Grammy Ellen is here!

Steve's aunt, known as Grammy Ellen to the girls, has come out for her first-ever visit to see us. The girls have loved seeing her in Arizona, but nothing is as good as having one of your favorite people in your very own home. They were thrilled right away, showing off like crazy.

Both girls are VERY fond of Grammy Ellen's shoes - they walk around in them, even though they are all quite high! Looking through our pictures we now realize we don't have a very good shot of them walking - this is the best one we have, of Clara. We'll have to do better:

Sometimes the showing off is over-the-top hysterics, but other times it's showing the new things they can do and what they love. The girls are lately head-over-heels for the PBS show Sid the Science Kid (yes, they watch tv now) and here they are pretending to be Sid (he often talks into a microphone - the girls adapted with flashlights, all on their own):

This was so cute, even cuter in person:

Steve got some video of this, we will try to load it on later. Truly, pictures do not do this justice:

But we'll keep showing them to you, nevertheless:

Today Christina decided the girls should try some new art (they don't seem to like getting their hands dirty, and we're a little bored with our crayons and markers) so we all made puff paint together. Here are the girls, mixing the flour, salt, and (soon to be) water:

Then we added tempera paint:

And voila, swirling colors! This was pretty fun:

Then, we put the paint in condiment bottles and took them outside to squirt them:

It took some trying, but the girls got the hang of squirting:

They seemed to like the colors they'd made:

They weren't quite sure all the time we were really encouraging them to squirt all over - we made sure these bottles look different from our regular ketchup bottles, just to avoid starting a bad trend:

Steve shows Elena that these COULD be fun fingerpaints (it felt grainy and neat) but she wasn't having any of it - she liked squirting:

Grammy Ellen demonstrates a Jackson Pollock move for the girls:

And here is one of the finished masterpieces:

Elena and Clara have been having fun almost every day with their makeshift water table. Sometimes they play in the water, but often they fill little containers with water and go water the plants for us. So helpful!

They just wow us all the time with their new talents and new preferences. Lately, Clara has been showing a preference for spicy food (jalapeno chips one day, spicy salsa another) and Elena has shown an adoration for all Japanese snacks (particularly nori and mochi the Grammie Ellen brought out). Today, both girls were able to swing on real, big-kid swings. It seems like they are really going through a growth spurt here, and it is amazing to watch. We'll keep you posted!