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!