Our testy little talker

Our littlest family member is developing a little 'tude these days.  His favorite thing at every mealtime is to refuse food and talk up a storm.  The talking is interrupted only when he decides to sing, yell, or hit my hand away from his face, causing the spoon full of rice to jerk upward and rice flying everywhere in the restaurant.  He thinks he's so smart!  But luckily I know just how to crack a smile and in goes the food before he knows what's happening.

 We think he's starting to understand the meaning of the word "Mama", too.  He crawls after me repeating "mamamamama" so I'm thinking there is some connection going on in that little brain of his with those syllables and his favorite person in the room.

And lastly, we've been taking full advantage of our realization that there are huge water parks for each "community" in the Grosse Pointes.  There's one for each separate Pointe (Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe Woods, GP Shores, you get the idea) and they are beautiful and all have different amenities but have some type of pool, recreation area with tennis court, outdoor area, nice concessions, and a marina on the lake.  We visited the GP Farms park recently and so far it's the nicest I've been to!  Perfect for little kids.  If we stay in this area and move to a bigger house I definitely would consider looking solely in the Farms if not just for their park access.  Can you say splash pad, beautiful grounds, nice baby wading pool, beach, and outdoor tot lot playground?  Baby heaven.  Our pool/park in the Woods community is better for older kids because it has a gigantic water slide but we have Wally's Frozen Custard company that runs the concession stand so that might outweigh the other amenities, in my opinion at least!

 ^^ Seriously...can you believe we have like...4 of these parks within a 5 minute drive of our house?  All looking similarly to this?  And we have free access to one plus free access to any if we go to the other community parks with a guest.  There's a lot to love about the east side of this state after all! ^^

 

Toronto

Our time in Toronto with the entire family was great!  We ate everything there was to eat (of course), and saw quite a bit including University of Toronto, various neighborhoods with shops, St. Lawrence market, Steamwhistle brewery, and Chinatown

So let's start this adventure

 

The drive to Canada began pretty well...

and we slowly lost steam...

until we reached our breaking point and hour in...

but nothing a little leg lift distractions can't fix

 

^^ One of the many places we went where we have photos of Elliott either sleeping or wearing a sour-puss face in Toronto! ^^

 

 ^^ Cousins reunite! ^^

^^ Too grown up for her own good ^^

 ^^ Pain Perdu amazingness ^^

 ^^ Elliott and his sour face at the Art Gallery of Toronto ^^

 ^^ Little (big) man! ^^

 ^^  Realization sets in that this piece of cake is actually for him ^^

 ^^ Step one - Open mouth wide for best food shoveling ^^

 ^^ Step 2 - Insert as much as possible in one go

 ^^ Step 3 - repeat ^^

Home again home again

One more day before we hit the road but until then here's a little photo to tide you over from the last few weeks

Hello world!

Memorial weekend part 3

This is the last one!  I promise!

 ^^ Teeth!!  Teeth!! ^^

 ^^ Elliott and Eli ^^

 ^^ Getting tired at Chloe Elan in Ada ^^

 ^^ At Lake Michigan ^^

 ^^ Loves to splash the water ^^

 

 ^^ Eli and I at the Omelette Shoppe ^^