Auntie Bonnie & Mr. Ashton

Ashton spent some time at Eleda's last soccer game hanging out with, and later sleeping on Auntie Bonnie. Here's the evidence.

This is one of my very fav pics lately. The look on his face is sooo priceless.

Take that, FIFA.

Saturday was our last regular soccer game. Eleda had quite the cheering squad, including Mommy & Daddy, Ashton, Grandma, Auntie Pat, Auntie Bonnie and Uncle Brandon. In celebration of all this attention, Eleda chose to pay very little attention to the actual soccer, and instead did a fair bit of running away, crying, and throwing herself to the ground, pretending to be an airplane.

But there is one part of soccer Eleda is guaranteed to participate in...

Snack time!

At t he end of the game, Eleda insisted that she wanted a cupcake, and I had to apologize that there were no cupcakes. Unbeknownst to me, someone on the opposing team brought enough cupcakes for both teams! It might be difficult to tell based on the following photos, but Eleda REALLY likes cupcakes lol.

And just because I can't get enough of those sea blue eyes...

The ballerina and the teether

We spent some time this afternoon in the front yard, blowing bubbles, dancing and chatting with the neighbours. Ashton chewed. Eleda was showing me her ballet dance. This has proven to me that she will benefit greatly from a ballet class in the fall!

I don't exactly know why, but I really love this shot:

Ashton still chewing lol.

Eleda just can't seem to stop kissing him... I say that's a pretty good problem to have.

He stopped chewing!

Swinger

We put Ashton in the swing for the ver first time the other night... I wasn't sure how he was going to feel about it, but just like his big sister he loved it right away. I'm not sure if he had more fun swinging, or if Eleda had more fun pushing him. As you can see I have learned a little bit more about photo editing and have had some fun playing around...

Go Wild!

Our vacation week was jam-packed with activity, including a trip to African Lion Safari. I will spare you all the pics of animals taken from inside the bus, but here are some cute ones of the family, as I play a little more with photo editing.

Eleda was dancing on the stands while waiting for the elephant show... it was super cute. Unfortunately I had forgotten to take the camera off the manual setting which Alan doesn't know how to use, so the photos of her dancing didn't quite turn out. Here is my rescue attempt.

The little baby is just one month older than my little baby!

And finally riding the little safari train with the loudest speaker EVER. Ashton cried almost the entire time :(

Getting "stung"

As I'm sure my faithful followers (hi Jan!) already know, we took a family trip to the Toronto zoo last week, and let's just say it was awesome. But the hilight was definitely the special exhibit, Sharks at Stingray Bay. You do have to pay a little extra for this, but it was sooo worth it.

The stingrays were so neat and very social. It's hard to describe how they felt... they were soft and sort of felt like they could be slimy, but they weren't. The "stingers" or barbs are clipped, just like we clip our nails, to avoid a sting.

The sharks were really neat too.

At first Eleda was happy to watch, she didn't want any part of sticking her hand in the water.

Then as she saw us doing it, she slowly warmed up to the idea of putting her hands in the water.

Eventually she said she wanted to touch one, but she couldn't quite reach.

Daddy to the rescue!

If you ask Eleda how it all went down, her recollection goes a little something like this: "I was a-scared of the sting rays and then I wanted to touch the stingrays and then daddy lifted me up on my knees and then I touched a stingray and then I pooped".

Pretty accurate, too.

It's a zoo out there!

In honour of the fact that I haven't posted FOREVER, here is a rediculously photo-laden post! Alan was on vacation this week, so we decided to take a few little trips. First was the Toronto Zoo, and let me tell you it was great! The drive was a little longer than we planned, especially considering we hit rush hour both ways and had to stop about half way there at a truck inspection station after Eleda got car sick (after eating a chocolate timbit, yummmmmm) but it was totally worth it. I will post the regular zoo pics today, and will leave the whole Sharks at Stingray Bay for another post.
The rainforest: Eleda and a reeeeally big fish.

Tiger resting...

What do tigers dream of when they take a little tiger snooze?

I love love love gorillas. I think it was in grade 6 that I did a school project on Diane Fossey and have been a little obsessed with them ever since. I remember watching an episode of Zoo Diaries not too long ago about this habitat and it was very interesting to see it in person.

Eleda showing how it's done in a carved canoe.

Eleda loved this.

The deep level of concentration is becaused I encouraged her to count all the fishies... I know, bad mom, I know...

My boys :)

The turtle was watching us...

Jaguar

A single Canada Goose among the flamingoes.

Eleda is still talking about this polar bear and how he was doing the backstroke.

Eleda comandeered the stroller (Ashton reeeeeeeally hated it anyways) and enjoyed a juice box.

These are different tigers than the first ones.

Here's Eleda on some sort of Australian reptile. You'd think I would have paid more attention to the names of things...

It's Dorie!

This camel was giving a ride, but Alan snagged a photo of his head since Eleda really wanted to see a camel lol.