Settling in with Leo at Home

We spent most of the week around the house. On Monday, Hallie took the kids and the missionaries to the Henry Ford Museum. 

Mike went up to work to start packing up his office. The university is repairing major leaks and water damage in his building, so he and several colleagues will be displaced for the next few weeks. When he came home, Priscilia was there with her son and his family who are visiting from Montreal.  Leo and Landon hardly knew what to do with themselves, so excited they were to have playmates for water fights.

To help with Eliza's oral muscular development, we bought her an electric toothbrush. The people at the Kaufman Center suggested it.

Hallie took the kids to story time and a puppet show on Tuesday. Afterwards, Landon accompanied Mike up to school to finish packing his office. Landon was very helpful, and Mike was grateful for his assistance.

In the mean time, the girls looked after Leo:

All these early mornings walking Leo and late nights because he won't go down finally took their toll on the boy by Wednesday.

Hallie had some errands to run on Thursday, so Mike looked after Eliza. She likes to watch and move with the dancers on So You Think You Can Dance.

We were pleased to see the sight of a moving van at a home across the road that we and our other neighbors suspected of some unsavory activity.

Our little celebrity-in-training graced us with the momentary view of her in sunglasses. Then is was back to finding some new way of making mischief.

We finally put up the wall hangings in Eliza's bedroom, so her nursery is now complete just in time for her to go into Nursery at church. Oh, well.

We attended a surprise party for Janel on Thursday. This was the longest amount of time (so far) that we had left Leo alone, and while he was definitely happy to see us home, he seems to have done fine.

We watched a lot of Olympics over the weekend. Landon had his last baseball game, so we all went, including Leo. We also attended the stake Pioneer Day picnic at Belle Isle Park with Leo. He seems to travel well get along with unfamiliar situations. Later on, Hallie and Landon joined Sara and Chase for a run down to Eastern Market for some produce and flowers. They also ran into a few thousand parrotheads out for the Jimmy Buffett concert at Comerica Park. 

Enjoying pasta with chop sticks at Fishbones in Greektown

This morning as Mike and Landon took Leo for a walk, Mike took some pictures of a unique phenomenon we get here with our long straight roads: a Stonehenge-like view of the sunrise coming up right through the canyon created by the buildings and trees along the road. Mike just happened to read about how this happens in Manhattan a few days ago, and he was curious to see whether it happens here. It just so happened that today was the day, so he brought the camera.

Not too shabby

Landon likes how the morning shadows make us look like giants, so Mike caught a pic of that too. 

On our walk, I taught Landon how to use the poop bag to clean up after the dog. Afterwards, he asked, "Dad?! Can I clean up after Leo's poop every time?" Yes, son. Every time. Every single stinking time. All the way home, he's carrying the full bag and singing "I picked up the poop! I picked up the poop!" Ah, the joys of parenthood and pet ownership combined! A true Tom Sawyer moment.