So, then I asked Greg if Chloe had any fun. He responded as only Greg can, "No, she hated it. Can't you tell by the pictures?"
If he wasn't such an awesome person who would NEVER speak unkindly to me, I might have been annoyed with his sarcasm. BUT, since he's awesome I just looked at these pictures of our beautiful one year old, Chloe, and fell in love with her all over again. (Oh, and fell in love with Greg all over again, too. He's a rock-star Daddy, ya know.)

Greg took the kids to the park today while I was at work. Before he could even get Chloe situated, Brooks was going over the top of the climbing wall. Greg, in complete calmness I am sure, told him that it might not be a good idea to go over the top of the climbing wall and perhaps he should consider climbing back down the wall the same way he climbed up it. Good advice, Greg.

Our baby boy, who is not a baby anymore, is strong, athletic, fast and has NO fear. That is, except for his terrible fear of flies, ants, mosquitoes and any type of small creature that might fly, slither or crawl anywhere within 20 feet of him.

Three Amigos. No need to say anything else.

Brooks never ceases to amaze us with his vocabulary. He's three and today he told us about something that he thought was "hilarious." Well, now he's decided to try to amaze us by learning to read. Opa bought Brooks a "Learn to Read" package off of TV. It works and doesn't take much time at all. This is pretty good for a 3 year old, we think. It must be that HUGE head of his. It must be FULL of brains!

Check it out...

I guess we are the purple bow/flower family! Ha!
The funny thing is that Brooks is such a boy. Like major boy. Like climb on things, push the limits, full speed ahead with skinned knees and elbows...boy. But, bless his heart, he turns into a girl on occasion. He really wanted to wear this bow, found it in Chloe's room and insisted on wearing it while playing kitchen. I suppose, he sees his Daddy doing dishes, cooking, cleaning, vacuuming and doing laundry...what do we expect? He does not, however, see his daddy wearing ribbons and bows. At least I don't think he does, but I am at work a couple of days a week and who knows what happens those days! Just kidding.

Chloe on the other hand, has yet to show us her "boy" side. For now, she is content to be snuggled, rubbed, tickled and pampered. She loves to play dolly and is much more soft spoken than Brooks ever was. She is such a sweet girl, even at all hours of the night when she misses us so much that she wakes us up just to talk. :)

Our little Chloe-Belle is under the weather. It's so sad, yet so fun to have a snuggle buddy. She has a runny nose and congestion (nothing serious), and just isn't feeling that great today. She has sick eyes, but still managed to drive her car with one hand while holding onto her "doose" and smiling at the camera. Oh, Bellie Button...you are such a strong willed little girl. We love you.

Brooks told us last week he wants to play football. He told us last winter that he wants to play hockey. He told us today that he wants to play baseball. What?!? Don't get me wrong, we love to be active, but football? Really?

I guess we can't expect a kid who is three years old and wearing size six underwear to gracefully dash across a golf course and win a cross-country meet. But hockey? Football? Baseball? We are in for it.

We don't know much about birds, but we do know that for some reason every single Blue Jay in Hermantown has decided that they like our yard. This picture doesn't even do it justice. At one point, I think I counted 15 of them in our yard at one time.

Here are some cute things that our little man says and we never want to forget:
"Mom, when I grow up I want to be a Scooby-Doo" referring to a scuba diver.

"Let's go to Dairy Queen and get an "Earth Worm" Blizzard, referring to an "Earthquake" Blizzard.

"My tummy is "boiling", it is talking to me", referring to a growling stomach.

We got to go to the middle of the lake and touch the "gooeys" referring to the buoys in the center of the lake.

I have an "in-collector" toothbrush, referring to an electric toothbrush.

"Green Ouchie" refers to green algae.

"Balloons nest" refers to the Loon's nest.

"Mom, I want to put "air conditioning" in my hair" referring to hair conditioner.

Could these days get more precious?

Chloe is a walker. A real walker. Wow. With Brooks, I always wanted him to walk (and the stubborn little man didn't walk until 16 or 17 months) and with Chloe I dreaded the day she became a walker. It just means that our last baby is growing up and becoming less and less miniature by the moment. Boo, hoo.

Chloe is all over the place now and doesn't like much to be contained. She is known by her cousins as "Du" because most everything she tries to say comes out as "Du". She must say "Du" about 300 times a day, so now Kennedy and Maggie prefer to call her "Du".

Chloe does say: Juice, Daddy and Uh-Oh most clearly. She says other words but they are words only a Mama or Daddy would understand.

Chloe also likes to eat glue sticks....ha, ha, ha! I am just kidding! Of course we don't let her eat glue! We caught her just in time to quickly take a picture...oh I mean to quickly take the glue stick away from her before she ate it! It must be a second child thing.

We love our church and our church family, but something seemed to be missing. REAL friendships among the women. So, we decided to do something about that and invite the ladies to our house for Smores. It was a glorious night and one of the most fabulous times I've had since joining our church 6 years ago. Here's to hoping the Lord continues to bless the friendships made during this event. Yeah God!

Brooks had his first day of school on Monday! We were so excited to arrive and he was grinning from ear to ear. When we got in the classroom, the teacher looked at us and said, "Did you know school starts at 8:00 this year?" We were an hour late and weren't aware that the time had changed! Oops.

When we asked Brooks what his favorite part of the first day of school was, he responded, "Artists. But I missed artists because I was late." So, his favorite part of the day was something he didn't even get to participate in!

In Brooks' mind nothing could be better than going to school. It's only three hours, but he is so exhausted when the day is over, yet he is so energized to show us everything he did.

This year we are trying something different and Brooks will go to a whole day on Friday's. It seems rather long for a three year old, but here's to hoping he enjoys it.

He does seem to enjoy most everything he does. Brooks is a kid who is ALWAYS excited and happy and we are so thankful for our happy bundle of JOY!