Brother and Sister

So far Hunter's been great with Charlotte.  He's gentle with her.  He loves to "cuddle her".  He gives her great big brother hugs.  He smells her hand sweetly.  He shakes her rattles for her during tummy time or when she's sitting in her Bumbo seat.  He tells her all about exciting things that happen to him.  He prays for her at night.  He happily sits beside her on the couch.  I could go on and on. 

Watching them together is one of my favorite things.  I've been praying that they will have a special bond, rooted in our Savior.  I always wanted a brother, and I can't wait to see the relationship that develops between my two children. 

But with as sweet as he is to her, I knew this day was inevitable...

At least she can't argue with him yet.  She sure does know how to tell us how she feels about it though!

"Punkins, Mommy, Punkins!"

About a week ago we went to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins for the front porch, and Hunter LOVED it, so we headed out to the Arboretum this weekend to see some more.  And he was not disappointed.

His favorite was probably the pumpkin house.  He thought it was "so cool!"

So was running off energy in the hay maze...

And posing with all of the pumpkins.  Hunter's doing much better at smiling for the camera these days.  He even says "cheeeeese".  It's my dream come true:)

Hunter was not a fan of these big pumpkin piles.  Actually, he loved picking up the pumpkins and running around with them.  He was just a little scared to climb up the pile and pose like cousin Zack...

Charlotte liked the pumpkins too.  It's just not as obvious due to all of the fist sucking...

I know it looks like Hunter's flashing back in time with some early 90's dance moves, but he's really just excited about moving on to see the frogs.  Hopefully, he'll keep up his dance skills, because we all know his mommy doesn't have any.

On the way to the frogs, we had to stop and check out the baby pumpkins...

And pose in the walkway lined with pumpkins...

                            

When we finally made it to the frogs, Hunter was too scared to get close to them.  In case you forgot, my child will excitedly point out the water every time we see a fountain, but does not want that water coming anywhere near him.  Vanesa embraced it though...

After the pumpkins, we went to all of the children's storybook houses.  Hunter was also a huge fan of these.  This one is for the book, Eragon...

Hansel and Gretel...

The Little Prince...

I'm not gonna lie.  I have no idea what this one is, but it's a super cute picture, huh?!

Charlotte was such a trooper.  She slept in the wrap for a while, but was happy, awake baby for the majority of the time.

The last place we went was this western/Texas section.

Charlotte's super excited to be free from the wrap...

But not for long...

Does she look irritated or what?  She really loves her wrap - I think she just wanted to look sassy for the picture;)

Free Photo Shoot!

My sweet friend Taylor's having a giveaway at Taylor Made Messages.  Go check it out!

Naked Boy

In case you haven't noticed, my son is not a fan of clothing.  When we're at home, he often chooses to wear only bottoms..

only tops...

or most often, only his diaper...

(and apparently on this day, sister had that preference too...or maybe she didn't, hence the tears?)

Hunter did go through a 4 or 5 day phase where he didn't put up a fight about having to wear clothes, and that was only because he developed a newfound desire to pick out his outfit for the day.  As you can see, he isn't caught up on the latest fashions...

Swim shoes and socks are not a huge hit these days...or ever really!  But Hunter's friend, Ben, didn't mind and still played with him.  That's one of Hunter's favorite qualities in a friend...one who doesn't judge based on appearances;)...or embarass too easily!

It didn't take long for Hunter to once again realize that clothes really aren't that interesting to him, and quickly reverted back to using the diaper as his everyday around-the-house attire.

Until a few days ago.

Often if Hunter has allowed clothes that morning, when he goes down for his nap, he requests that we take them off so he can just sleep in his diaper.  Well we had done that earlier this week and when James went in to get him, H was standing on his bed, holding on to the top rail, and was completely naked.

Looks like we'll have to start watching out for a little mini-streaker here at the Brooks house.  Visit at your own risk!

Charlotte's Room

So these are only 11ish weeks late....

View from the door...

Char's Psalm 139 verse (H has one in his room too - verse 13)...

Changing table, rocker (my grandad covered it for us...didn't he do great!?), and Charlotte letters...apparently I'm the worst photographer ever and didn't get a very good picture of them.  This is why I leave the picture taking to Emily.  Charlotte hearts her letters...she coos and smiles at them every time we change her...

Other side of the room...

A close up of her bookcase...

Before Charlotte was born, Hunter would go in there and point to every single family member that had a picture on the photo tree and name them really fast. 

"mommyanddaddyandhunterandgrandeeandpoppyandyackandyessaandnanaandnanny...."

He also loves to take everything off of the shelves and  put them back on.  One night I was home alone with them, and while I was feeding Charlotte in the living room, Hunter completely emptied the shelves by bringing each piece into the living room one at a time and setting them out all over the room...definitely one of his cutest moments.

Last wall...

A close up of her framed announcement...

I don't feel like that does the room justice, but at least you out of towners have some idea what it looks like in there...and now your lives are complete.  I don't know how you've been functioning these past few months without knowing what my daughter's room looked like.  Sorry that was the lamest post ever.  If you're even still reading.  Which I'm sure you're not.

"Go Cowboys!!!!"

Hunter is quickly following in his father's footsteps with his love for football.  This is an unfortunate season to pick up this newfound affection, not only for the obvious dissapointment that the Cowboys are giving us every week, but because Hunter is quickly picking up James's...how should we say it?...passion for the game. 

FYI, this passion is increased tenfold during frustrating moments, which have been frequent this season, and our son - wanting to be so much like his dad - often joins in on the jumping up and down or yelling at the tv or beating the floor in desperation.  James is working on it though, and he did much better yesterday, which says a lot, considering how frustrating that game was.  Even I wanted to lie down in the fetal position at one point, and y'all know how I feel about football.

Anyway, we took Hunter to his first real life football game a few weeks ago.  No, not to Jerry's ginormo billion dollar castle of a stadium, but to a high school football game for the home school co-op that a lot of our youth at church are involved in.  Just a small step down from Jerry's place:)  Hunter didn't mind not living it up in a suite, though.  The bleachers were just fine for him...

He cheered on the Angels well, except that he kept calling them the Cowboys:) 

The tackling is definitely his favorite part of the game, whether on tv or in real life.  He just laughs his little head off everytime one of those players gets slammed to the ground. 

He behaved so well the entire time, and even yelled the correct team name toward the end. 

Sweet Charlotte did awesome too...

We can't wait for our next football outing!

"I Shaving"

Since James has such black hair and fair skin, he pretty much has a 5 o'clock shadow about 2 hours after shaving in the morning. His hair must also be really thick because it takes him quite a while to complete the face shaving processes...and he uses an electric razor! Hunter often goes into the bathroom to watch him, and his latest thing is to go grab our neck massager, turn it on and hold it up to his face while announcing, "I shaving!" It's so cute...

Again people, why do my pictures look so blurry on here?! Blogger outsmarts me once again...It's making me crazy!

This will crack you up...or at least make you smile

So even though I said we wouldn't, we decided to visit the fair again this year, and I have to say it was a much better experience than last year. We took the DART down, which was what I was looking forward to most because Hunter LOVES trains and gets so excited every time we see one, so I couldn't wait to see his reaction when he actually got to ride one.

And y'all, he didn't disappoint. He loved it. The child was giddy...well at least for the first 30ish minutes.

Yes, our train riding process took over Forty Five (45!) minutes...one way. Although it was long - and exhausting - it was worth it. I was so excited for Hunter that I think I took more pictures of train activities than Fair ones.

I know you can't tell here, but he really was elated to be waiting for the train...

Here's sweet Brooke posing behind the concrete slab that nearly led to my untimely death...or at least significant head injury...

Was that a good tease or what? Since I know y'all are on the edge of your seats, here's the most abbreviated version I can come up with...

As I said, I was really into documenting Hunter's first train-riding experience, because HELLO, this moment is probably one of the greatest in my child's life up to this point. So I was backing up to get a picture of the train and backed into that curb which sent me flying into the glass behind me. If it hadn't been for the huge diaper bag on my shoulder and the bun on my head, I really think I could've been really injured. The back of my head is what hit the glass that Brooke is leaning against. Thank the Lord for the rainy, humid day because otherwise I may have actually fixed my hair, and the bun on my head provided perfect padding to bounce off of the glass. And to all of you who've made fun of my huge diaper bag, it is what softened the blow to my body as it slammed in to the ground. So from now on I will embrace my ridiculously oversized monstrosity of a bag...not to mention my bad hair days...which we all know are frequent.

Hunter's major concern after my fall was the camera. He kept telling everyone around, "Mommy broke the camera! Mommy broke the camera!" Thanks son. I love you too.

Just to make sure I didn't break it, I took several more pictures at the train station...once I had wiped away the tears, not to mention the embarrassment.

Ah, there's the smile...the train is finally here!

Hunter was in awe once we actually got on the train. Although you can't tell, Carson was pretty excited too...

So was Brooke...

The ride was kinda long, though, so Hunter eventually resorted to reading the paper like some of his fellow passengers...

I know. They're so over it at this point.

Luckily, we were at the Fair shortly after that. After a quick, super healthy lunch, we went over to the kiddie rides. Hunter had to watch cousin Brooke first to make sure they were safe...

After the motorcycles, they decided to ride the log ride together...

So that was the part of the post that was supposed to make you smile, but if you haven't yet, there's still hope. I promise the next pictures will be some of the funniest you've ever seen.

Since the log ride was "so fun!" we went over to the airplanes. Hunter was really excited until it was time to get in, at which point I had to force him. I know that sounds mean, but hey, we'd already paid...and 5 tickets is a lot to waste. Plus, I knew he'd have fun once it started going.

But then the ride started and my son's screaming started and then I saw this face...

and this one...

and I started to panic.

But after it was over, he ran up to me and said "very fun mommy!" so I'm not that terrible of a mom after all for forcing my child on the crazy fast "kiddie" airplane ride.

I guess the kids didn't get enough train action on the DART, so we let them ride this one...

After several more rides, we went to see the animals, and y'all, my kid didn't even freak out one single time. That is a serious milestone, friends. Hunter kept saying, "hi goat" or "bye bye pig" and waving at them. It was really sweet...

I think he's pointing to a giraffe here...but it also could've been one of the big fans because he was just as enamoured with those.

It was a really long, but really fun day! I can't wait to go back next year! Can y'all believe it?