First haircut!!

This is Chloe before...

During...(look at how serious she is taking this haicut:)) More during...
It was getting long. We had to finally cut the dark brown off.
After! And yes, she does have a big scab on her nose and on the side of her nose. Poor girl keeps falling. Maybe without all the hair in her eyes she'll do better.

Iowa State Fair

A couple weekends ago, we drove to Des Moines, Iowa and went to the Iowa State Fair. It was really fun. We met our friends Sunny, Braden, and Hyrum Cannon. They showed us all the "must-sees" of the fair.
We couldn't miss the animals. We also saw this enormous albino looking steer and a huge elk. Chloe liked the pigs and the cows.
Only in Iowa! We could get up close to any tractor of your choice. Tractors are huge!
I thought this was kind of a neat picture. This will always remind me of Lagoon.
Chloe enjoyed her first funnel cake, although I secretly wished I didn't have to share it:) Just as we were leaving, I also bought a corn on the cob from the barbeque. "Fair" food is overly expensive but SOO delicious.
This is Chloe in the kid zone. They had some fun activities for the little kids.

This sculpture is of Shawn Johnson, the US gymnast...and did I mention it's made entirely of butter. She is from Iowa. Because we went to the fair during the Olympics, Brad and I kept hoping we would see "go Shawn" signs, but we didn't.

Brad and Bradden amid the crowds. They were good sports to just push the kids while Sunny and I talked the whole time. She's such a good friend and it was fun to spend the day with her family. She even brought us some Iowa corn on the cob and some cute homemade gifts!!

Osteostache

When we moved in last year, Brad commented that there were a lot of 2nd year med students with these gross mustaches. Come to find out the mustaches are lovingly called osteostaches and the 2nd years grow them around this time to "welcome" the incoming 1st years. So, here's my Brad growing his face. I started to envision Vince Vaugh in Starsky and Hutch.
and then I started to envision something worse...Ben Stiller in Starksy and Hutch...And then Friday morning came and reality came with it...
But really, I think he's cute no matter what, plus he has a good face.

And here he is!

The pink chair

She has been really into reading and this pink chair this week. She'll push it all over the house and spend a lot of time getting in and getting out. Couldn't resist these pictures.

A little cake.

There are a few things I've really looked forward to as a mom, and one of them, as simple and nothing as it may seem, is to bake with Chloe. This was our first treat...waffle cookies, of course. She actually tried to help stir and she watched patiently as I poured a few of the ingredients in. It wasn't until it started to resemble something other than slimy eggs and granules of white that she dove right in. Who can resist Chocolaty goodness? She tried some (picture one) and then she realized I wasn't eating any (picture 2) and so she shared with me (picture 3) and that's all I can hope for!!

Another one bites the dust.

It's been a distastrous week in the Chambers house. The disasters started when I walked into the living room with Chloe following closely behind and we heard a terrific crash and something shattering. As we turned, we found we had narrowly escaped being hit over the head by my favorite/sentimental tile art that my sister had made for me. Disaster #1. So, Brad and I looked at where the tile had been sitting and noticed we had a nice plate that we had with a picture of the temple on it and our wedding date. "maybe we should move that somewhere safe, Mel, the house seems to be tilting and we don't want that to fall". Brad says to me. To little to late. Just the other day, the plate fell and again, we narrowly escaped being concked on the head with it. Disaster #3. Disaster #2 actually happened a few days before when I was putting 3 of our 6 mismatched bowls away and all 3 slipped out of my hands and shattered on the floor. Thankfully, Chloe wasn't trying to help load the dishwasher like she normally does. She escaped being hit. Today, Disaster #4. I need to begin with a little back story. This summer, Brad and I went to this adorable town in Colorado and we did some shopping, not that we had money for the shopping. I wanted to buy a souvenier and I thought candles make great presents. So, this candle salesman (you didn't know candle salesmen existed?) truly saw me coming and sold the pants right off me. Man, he was good, and I walked out with an overly expensive, but terrific smelling candle. Well, what you see below is the remains. I can no longer "melt" the scent because the little glass plate is in pieces. So much for "melting" into the year 2020 like he told me we would!!
In conclusion: Atleast none of us found pieces of glass in our feet or got hit on the head, we did need some new cute, matching bowls, and I already bought a tile to make a new replacement. Brad reassured me that some day, somewhere, there would be a Relief Society Enrichment project that made those cute temple plates again. And as for the candle...I'll just leave it on the counter like that and smell away:)

Happy Birthday to the greatest guy I know.

B-rad celebrated a birthday a couple of days ago. Happy Birthday, Brad. We love you so much.

Enjoying summer

Brad bought her this doll and stroller. Her favorite thing is to ram it right into Starsky. She loves pushing everything around, including one single grape, her bead necklaces, her monkey, and this little baby. She is so sweet as she tends to this baby. She tries to feed it water and she pats its back. Look at her little belly, too.Fun at the water park. The med students and their families get to go for free. We've spent lots of time there this summer. Chloe is fearless in the water. We're going to get her into a swim class this winter.

Sometimes she just keeps walking into the water and thinks she can swim.

Fun with dad and the water park.

Most of Chloe's little friends are older and she loves being one of the "bigger kids". I've never seen her just sit still like this before. I think she was showing off for a her cute friend Jackson.

A midwest flood.

About a week ago we had a lot of rain. When it rains, it really rains...buckets or cats and dogs (you choose your metaphor) We went to bed to intense thunder, lighting, wind and rain, and woke to a street resembling a river. We heard of many people with flooded basements and we commiserated with them, but were glad we didn't join them until we turned the water on and realized there wasn't any hot water. Brad went down into the basement to check it out and he came right back and told me the news. We, too, were flood victims. The second picture below shows about 3 feet of water in our basement. 3 feet of rain you ask? Surely not. No, this 3 feet of water came because the city pipes under the road backed up and plurged into our basement. Thankfully we didn't have anything down there. Our nice landlord spent all day draining it. Other people had much more damage so we were very lucky. And the rain continued.
The manhole was bouncing on top of a mini-geyser. Brad pushed it off for a picture. Now we are feeling the humid effects of all of this rain.