Quarantine Lip Sync Challenge

Under the Sea

Some GoPro time with the cousins

Our Wee Little Walker

Now that little Peter has been walking for a couple of months it's already hard to remember when he wasn't.  Good thing for video evidence. 



Besides the ones in the video, how many other songs can you name that have the word "walk" in them?

11: Twice as awesome as being #1

Miriam turns 11 on Monday.  To celebrate her and her amazing talents, here is an edited version of her performance at the school talent show.  Lots of kids can play the piano.  But Miriam plays the piano blindfolded and then (at about 45 seconds into the video) while hula hooping!  She says that blindfolded was more difficult, but the audience was certainly more impressed with the hula hooping. 

Peter's Progress

Tammy put together this video of Peter's first year of life.  (minus clips already a part of many other family events)  It's already crazy to see how scrawny he was at 6 months.  He is a delight to have in our family.

Thanksgiving in UT

Another video from Henry!  We spent Thanksgiving in UT with all of Alvin's family.  Peter has four Van Orden cousins his same age, so there was a baby Olympics and much more fun.  This video is not at all reflective of all the things we did, but it does serve to trigger memories of a whole delightful week.

Mini-Van Orden Vacations

In this fifth and final post of the day (which tops our post total for 2015), we have two road trips.  The first video features our stops at a ropes course and a fair in Virgina on the 4th of July our way to a family reunion.  The second is a trip we took to Palmyra and Niagara Falls.



We were a little nervous about putting a Christian rock song over footage from Palmyra, but when the other choice was TLC's Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls, we decided it worked.

Happy Birthday...Everyone

If you look below, you'll see that Henry got his own birthday video.  Not so for everyone else that blew out candles in 2015.  This efficient video shows Eliza and her party with the Williams, Clarissa and her trip to the zoo, Miriam and ice skating, and Tammy and the Folk Festival.



Note: There's no video of Alvin's birthday as Tammy wasn't there to document it.  (Peter was born but didn't have a birthday celebration in 2015.)

Part of Our World

Thanks to Tammy's talents Halloween is always a fun time around here.  The kids enjoyed playing up the Little Mermaid theme.  It doesn't seem like that long ago until you see how far Peter has come in his mobility.

Party with Team USA

Henry is now closer to age 9 than age 8, but his 8th birthday was a great one.  His birthday 'cake' was intended to look like the solar system, which he had been studying (and has 8 planets).  His big present was watching Team USA play soccer against Cuba. 

One of the great things about Henry getting older is that he is able to help out with the video editing.  He did this one by himself.



Note: We've now forgotten why Henry was sad before blowing out his candles.  He claims he wasn't sad, that his eyes just get watery sometimes.

Say Hey, Brays

Yikes, we've almost gone a full year without updating this blog.  Well, lucky for all of you disappointed fans out there we've been snowed in and are starting to make some progress on making videos from the last year. 

We'll be posting from random times throughout the year, so be warned that these are not in any sequential order.  For example, the first video is at the Bray Family Reunion in July in TN, and the second (done entirely by Miriam) is with the Brays over Christmas in NC.  Note that neither is an attempt to show all of the things we did or who was there, just an odd collection of moments we happened to record on video.

Trailer Park

We had a super long weekend thanks to a teacher work day, President's Day and snow.  Then we got more snow this weekend.  When your kids are inside too much, you have to give them things to do.  So they made two movie trailers on the ipad.  The program is super simple, and they were able to do all of the editing themselves.  All of it.  Because believe us that we would have changed a few things.  The first one is a recasting of the David and Goliath story with female leads.



The second was done with their friends the McClatchies and does not actually show any of our own family in it, though Miriam and Henry were heavily involved in the filming and editing.

Bad Things Happen When You Get An IPad

Here's a look back at our Christmas and New Year's Eve.  It was such a fun time with Quince and both sets of grandparents back to back.  Of course, there were a few unexpected events that may appear tragic but had our kids in stitches.

Everything is cool when you're part of a team

 Our kids played sports last year, and this is a recap of most of them.  We didn't get video of Miriam playing soccer, and the only video of Henry playing soccer is from a scrimmage.  Oh well.

Number Five Is Alive

There are a lot of cool baby announcement videos out there that I wish I had done.  This isn't a creative masterpiece, but there's something about a newborn that makes this extra special, even if the cinematography isn't.



Welcome to our family, Peter!  You are loved.

Eliza's Marshmallow Test

If you are unfamiliar with the Marshmallow Test begun at Stanford University many years ago, you need to see it.  Also, if you haven't seen Henry's marshmallow test, which was hilarious, you can find summaries of both here.

The video feature on our camera stopped a few times which meant we had to sneak in and restart the camera, which hopefully doesn't invalidate the results.  We still got some cute shots of Eliza staring down temptation.

The Little Things

When you get behind in your video making and you have a bunch of random clips that you don't know what to do with, then you throw them in a pot and hope they make an edible video stew.  The clips range from March to September.

80% Clarissa

In this video, little miss Clariss turns 2.  Clarissa is 2.5 years old today, meaning 20% of her life has happened since this video was taken.



It goes by so fast, which is why we try and document it all.

Bubblicious

Anyone can blow bubbles with a plastic wand, but it takes real talent to blow with the wand and with the mouth back to back.

A wedding, some hikes, and lots of friends

This video starts with M and E as flower girls at Ammon's wedding,  shows some hiking in Southern Utah, and then there's a 2nd song with some fun video from a family reunion and get togethers with friends.  What a great couple of weeks we had. 



We miss all of our friends and family out west (even those of you not pictured in the video).