Disco Birthday and a Big First Step

After the votes were tallied, we ignored them (we expect there to be more opportunities in the future for cakes about books). Instead, we went with a disco ball cake, in honor of Eliza's dancing prowess.



The video below is a bit long with clips of presents and dancing before her birthday and clips of various activities on the day of her celebration in NC. If you make it to the end, there's a fun bonus clip for those of you that know Tammy's parents.




About a week after her birthday, Eliza navigated her first stair. While we should be worried that the stairs are no longer safe, we're just excited that she's finally developing some gross motor skills.



And yes, given the music from these videos, Eliza may someday think she turned 1 in the 1970's.

Vote on Eliza's Birthday Cake

We were trying to decide what is most representative of Eliza as she hits her one year mark this next week. Miriam liked to play on the phone, and Henry loved to climb the stairs. Eliza is amazingly content to sit and watch life around her and hardly ever talks and does very little moving. Her siblings started walking on or before their birthdays, but she is no where close. Anyway, we've had a hard time deciding on how to decorate her first cake. Here are our ideas:

1. An eyeball cake, as most people will comment to us on her big, beautiful blue eyes and how she'll stare at them without cracking a smile or blinking.



2. A music note cake, as she likes to dance as evidenced in the video below [At the end of the dancing bit, there is a segment of her 'talking'. Can we say that her first word is Bye, Bye, even if she has no idea what it means?]





3. A book cake because she enjoys pulling every board book we have off of the little shelf.



Let us know what you think or if you have any other ideas.

Daddy-Daughter Ice Skating Date

Miriam earned a date and chose to go ice skating for the first time in her life. I was impressed with the progress she made in such a short period of time (approx. 45 min.). The key to success is being able to get up after you fall and fall hard.



The video is a bit choppy because I'm no skating-pro either, and this catchy but repetitive song was playing while we were at the rink.

Baby vs Baby

In the last month, Eliza has learned how to crawl. Some people call this natural development. We call it training. We were trying to build up her skill set before we went out to Utah for a week to show her off. Here's the training regimen:




And if there's anything cuter than a baby, it's two babies interacting. See how Eliza's training paid off:




Unfortunately, we didn't get video of the one time Eliza got pinned by her opponent.

Bray Family Movie Trailer

If you've done something twice, does that make it a tradition? The last two times the whole Bray family has gotten together, we've organized the grandkids into making a video. The kids have watched this 20 times in the 20 hours since we finished the video. We had a lot of fun making it.

Bowling Stones

Miriam and Henry both made it to the end of their charts (by practicing the piano, emptying the silverware, etc.), so we went bowling as a family. Quite by accident, we ended up at a small cash-only (in 2010?) alley, with small balls and small pins. Apparently, it's called duckpin bowling. It was a fun twist on bowling and worked out great for kids that can't carry a bigger ball.

A reason to slow down and smile

We decided it was cheaper to buy our kids slippers than turn up the thermostat. As we're not ones to just give our kids things as nice as slippers without a reason, we waited until Halloween and made a trail of pumpkin seeds for them to follow to find their gift. It was fun, but the really special moment was our kids' creativity the next day.



Here's the text from Miriam's note that flashes at the end of the movie.

"Dear Mom
I love you
You givd me a spris so I dsidid to giv you a spris
Love Miriam ed Henry"