Yellow Time Machine

We broke out the guitar last week. One of the kids' favorites is Yellow Submarine (because the lyrics are easy). Coincidentally, we recently found an old video of Miriam dancing, originally taken by her Grandpa Bray at an outdoor concert in NC. Miriam is almost exactly the age that Eliza is now (and though you can only see Tammy's leg in the picture, she was as close to childbirth as she is now).




Miriam and Eliza have similar dance moves, though that's about where the similarity ends.

Roller Skating Survival Guide

Miriam has been wanting to go roller skating for ages, and Alvin has fond memories of roller skating in his basement. But with no rinks in town, it has taken until last weekend for us to finally introduce our children to the wonderful world of roller skating. You may need to watch this in full screen to be able to enjoy the picture-in-picture video.

Called to Dance

Alvin was called to the bishopric last Sunday. By Saturday, Alvin was doing this at the ward talent show...
[Alvin makes his appearance at 1 minute if you want to skip ahead. You can also just skip the whole video altogether.]



If Alvin had been part of the bishopric sooner, he probably would have steered the bishopric talent in a different direction, and at the very least, he would have started putting together something as important as a talent show act much sooner than the night before. It wasn't our best performance from a technical perspective, but there was a good energy in the room. Lots of laughter and lots of 'compliments' expressing their surprise at our dancing ability. It was a complete success.

We're not crazy....at least Tammy isn't

This video is a mix of a lot of different things and they are not shown in chronological order. They include Valentine's Day, Alvin's Dad's birthday party (pin the heart on the heart animal, a puppet show, and balloon popping to find jokes made up by the kids), and some random dancing and belly flopping.

Caps for Sale (Adorable 2 year old not for sale)

Eliza turned two yesterday. It is still undetermined whether the twos will be terrible or terrific, but we're off to a good start.

As a theme for Eliza's party and cake, we chose one of Eliza's favorite books, "Caps for Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina. It's a 1938 classic.



Those of you familiar with the story of the peddler who has his caps stolen by a bunch of monkeys...



...will hopefully also recognize our attempt at recreating a scene from the book in chocolate, cake, frosting, and other edible delights.



This lead to some Caps for Sale themed party games, such as 'See How Many Caps (Beanbags) You Can Balance On Your Head' and 'Try To Steal the Cap (Beanbag) Off the Sleeping Peddler'. Not captured on video is some 'Monkey See, Monkey Do' dancing (to the Monkees, of course).



This party actually happened last week, so we could celebrate while Alvin's parents were in town.

Virtual Recital

As Tammy is Miriam's teacher, Miriam doesn't have any opportunities to perform at formal recitals, so instead, we encouraged her to work hard on her song for a virtual audience. The song, As A Child of God, is a step up in difficulty from her typical piano books. She hated slowing down enough to play it right, but she did it for the camera. [No editing was done of this performance, though we were tempted.]



If you actually watched (or even listened) to this video, you may now treat yourself to punch and cookies!

A Star in the Making?

Eliza loves to sing along with various songs in our limited CD collection. We can't help but laugh every time she enthusiastically belts out a note at the end of a phrase. Here's a selection from the current favorite.

This clip shows her zeal, but she her enunciation has improved since the filming of this video.