Henry is the Greatest

Henry just had his birthday...in July.   We went with a baseball theme because he loves playing in the backyard with his dad, and often the first question he will ask when he wakes up is if the Cardinals won.  (Makes his papa proud.)

We played lots of normal games, but gave them baseball names.  The favorite activity, though, was practicing "sliding" into a base, where they jumped at a base on a mattress.  The clips at the end are from the Cardinals/Nationals game we went to at the beginning of this month (not part of Henry's b-day).



If you are familiar with this song, the boy in it expresses the same type of optimism and self-esteem that Henry shows after blowing out his candles.

We Declare the Games "Open"

Rather than think of this post as old news that is 2 months overdue, we hope it will serve as a wonderful reminder of one of the greatest athletic events of the year.

We love the Olympics!  So, in order to build the excitement and help our kids realize the significance, we invited two families to join us for a party on the night of the Opening Ceremonies.



For the record, Miriam actually did clear the hurdle at the end, just not when we were taping.

Clarissa: The Beautiful Beginning

We've been saving up little clips of Clarissa ever since we posted about her coming home from the hospital, and we finally decided to put them all together.  She doesn't have any unusual tics or tricks.  She's just a super sweet baby that has been very easy for us as parents so far.  Eliza gets a supporting actress role by virtue of her constant concern and care for her little sister.

Without further ado, here are Clarissa's first five months...



If you make it to the end, you'll know what we'll watching tonight.

Pole Dancing

This has been a crazy month, so we're a bit behind in our video making.  This is from the Bray Family Reunion in Kentucky at beginning of July.   We spent a long time getting video from other family members, and trying to edit these videos.  However, for some reason our video program rebelled against the format of the movies from the other cameras and kept shutting down on us.  After restarting the video program about 30 times, we finally gave up, so we're missing a few good moments.  Oh well.

One of Tammy's nephews made a mix CD for his family that was played repeatedly in the Party Barn (which came complete with a dancing pole) and is the source of the song used in this video.

Miriam's "Best Friend'

Q:  What do you do when your parents refuse to buy you a dog?
A:  Train your brother



There's no end to what kids will come up with on a boring summer day.

Our Little Sparklers

This content comes from our time in Michigan and Illinois.  On the 4th we had a joint birthday celebration for Henry and the USA.  But Henry refused to celebrate his country in the traditional way of lighting things on fire.  When Eliza took a turn with a sparkler, we could see that he was almost convinced it was safe (not wanting to be outdone by his little sister),....


... but when the sparkler finished burning, Eliza grabbed the hot part and burned her fingers.  All of Henry's fears were confirmed, and he'll never believe us again when we tell him not to be afraid (including jumping into the deep end with dad waiting, going upstairs alone when it's dark, participating in talent shows and eating chicken).

Honey, I Shrunk the Grandparents

This is the third movie we've made at a Bray family reunion, so it has now officially become something of a tradition.  The kids really get into the acting and, of course, love seeing themselves on TV.  In fact, Miriam and her cousins spent a long time making their own movies, which we may or may not post here later.  Some of the humor is inside family jokes and the kids featured are always cuter when you know who they are, but there are some of you out there that will appreciate it.