Future Cardinals?

Baseball season is officially over.  Miriam was the best (only) girl in the whole machine pitch league, almost always making contact.   Henry was in t-ball but was able to successfully hit the ball when his coach pitched and never needed the tee.



Even after watching the video multiple times, Henry refuses to believe that the last clip is him, as he has no memory of the event.  "Henry, the kid is wearing your uniform number."  "Maybe Miriam stole my uniform!"  Of course, this is the same child that refuses to admit he fell asleep in the car and who won't believe his parents know more than him about the piano, homework, or anything else.  Those wacky conspiracy theorists out there on the internet must have all been something like Henry when they were little.

A Marvelous Mix of May

This video includes the following May events:

• Trip to Brookside Gardens and the Butterfly House
• Miriam's birthday
• Free carnival hosted by the YMCA and the City of Frederick
• Miriam's self-choreographed dance to "I Won't Say" (I'm in Love) from Hercules
• Henry's K class singing "Boom Chicka Boom" at a thank you volunteer bfast
• Eliza learning to hop on one foot 
• Tammy's birthday

Memo from the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.

Eliza has a great imagination and can play by herself for long stretches of time.  It's fun to listen in on the conversations she makes her toys and her imaginary people have. 

One day, I sneakily pulled out my camera hoping to capture some of her creativity.  She had been saying some really funny things before I got it out and of course I missed the best moments, but you'll still get a great glimpse of her personality.  She doesn't know she's being filmed.

In this video, it's not so much what she says that's funny, rather the fact that she can say the same thing so many times with such enthusiasm and varied intonation.  I can't help but laugh when I watch it.

Miscellaneous March Moments

Now that our summer has begun, it is weird to look back at videos where we are wearing long sleeves and winter coats.  For whatever reason it took us a while to put this one together. 

Here's to March and exciting moments, such as Henry learning to ride a bike and a fun Easter visit from G&G Bray and the Woffindens.

Zero to Eight in 3 Minutes 23 Seconds

Miriam turned 8 this month and is getting baptized on Saturday.  For this special occasion, we've been reflecting on what an honor and a responsibility it is to raise such a wonderful little girl.  In this video, we've taken one picture from every month of her life and shown them for two seconds each.  Some months it was hard to choose, and for other months, it was hard to find any pictures since it was three computers ago.  But every time we watch it we just hold hands, smile, and wonder at how fast she is growing up.

Clarissa's One!

Q: What do you get when you cross a happy one-year-old with a box of Cheerios?
A: A CheeriOne cake!

 'Miss Clariss' contentedly ate the Cheerios off her cake and left the good stuff for the rest of us!  She also learned that a fistful of ice cream shoved in your mouth all at once can be painful.

Roy G. Biv

From November through February, Miriam and Henry stayed after school once a week to meet with their "Destination Imagination" team.  (nine kindergarten through second graders).  They practiced teamwork and problem solving skills and worked together to prepare a play about Roy G. Biv's birthday party.

In addition to creating the play, they learned to solve 'instant challenges' together.  For example, "Using nothing but this stack of paper, build the tallest tower you can in 5 minutes."  Although they had an adult volunteer working with them, the script was completely written by them.  They presented their play at a competition at the beginning of March (their age group was non-competitive) and they solved an 'instant challenge' in front of a panel of judges.  It was a good experience for them.

This video does not include the full version of the play, just a few clips of their parts.  No pressure for anyone to watch - this one is just for their memories.