She’s become very expressive. Not that she ever really lacked this skill, but she’s been honing it as of the last few months.

She had a few sleep-overs with friends.

She enjoyed an excellent 4th of July fireworks extravaganza, compliments of Ladera Ranch.

Berlyn has grown ever-so-fond of her pug, Zoey. Zoey doesn’t seem to mind her too much.

We made many trips to the park; mastering all varieties of slides.

More parks, more slides (and swings).

Even more.

Posing, running, and screaming in delight in San Juan Capistrano.

Berlyn loves pumpkins.

Naturally, she was a peacock for Halloween. And mom decided to copy. Berlyn approves.

Berlyn forcing helping Cailey to walk.

Today we enjoyed an acrobatic show of pillow diving (bunge-ing as she calls it), summersaults, and many smiles. A typical Saturday evening at the Brumfield’s.

This year we decided to do an online card (click above to view it) as opposed to the traditional paper-based varieties. But don’t think of us as coping out on you, think of it as:

• Saving the environment. No paper means no trees in the Brazilian rainforest get hacked down.
• Giving you more good stuff. We added lots of pictures and Pat designed the cool card (insert ooohs and aaahhs here).

Regardless, we wanted to share some holiday cheer, say hello, and wish you a Merry Christmas! If you feel the same way, you can leave us a message below. And if you want to print out the card because you’ve got an empty place on your mantle, download and print it here.

Here’s the card.

Like any good parents, we dressed our daughter up in the most outrageous costume we could find for her first Halloween. We then proceeded to take pictures of her. She had a good time looking at all the other outrageous kids, and enjoyed passing out candy at the Mattson’s. First Halloween: success.

This is a picture of the all three of us, The Brumfields, at our friends Melinda & Vern’s engagement party on March 6^th. Berlyn, at 4 weeks old, enjoyed her first outing to Long Beach, and we loved the amazing view atop the SkyRoom.

We had a lot of fun designing and putting together the baby’s room. You can see the progress, and final product in these pictures. They really do no justice to the real thing. Stop in and see us, and maybe — just maybe — we’ll show you her room.

We enjoyed our last vacation as a child-less family on the sunny island of Oahu, Hawaii. It was a wonderful time full of sand, sun, and ABC stores. The islands are truly beautiful, and we soaked up as much as possible.