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.

AFRO-ditie (Greek goddess of beauty and rad hair)

The Gladiator

Flock of Seagulls

the Yes Ma’am

SUCKA-tash

the Kung Pao

Berlyn: Year 01 from Pat Brumfield on Vimeo.

Today we celebrate your first birthday.
Happy birthday, we love you more than words can say.
Love,

Mommy and Daddy

Beckey put up a special birthday post on her site at hippo brigade

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.

This afternoon, we decided to put Berlyn in her adorable Christmas gift outfit from the Mattsons. She enjoyed the pink and grey hooded ensemble so much that she decided to explore the entire house in it. Of course, I (pat) followed her around documenting the events that followed.

She started in the kitchen, looking through the pantry for things to play with.

She got her hands on a measuring cup, and that was more than enough to keep her busy for a few minutes.

But then on to bigger and better things: our Carnation Instant Breakfast (the best!)

After she had enough of the chewing, it was on to climbing. First she tried to climb up my legs, but before long she took off and climbed up all of our stairs — for the first time ever. It’s at this point that I realize the outfit has given my daughter super powers.

With her new-found powers she decided to try and chew through Zoey’s crate.

After an unsuccessful attempt at giving Zoey freedom she moved onto something a little easier on all 6 of her teeth: an old computer mouse cord. Soon that lost its luster, she pulled the hood off of her head, and sighed — all in a days work.

Here’s what Berlyn is up to lately:

• She claps her hands
• She feeds herself with a spoon
• Pulls herself up and cruises on furniture

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.

Our baby crawls, and we took some video of it.