Family Picture

Recycle!

After all of the present opening, which took several hours going youngest to oldest, with a couple of food breaks in between, we played in the wrapping paper before stuffing it in bags to send to the recycling place.

Brielle's First Christmas

Needless to say, Brielle loved Christmas! She especially enjoyed tearing wrapping paper off of the presents, hers and everyone else's. In the picture above she's laughing because there are monkeys on her feet!


Here she is displaying a present from Grandma and Grandpa Streadbeck, which is without a doubt one of her very favorites! She kept patting the box and squealing, then she'd try to lift up the box to show us and she'd grin from ear to ear. And that's before she even got it out of the package! She also got a Cabbage Patch baby which she loves. When she's not poking the baby in the eye, then she's jamming the little plastic bottle into the baby's mouth and patting the head, or pulling the appendages in opposite (and impossible) directions. Despite the violence it's cute to watch.



Russell and I got a Nikon D50 from his parents that we're very excited about. Please note the excited expressions on our faces! Our other cameras are Nikon so we have all the lenses and filters already, it was the perfect present, we've been wanting a digital SLR for a long time. Now you can expect even more pictures of Brielle on this blog spot!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we went to a friend's house to see Santa. Brielle was fascinated! She loved the beard, the boots, the glasses, and especially the sleigh bells. Elle loved everything about Santa.......until we put her on his lap!

Later that night we had the grandchildren act out the Nativity. However, since the oldest of the six grandchildren is only 5, we had to supplement the acting with a lot of "big kids," please note the great number of shepherds in the pictures!!


(this is the Angel talking to the shepherds!)

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto....

"Daddy, where did all the snow go??"

Where a Kid Can Be a Kid!

For Kathryn's 3rd birthday, the whole Streadbeck clan went to Chuck E Cheese, and good times were had by all. All the boys were running around like children popping tokens into the machines as fast as they could to shoot, drive, crash, and throw for as many points as possible and then compare how many tickets they had won! The ACTUAL children enjoyed it as well.

Flying to California

Brielle was fascinated by the flight to California. She was watching out of the window the whole time we taxied down the runway, squealing and pointing at things she saw. Then as the plane lifted up and the wheels left the ground, her little mouth just dropped open and she stared and stared, with her little nose pressed up against the window for half of the flight. She was entranced!
During our lay-over in Salt Lake, Elle played on the moving walkways with her daddy and ate frozen yogurt. All in all this flight was enjoyed much more than the last time!

Gingerbread Houses

In Cub Scouts we made graham cracker "gingerbread" houses. Brielle was fascinated with them, so I let her eat one. She ate a few pieces of the candy, but mostly she enjoyed destroying it!

Christmas before Christmas

On the Francis side of the family we opened presents early because Mom and Dad and the rest of the kids are going to Mexico for Christmas, while Russell, Brielle and I go to Orange County to be with the Streadbeck side. (we got to go to Mexico with them a couple of Christmases ago, so we don't mind!!)

Winter Wonderland

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas......

Here's all of the cousins on the Francis side, there's Cassie who is 3, Mary is 2, and Brielle is almost 1. And of course with ages like that there was no way we were going to get a good picture of them all! This picture is a miracle in and of itself since they're all looking in the direction of the camera and no one is trying to escape!!! We'll have to take a better picture soon. (Cassie and Mary are Josh and Darcy's girls!) Please note that Mary and Brielle are holding hands, how cute is that?!!


Sleigh riding with Daddy and Mackenzie!! Mackenzie would run after the sled trying to pull off Ella's hat by the tassels!!

Brielle wasn't sure what she liked better, the sled or the dog!

A tiny little mischief maker!

Well, we don't have any pictures over Thanksgiving because we were all sick with a flu for a week and a half and we didn't feel as though that were photo-worthy! But here is Ella with her magic wand. For a few days she would play with this wand non-stop, smacking everything in sight, no doubt trying to turn us all into toadstools or something!



I watch a little girl named Patience on most days, and even though she is a whole year older than Brielle, it's still Brielle who masterminds all the trouble that they get into. Brielle will open a cupboard and start handing pots and pans out to Patience as fast as she can before I can stop them, and Brielle will be the one to dump all the toys out of the toy box so that she can push the box across the room to climb up onto the aquarium using the toy box as a step stool. And of course Patience goes along with all of Brielle's mischief!

Messy little eater!!

A couple of trouble makers!

Preparing for Thanksgiving

Brielle is getting ready for her first Thanksgiving. She's got her turkey hat which she made for the big day, and she practices eating as much as she possibly can before having to throw food on the floor.....
Then she does a few laps on the treadmill to burn some of it off in hopes of finding room for dessert....
....and if the exercise isn't enough, her Daddy always knows how to make "dessert-room", just shake the baby upside down! Works like a charm.

Reading all the time......

Brielle has started to LOOK at books, as opposed to just BITING them. Now she's our little reader girl, always playing with her books.

Halloween!

The day before Halloween it was 15 degrees and snowy. At first we were worried that Halloween might be cold as well, but today was MUCH warmer at a balmy 23 degrees! That is until evening, when the temperature plummeted to 6 degrees, poor Brielle wasn't sure if Trick-or Treating was fun or not for awhile.

Brielle was a little lady bug!

After the Church Trunk-or-Treat, we went to the mall where they had indoor trick or treating from store to store. Elle liked the indoors much better!!

And once we got home both Russell and Ella immediatly ripped into the candy, devouring as much as possible before bed time!!