Brielle Walking!!

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Brielle's First Birthday!

It's incredible to see the difference a year can make! In the picture above Brielle is just a few days old. Now that she's one year she's much much taller, has gorgeous gray eyes, an infectious smile with 5 small teeth in it, she's starting to walk short distances, and can say about 6 words. Brielle's also the most gregarious baby I've ever met, everywhere we go she's making eye-contact with people, grinning, waving, and saying "Hi!"


For her birthday I made her a strawberry filled cake and decorated it with lots of flowers. Brielle seemed a bit intimidated by everyone singing "at" her!


Like all children, Brielle preferred the frosting, and that was the first part to be eaten!

After the initial excitement wore off, Brielle deigned to use her fork.

Opening presents was a whirlwind affair. Brielle didn't open many of her gifts herself, but that's just what happens when you've got older cousins. Cassie and Mary were anxious to demonstrate their expertise in wrapping-paper ripping, and as a result a heaping pile of presents was opened in record time!!



For the most part Brielle didn't care whether she opened presents or not, she just enjoyed watching Mary and Cassie, but occasionally she'd get a little frustrated. It's not easy being the youngest cousin!!
All the girls were interested as Russell read Brielle's new books!


However, even after all of the cake and presents, the highlight of Brielle's birthday was getting to brush McKenzie with her Grandma! Without a doubt her favorite part of the day!! (Brielle loves dogs!! In fact her very first word was 'dog', though if you ask Russ, it was 'papa'!!)

Birthday Cards!

Brielle has been getting some birthday cards in the mail and she is thrilled by them! Here she is holding one from Great Grandpa Francis, which she waved around for a long time after opening it, intermittently stopping to look at the pictures! She has one from her Streadbeck Grandparents too, and both cards are worn to pieces with the constant handling and hugging and opening and pointing. They're held on the fridge with magnets, and every morning she crawls over there, takes them down and carries them around with her!

Discovery Center

A few days after Christian's wedding, we took Brielle to the Children's Museum in Salt Lake, the Gateway Discovery center. She loved it!

She got to play in water, her ultimate favorite thing, and her parents actually LET her which they never seem to when she wants to play in the toilet!

And she collected chicken eggs, and dressed up like a little Firefighter!



Here she's rowing a boat and squealing, and below she's a little beaver working on her dam.

Yahoo for Weddings!!!

Christian married Shannon Tengelsen on January 3rd in the Salt Lake Temple. The wedding and reception were beautiful and we are just tickled pink to have Shannon in our family, because she is just so darned adorable!!!

It was pretty cold outside and a lot of the girls had missed their naps so a picture of the Bride with the flower girls was almost impossible! You might note that the second picture is missing one of them!

As you might imagine, there was a lot of kissing going on that day!!

Brielle's cousins, Cassie and Mary, were excited to hold Shannon's bouquet.


The three Francis cousins posing just in case some Ensign photographers were lurking around the Joseph Smith building!

Cassie felt that it was her personal responsibility to keep Shannon's dress from trailing on the ground!
And Cassie really loved it when Shannon started to run!!!

Meanwhile, Brielle enjoyed dancing with both her Grandpa and her Daddy.


This last picture is one that Russell took with our new camera and I thought it looked very beautiful so I'm putting it in!

I wish we had better pictures of the event, but our battery was dying in our camera, so you'll just have to take our word for it, Shannon was gorgeous, Christian couldn't stop grinning, and everyone had a wonderful time!!

Sea World, the second time around....

The first time we went to Sea World Elle was only 5 months old and didn't enjoy it as much as she could. This time she was 11 months, and she loved it! She was delighted with every animal she saw, and she was positively thrilled when she got her picture taken with a penguin. At every exhibit she'd press her face up to the glass, and at every show she'd watch intently. However, when it was time for the Killer Whale show Brielle was exhausted and cold and ready to go home. She was putting up quite a fuss until the first killer whale jumped out of the water, and that caught her attention completely. After that she was entranced, and spent half of her time clapping happily and the other half struggling to get down to where the whales were!


(clapping for Shamu with Grandma!)

Here Elle is staring raptly at the Beluga whales. She also loved the walruses.
In this picture Brielle is staring at the otters, we couldn't get her to look at the camera for anything! Michelle and I are much more cooperative!!

Weapons!!

For Christmas the Streadbecks got 8 Nerf Dart guns, complete with protective eye-ware and vest targets, and so you can imagine all of the hullabaloo that ensued with people chasing each other around the house, shooting, ducking, dodging, rolling, ......it was intense! Straight out of a James Bond movie! Brielle enjoyed the mayhem enormously, that is unless her mom was playing and then every time I ran by screaming and shooting she would immediately burst into tears. Brielle was also fascinated with the light sabers and liked to bang them against any object within reach: shoes, boxes, stairs, couches, babies, whatever was lying around!


Later we went to the Disney store at Downtown Disney. I thought Brielle might like seeing all of the characters that she enjoys watching on the Disney Sing-a-longs. However I was wrong. Brielle didn't seem a bit interested in all of the figurines, stuffed animals and dolls that represented the Disney characters. Nope, instead she wrapped her little fist around a Pirates of the Caribbean sword and refused to let go for anything. She carried it around the whole store slashing and waving it like crazy!