Brielle's 2nd Birthday!

The day started out with Brielle helping me make her birthday cake. Her "help" mostly consists of her making the kitchenaid go "faster faster!!!" and using a spatula (or spoon, measuring cup or fingers) to scoop out whatever I'm mixing so that she can eat it.


She especially liked helping with the frosting!

That evening we went to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner. (helpful hint: don't eat there! Eat first and go there second just to play games. Wish we had done that, the pizza is terrible!) Brielle had a blast, she loves the giant mouse, and all of the rides and games! Another little girl was having a birthday party there and Brielle got pretty excited when the giant mouse started singing Happy Birthday!


Here's Brielle reminding us to pray over our pizza. Boy did it need it!



Calling Chuck E.
A fun jet ski game. This game was a LOT more fun with Mom than it was with Dad, because Russell was actually good at it, but I was hitting walls and rocks like crazy which made the jet ski we were sitting on bump and twist and lean from side to side!

Happy Hyrum
We got Brielle a bunny that hops and wiggles its nose and ears, and makes an obnoxious squeaking sound (we didn't know about the squeaking sound when we bought it!) We thought she'd love it because it hops around and she really likes her moving toys. Well, she DOES love it, but she never never ever wants us to turn it on, she likes it off. It's cute that she loves it so much, but its a shame she doesn't like it to hop around since that's the reason we bought it.

She got her own cell phone, so that she would stop "borrowing" ours.


A fairy book with felt pieces from Grandma

And a shopping cart from her grandparents. She was very excited about this one and couldn't rest until Russell had put it together....

Then she roamed the house filling up her cart with all of her treasures.


Brielle had a strawberry birthday cake, and instead of cake toppers we put two new wind-up toys on top (we're all big fans of wind-ups!)


Brielle loved blowing out the candle and kept asking for "more fire", she ended up blowing out her candle six times! Just racking up those wishes!!

All in all, Brielle had a wonderful birthday! She loved getting phone calls from everyone and goes around singing "happy happy to you!" now. She got to see her Grandma and Grandpa Francis on the web cam, and "MATT MATT!!", which made her night (she showed them all of her new things one by one and had them sing all the primary songs that have motions, it's amazing what that girl can get her grandparents to do =0)

Tuckered Out

Sundays are hard! Our ward is from 1-4, right during the prime napping hours so on Sunday Brielle just misses her nap, and usually goes to sleep a bit earlier. Though never quite this early before, Brielle fell asleep at 7 pm right after finishing a bowl of icecream.


Nothing woke her up so we just cleaned her, stuck her in jammies, and put her to bed!

IMAGINE Children's Museum

We went to the Children's Museum in Everett (about 10 miles north of us) last Saturday with Russell's cousin Spencer and his wife Roma, and Aunt Carol. Spencer and Roma have a daughter the same age as Brielle named Cassandra (she's 5 months older) and a new baby boy, Brendan, who is three months younger than Hyrum. That's Cassandra with Brielle in the picture above.

The Museum was a lot of fun, it had a wide variety of creative things for the kids to do. There was an animal hospital, a cafe, a theatre room, a bank teller office, a water room, a train room, a fossil dig and huge playground on the roof, an airplane, a tree house, a farm and grocery store, and several other cute exhibits. Unfortunately when two parents have two kids it becomes a lot harder to take pictures, so we only have a few, but you can view the website here: Imagine Children's Museum


My favorite thing in the museum was the cow that you could milk and water would come out of the udders. It was created to be pretty lifelike, you have to use the right motion and force or else you won't get anything....too funny.


Brielle liked the cow too!


Trains, one of Brielle's favorites. They also had a large display with moving trains going up and down on different tracks.

And the room we just couldn't keep Brielle out of was of course the water room.

In the picture above you can see where Brielle burned her hand on our fireplace. Poor kid. She didn't cry, she just kept saying "fire hot! hand ow!" This picture was taken a week after it happened but the burn still looks pretty bad.

Well THIS is new!

Now that we're in our new place we've gotten out all of the toys that Brielle used to use when she was a baby. The exersaucer, the walker, the johnny-jump-up, all the soft squeezable biteable baby toys........and Hyrum is loving it! It's fun to watch his eyes as he examines each new toy. The johnny-jump-up would be his favorite if it weren't for the fact that each time he gets in it he puts his life on the line. Yes, because unfortunately for all intents and purposes that johnny-jump-up may as well be a swing, and there is nothing Brielle loves more than swings. Needless to say Brielle does not like the idea that there is a swing in the house that is not for her. So when Hyrum goes in Brielle spends a great deal of time trying to get him out, first by actually trying to pull him out, but her mother won't allow that. Then she tries to swing Hyrum into the wall so that he will WANT to get out, but so far this just makes him squeal and again I stop her before anyone gets hurt. In the end she settles for just playing with the johnny-jump-up with Hyrum in it. The exersaucer looked just as enchanting to Brielle at first, but two minutes sitting in the little seat and she changed her mind, so it's all Hyrum's!

What a cute little grinner!

And as you can tell by the background, we're all moved in with every little thing in the proper place, all rooms organized to a fault and neat as a pin. What can we say, we're just really good like that.

Handsome Hyrum

Woodland Park Zoo

We went to the zoo here last Saturday....Brielle loved it. Every animal that she asks to see on a daily basis (alligators, gorillas, tigers, monkeys, snakes, etc....) we were able to show her. However all we have pictures of are her going on the old fashioned carousol. It's a lot harder to take pictures when each parent is in charge of a kid!! The zoo is about 15 minutes from our house, which is nice since we have a zoo membership and can go whenever we like (which will be quite often if Brielle has any say in it!)

Brielle's favorite part of the zoo though wasn't the animals. She's been missing her cousins a LOT, and asking for them every day; so at the zoo when we bumped into a father and his little girl, Brielle latched on. The little girl was just her age and every time we would try to move on to another exhibit Brielle would hold out her hand to the other girl and say "come on!" They would run around giggling and point out the animals to each other (and trees and rocks and puddles). It was cute. One of these days we'll find a friend for her here in Washington.

A couple more Christmas pics

Brielle loved the little train that went around the tree at my parents house. She would ask for the "Choo choo" several times every time we went over there.


Christian and Shannon posin' by the tree.......aren't they just too cute for words! They should have kids.

Christmas in the Sand

Thanks to Scott and the magical gift of photoshop we are able to bring you this picture......please note that no one is screaming, running away, blinking, yelling, hitting, throwing sand or biting. The reason for this is not because those things weren't happening, (mostly from Danny and Brett) but because Scott used all of his talents and technological abilities to photoshop several pictures together to get this one. True, few of us look our best, BUT we're all in it and we're all looking! Thank you Scott!

Packing...

Brielle has really enjoyed packing, she likes to place random objects into boxes that her parents are filling. She also enjoys UNpacking! Sometimes she'll be taking things out as fast (or faster!) than we can put them in.


And she likes to pack herself! When she does so she never forgets to bring her two favorite items: her bunny book and her white wind-up bunny.

Christmas

Leading the donkey to Bethlehem.....

Opening one present Christmas Eve...

Matching pajamas...


Cousins!
Piglet.