Some strange behavior...

Emmitt seems a bit confused since getting our new puppy.  Is he people or is he puppy?

Sadie Hawkins

Brayden got asked to Sadie Hawkins in such a cute way by Ellie Judd.  She made a clever poster.  He was home sick that day and took a long time to come to the door but when he did it was a complete surprise.

Ice Skating

Another tradition we seem to carry on each year is to go ice skating over Christmas break.  This year we were joined by Makennas friend Ashley.  It was a good time!

Merry Christmas

We spent Christmas Eve with our good friends the Corbridges. We enjoyed a yummy ham dinner, a fun and crazy white elephant gift exchange and we acted out the nativity. 

Then we returned home to do the Karen Marie story and open up one present.

Ta da





And then on to Christmas morning...

Stockings first

toothbrushes yay!

Gracie got a sweater- just what she wanted ;)


And here is everyone showing off what they got for Christmas this year...

We were all spoiled rotten.  It was a great day.  We stayed in our pajamas all day and ate a delicious turkey dinner at home- just us- it was laid back and pretty much a perfect Christmas Day.

The Gingerbread House Tradition Continues

We love making our Graham Cracker houses over Christmas break. Its always so fun!

Seeing the Lights

It has been a fun tradition since we moved here to every year travel to a neighborhood in Plano to see their spectacular light displays.  It is especially fun when it's warm enough to ride in the back of the truck.  We had a great time and finished off the night at a great Chinese buffet.

Welcoming our newest addition... Gracie Luna Brandvold

Yes we got a second dog.  We may be crazy.  It all started when I was casually perusing facebook and came across a post from the breeder that we got Dallas from.  I showed Kevin just because they were cute and he went a bit crazy- showing all the kids and noticing that these puppies had the same birthdate as Dallas and Makenna.  So they all felt it was fate and over time they talked me into it.  I'd always wanted a bernedoodle with the three colors so I figured this cutie was close enough.  On the way to the Thomases for Thanksgiving, we stopped to check out the puppies and of course that pretty much sealed the deal.  So a couple weeks later, when our puppy was ready to go, Makenna and I drove the 7 hours there to pick up our new puppy.  We spent the night in a sketchy hotel because that's all there really is in Harrisonville Missouri and then left early to get our new puppy and make the long drive home.  Here's a bunch  of pics...

Pictures from the breeders website

When we went to "check out the puppies"

Here is Makenna puppy sitting for our long 7 hour drive home- with many puppy potty breaks ;)

Gracie has been a huge success.  She is so much fun and so very loved.  Yes she has been a lot of work and there have been messes to clean up.  But overall we just are all so in love with her- it is working out great.  Okay- Dallas may have been a bit slow to warm up.  She immediately would try to climb all over him and cuddle up with him and he would look at her like she was crazy and then move to the other side of the room.  But now they are cuddle buddies and they play like wild and crazy animals.   At first when they played we were always nervous Dallas would hurt Gracie- but a few days in we were always more worried about Gracie hurting Dallas.  She may be little but she is fiesty!  As for her name, we narrowed it down to our two favorites- Gracie and Luna.  Gracie won but we are keeping Luna as a middle name  Sometimes we call her Gracie Lu ;)