Playdate with friend Gabe!

Me and my new friend Gabe

I am having so much fun playing.

Mr. Gabe here is from Ethiopia.

Gabe is such a silly boy.

Gabe's mom is very nice, she is a nurse like my mommy.

Gabe likes hanging out with my daddy also.

Look Gabe what we got you!

I think Gabe is happy because I came to play with him.

Bye friend Gabe, i had so much fun playing with you.

We got to finally go over to my new friend Gabe's house and meet him for the first time. He was adopted by my mommy's friend April and her husband Mike. They got him on Christmas Day in Ethiopia. I am so happy and excited we finally got to meet him. We heard about him last summer and new that eventually that Mike and April would be bringing him back home. Gabe is a lot of fun to hang out with and I am so excited to have him here and get to hang out with him whenever we can get together. My mommy told me that April and her went to college together and have known each other for a long time. I am so glad we are all good friends and they live in Council Bluffs like we do. I hope you enjoy the pictures. ~~~~Grace :)

Papa Harley visits..............

Home Improvement Projects!!!

Papa Harley what are you doing?

Our new floor...... Yeah!

Remodeling the shower.

My new hallway light.

We were so blessed to be able to have Papa Harley come stay with us for almost a week and help us with some home improvement projects. It was so nice to have his knowledge and capabilities during this process. Originally our only big project was tearing up the living room carpet and laying down laminate wood floors and 2 little projects of changing out the hall light and replacing the shower head for a much better one in the shower. Well with the small project we ended up with another big project. We ended up having to gut our shower and redoing the shower. It was not planned but was a must and it was great it happened when Chris's dad was here. So we recruited my dad also and the boys tackled the project of remodeling the shower. Now that it is done the newly remodeled shower is really nice. Also I am loving my new living room floor. What a great update in our home. We probably would never gotten it done without Papa Harley's help. Thank You Papa Harley! Hopefully he will help us again next year. :)

Children's Museum Fun!

We decided to go to the Children's Museum to play since it is fun but also because Daddy had never been there before. So we thought we would take him and show him all about the fun things you can do at the museum. And of course had a lot of fun playing.

Night in a Hotel!

On our way home from Algona we ended up running into snow. The traveling back to CB wasn't bad till we hit Denison then it was snowing and really dark out. It took us probably an hour to drive from Denison to Harlan. By then we were exhausted and wasn't sure how soon we would drive out of the snow or the conditions would get any better. So we decided to stop at hotel in Harlan and spend the night. We figured it would be better to stop then risk driving and have problems or something bad happen. The hotel room was nice and Gracie thought it was really cool we got to stay in a hotel room for the night.

Christmas at Papa Harley and Oma's House!

Hey Oma!

Reading a book with Oma!

Gracie with her cute hair!

Decorating a Christmas tree with Cousin Brayden!

Oma's beautifully decorated living room!

Looking in Oma's tree for the pickles!

Pickle, Pickle........where are you?

Gracie and Brayden being cute!

Gracie sneaking off with the M&Ms while the boys aren't paying attention.

Gracie loves her new HD clothes!

Daddy loves his new Christmas story house, mommy does also to go with her other houses!

Hey Brayden!

What do you got there Uncle Dustin?

Brayden loves his new race track book!

What....Really.....for me?

Oma loves her gift!

Papa Harley loves his gift!

Papa Harley in his GB Packers gear! Papa Harley that's the wrong color green....lol!

Brayden you can come with me.

Mommy and Daddy!

Just put Brayden's new puzzle together.

Brother's with there tired kids!

Oma and Gracie with there matching aprons....time to cook!

Girls and there aprons! You girls look great.

Oma and Brayden being cute.....so smily!

Uncle Andrew and Cousin Brayden

Gracie and Oma being silly.

We finally were able to make it up to Algona to celebrate Christmas with Chris's family. This winter has been terrible with the weather and not being able to travel when we would like. So we had to postpone Christmas till the following weekend because all the snow we got on Christmas Day. But we still had a good time and enjoyed the time we got to spend with the family. We all had so much fun getting to hang out. Grace loved getting to play with Brayden.