The Traveling Banana: Christmas and the days before...

Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a wonderful one celebrating the day when God became flesh! Thought I'd share what we did Christmas and the days before Christmas :D

Tuesday:

Ouma and Oupa Stolks gave us Christmas presents while Mom and Dad were in South Africa :) Awww... it was so sweet of them! We opened them up Tuesday :)

Damarise got a shirt.

So did Mom :)

Me too.

And Sarah, the blue looks adorable on her! It brings out her eyes.

Ian got a motorcycle model. Fun!

And Andrew got a green beetle type car model.

Dad had opened his gift for his birthday while he was at the Stolks :)

The Stolks had our presents wrapped in this adorable paper. Wrapping paper is a really big thing here :) You can't buy normal wrapping paper here, so whenever we get presents, whether it's a birthday or Christmas we carefully unwrap the present without ripping the paper so we can use it for another year :) haha.. this Christmas, since it is our last one here, we ripped up the wrapping paper. YAY! :D

Our Christmas tree.

Cutting out gingerbread men. Our family tradition for Christmas has always been making gingerbread men.

Sarah :)

That night we got to decorate them :D

Dad made two Africa cookies. They were amazing!

Mom.

Damarise.

Me.

Andrew.

Ian.

Sarah.

Dad's Africa cookies.

Sarah made her own gingerbread house. SO cute!

Wednesday:

For Christmas Eve, the Kerns and our family got together at the Roger's for a brunch. Mmmm we had cinnamon rolls, egg quiche stuff, fruit, muffins, breads. It was tasty! Thank you Roger's for hosting it!

Looking at all the yummy food.

Renanta, Cohen, Asher, and Christian eating their brunch.

Sarah and I eating :)

The Roger's Christmas tree. And a great picture of Christmas in Mozambique... the fans are not far away :D

After brunch we watched "The Nativity Story" with the Rogers. It was a really good movie about the nativity although there were some parts that weren't accurate with Scripture it was well done. When we finished with that we headed home, on our way home we met up with Arnie who has been out in the Lolo village for the past five months. It was nice seeing him again. He came by for dinner at 5pm and it was nice to hear what he's been up to.

After dinner we went to the Kern's place to play games :) We ended up playing Rook! FUN! Although it was really weird! We played with two decks so we could bid up to 360... :P ... Thanks Kerns for the fun night!

Christmas!

Christmas day finally came! :D We woke up to a yummy breakfast and then read in Hebrews 1 and talked about Christ coming to earth. Isn't it just amazing and wonderful? Thank you Lord for sending Your Son to this wretched earth to be the redemption for our sins!

After that we opened presents...

Andrew handed out his.

Hehe... I love Dad's face. :P

Damarise got some cute bracelets.

I got some cute earrings.

The three youngins :P Sarah, Andrew and Ian.

Awww!! What sweet brothers!

Sarah and Ian.

Sarah helping Andrew put his tape measure handle back on :)

On Sarah's "I wouldn't really like" list she had sunglasses. Well Damarise and I just could not resist getting her a pair, and thought these ones just brought out her... ummm... not sure what :P

She was thankful for them though :P hahaha... naw we bought her other stuff too. :)

Damarise and I bought each other charm bracelets and will get each other a charm every time we do something special (i.e. graduate ) We knew we were getting each other that but picked out a surprise charm for Christmas. They haven't arrived yet, so Damarise printed off the charm for me :) A cute bookworm charm :)

I got Damarise a camera charm. Oh, and I gave her two pennies :) It's something we have done since Portugal. We once were "betting" on whether something was going to happen or not. While we were doing that we found two pennies so we both bet two pennies it would or wouldn't. Ever since then the two pennies have stuck so whether it's "I bet Sarah's gunna say this tonight." or "I bet it'll rain today." We bet two pennies. We never really know who ends up with them, so I gave them to Damarise for Christmas :D

Damarise and I bought Mom a teapot.

And Dad chocolate and Fanta. :)

Mom got Damarise and I these adorable Mozambican pillowcases :)

Sarah got molding clay. She loves building, drawing or making anything artsy, so she loved her gift!

The boys got a really cool book about the human body from our Aunt. :D

When Mom and Dad first handed out our gifts from them to everyone Damarise and I didn't have that many, but we didn't really care. Mom and Dad said it was cause ours were more expensive. (huh?) Well, Sarah, Ian and Andrew finished opening up their gifts, and Dad told Damarise and I to sit down on the couch. We sat down and Dad opened his computer. He started playing a movie of a Canon Rebel XSi camera which they had bought for Damarise. She was so shocked! She's been praying for a camera like that for... forever! It was fun to see her so surprised :) Well, while Damarise was watching the movie about her camera I was wondering what in the world my present could be. Haha. Damarise's movie about her camera ended and Dad's like, "And Hannah, when we get back to the States we are getting you your very own laptop." WOAH! That was something I was not expecting!! A new computer!! What's even funnier is I had just told Ian the day before that I was saving my money for a new laptop for when I start college. :) Mom and Dad beat me to it :) Damarise and I are SO thankful!! And can't wait to get back to the States to get them :) Mom and Dad said that these also count as our graduation presents :) Nice :D Thank you Mom and Dad!!

Mom had a shirt made for Dad that matched the material of Mom's dress! FUN!

Awwww... the greatest parents ever!

Mom cooked us up a wonderful Christmas dinner! Ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, gravy, corn, Damarise made rolls, and our church in AR sent us cranberry sauce! Thank you SO much FBC!!!