Christmastime is Here

Since Christmas was almost upon us we mixed up some gingerbread dough, rolled it out and created gingerbread men. It's been a Christmas tradition since before I can remember and every year people (mostly Sarah) get more and more creative with their cookie designs.

Here's a shot of Andrew intensely rolling out his dough.

Damarise did a great job decorating her cookies. I think this heart of hers was one of my favourite cookies.

Christmas Eve came with a little bit of whiteness. Andrew ran out to enjoy it.

We celebrated Christmas as a family on Christmas Eve. Sarah got me one of my favourite Dr. Seuss books for Christmas and it came with a stuffed Dr. Seuss character. I love it!

Ian and Andrew got matching muscle shirts.

Christmas Day came and all of Dad's side of the family came to Grandma's to celebrate. Sarah and I were excited (regardless of Sarah's face).

Anna and I got to pass out all the Christmas gifts to everyone. We were just a wee bit excited about our job.

Dad, Mom and Dad's younger sister, Aunt Janiece. :)

Grandma and two of her grandsons.

Monday morning we woke to a white covered ground. It was lovely!

My Aunt Cynthia tried to teach us how to knit. One of my "dreams" has been to knit when I'm an elderly lady. And as I began to learn how to knit that dream sort of diminished. Knitting is a lot harder than it looks. But, my old RA, Stacey, visited last night and showed me a different way to knit that is a lot easier, so maybe knitting will become my new hobby... who knows.

Dad's siblings and mom.

They're such a great bunch!

Dad has three sisters and there are three girls in our family, so we got a sister(Aunts) with sisters (Nieces) picture.

The two brothers with the two brothers.

There were a ton of cameras snapping pictures. It was like standing in front of paparazzi.

All the cousins with our amazing Grandma.

On Wednesday we got to go up to the farm. It was a drizzly, foggy day, but we had a good time together as a family despite the weather.

There we have it. An update of what has been happening over Christmas break. Hopefully this will not be the last. Because there is more fun to come.

Christmas Eve and Other Things..

Once again I have slacked off on my blog. I feel like I need a really good excuse for not writing on here as often. Hmmm... well, how about it's because I write so many papers and whatnot in college that when I finally think about writing on my blog I have no desire to write. Yah, I'll keep thinking of a better excuse :) Until then, I'm here once again, blogging about random things going on in my life.

Damarise and I are back home for Christmas Break. It is SO nice to be back with the family. Having Skype and Facebook definitely keeps us connected more than anything, but it's nice to be face to face with them all again :) I love my family! To get back home, Damarise and I flew! :D I love flying, I've probably said that several times on this blog, but it is SO true! Flying is just so exciting and fun :) One thing I had never done though was fly during the Christmas season. Damarise and I flew out on the 17th and the airport was all christmasy in the decor and the music wasn't annoying airport music (which I really do not like) but Christmas carols. My favourite was sitting in the airport waiting for our flight and hearing, "I'll be home for Christmas" playing in the airport. Aw, for the first time it was true :) It was so cool :)

This is an old family pic from hmmm I think nine christmases ago...

We decided to mimic our own picture :) Yah, I LOVE my family!

The day after we arrived home I was whisked off to the orthodontist and since that day my mouth has never felt the same. I first got rubber spacers in between my teeth and then yesterday I got braces, and expander and metal spacers in between my teeth. I know in the end it'll be worth it, but right now my mouth is screaming at me. :P And all my words are slurred which is driving me insane. Oh well, Sarah told me my mouth would reshape itself and soon I'd be talking normal again. I hope so! :)

Now Sarah and I match :D

Today is Christmas Eve and it's cold and should be white soon :) Oh, what a change from Mozambique where right now I would be sweating my eyeballs out. (Not literally). Tonight's the night before we celebrate Jesus Christ's birth. I've been listening to this song by Selah recently and I thought I'd post the lyrics on here. They're a good reminder of just how great Jesus' coming to earth as a baby truly was and how hard it is to comprehend that.

Mystery

Selah

A child was born on Christmas Day

Born to save the world

But long before the world began

He knew His death was sure

The pain and strife secured

Mystery, how He came

To be a man

But greater still

How His death was in His plan

God predestined that His Son would die

And He still created man

Oh, what love is this

That His death was in His hands

The Christmas trees

They glow so bright

With presents all around

But Christmas brought

A tree of life

With blood that sacrificed

The greatest gift in life

Mystery, how He came
To be a man
But greater still
How His death was in His plan
God predestined that His Son would die
And He still created man
Oh, what love is this
That His death was in His hands

I am just a man and

Can't begin to comprehend

When You look into this traitor's eyes

What do You see that justifies the Lamb

God predestined that His

Son would die

And He still created man

Oh, what love is this

That His death was in His plan

Mystery, mystery.

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!!!

Thank you Lord for the wonderful food...

And family :D

Dishes! The fun part after every meal right? :D

For Christmas we got Dutch Blitz! FUN! 

We played that for the rest of the day! :D

Well, there is a glimpse at our Christmas. I hope you all had a joyous day! 

Merry Christmas!