Christmas at Lakeland

A REAL Christmas tree

Merry Christmas! We Hope you all had a nice Christmas.

Our Christmas was different but really fun. We went to Lakeland to see our relatives (dad's brother's family). We left on Christmas Eve and spent the night at their house. We had fun opening our stockings, making our own pizza for dinner, decorating Christmas cookies, playing with our cousins (we have six cousins), and going to bed late. In the morning it was Christmas! We got up early to help Aunt Michelle and Ashly as they were preparing food for lunch. The food was sooo delicious. Aunt Michelle and Ashly are really good cooks. We ate when Grandma and Grandpacame over, and then we opened the presents and watched everybody else open theirs. We played with our cousins for a little while and then went home. When we got home we unpacked and sat down on the coach and had our family devotions, we go over this book called "Christ in Christmas" that is our tradition every year, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. We sang Christmas songs and prayed, then we opened our presents, we left them home so we could do there. We all had a fun time this different but fun Christmas. We hope you all did too. Here are some pictures of us with our family on Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

Sarah, Rachel, and Jayleen

The boys opening their stockings

All of us opening our stockings

Waiting for presents

Watching them open their presents

The boys playing pool

Us with Our Cousins

Here are some other pictures that were taken when we were just playing and doing other stuff with our family.

The pizzas

Ashly the Chef making her pizza

Already eating their pizzas

Zach and Ray, the last to make their pizzas

Ray and Uncle Karry

Eating pizza is fun

Zach and Caleb

Me and Caleb

Rachel, Jay, and Sarah decorating cookies

Aunt Michelle

David on Josh's back

Me, Uncle Karry, and Ashly

-Jazmine

December 4 - 6

Thursday
On Thursday we have been doing school while men have been putting knew shingles on our roof (there was a lot of noise), so mom took us to the library to do our school. We did our school for a while and then we went shopping. We left home a little before 7:00A.M. and came back home around 4:00P.M.! We were gone for seven or eight hours, and that's along time. We went grocery shopping. We were signed up to bring a veggie tray to the Resolved Christmas Party, so we bought some vegetables, and while we were there we bought David a birthday gift, his birthday is on December 9th(tomorrow) and he's turning eleven! And then after that it was lunch time and mom bought Little Ceasar's pizza. We ate our lunch at the park and we played there for a little while and then went thrift shopping. Then mom took us to JCPenney's, we looked around for what we might get dad for Christmas, but we didn't get anything from there. Then we went to a couple more thrift shops and went back home.

Saturday
On Saturday we stayed home and I studied my biology for a while and then Jay and I cut the vegetables for the Resolved Christmas Party. So we were in the kitchen for a while then we went outside to play basketball with our brothers and then they started sword fighting with their light sabers. Here are some pictures I took.
Then I went back in and got ready to go to church with dad and David for dad's band rehearsal because I was in the choir with Mrs. Neu, Libby, Mrs. Hyers, Andi, Noelle, and Jessie. We practiced singing with dad's band(his and David's bands will be playing Christmas songs at the church's Old Fashion Christmas Party. Then after that we helped Mrs. Neu, Libby, and Mr. Dunlop decorate the church for the Resolved Christmas Party. It looked really fun with Christmas lights, a Christmas tree, poinsettas, candy canes, gifts for the White Elephant, and a Charlie Brown Christmas movie playing on the screen. When everyone was there, Mr. Dunlop prayed and everyone went to get some food to eat, and some of us sitting with me watched the movie without sound soLibby and Noelle translated it for us! It was really cool how they memorized it all.
Then we played these weird games (I don't know what they were called), but they were really fun. My favorite one was when each team had to dress one member of their team (we all were in teams) as a reindeer. My team dressed Eddie up, and he won third place for the antlers Mrs. Neu made (she is very creative). Then after we played the games we did our White Elephant. It was really funny watching what everyone got. I got light bulbs, Ray got a recipe book, but then he switched with Hannah, and dad got a candle. It was a fun night. Here are some pictures and videos I took.

Sunday

On Sunday I found out that I wasn't going to be in the choir at all. Dad canceled the choir, so it's just his band playing with no choir next Sunday for the Old Fashion Christmas Party, but it still will sound good and we will enjoy watching them.


~Jazmine