Johanna Speaks

Im very sorry for not writing a lot more blog posts! Our family has been very busy lately because we moved to a different house, Christmas and New Year.

So today, I will be talking about the Christmas we had in our new house!!! 

It was probably the best Christmas ever!! Here are some reasons why it was!

1. Everybody in our family was there.

2. James was a part of it too.

3. it was in our new house.

4. Stayed up until 1, playing games with everybody!

5. We Went to a candlelight service with our family.

And many more amazing times we already had in our new house!! All we need is a dog! But if we ever did want to get a dog, it would have to be way after we were all completely settled into the new house since we still have to move our lotion business over and some of the garage stuff, too. But so far, we have been sleeping in it for about almost three weeks. And we already have our kitchen stuff moved over to eat dinner and all that. 

We had to rip out ALL the flooring because it was getting pretty bad already. Then, we had to put wood flooring in, raise a bit of the floor, and paint every wall in the house except the bathrooms. And by the way, our family did all of that, and we didn't hire somebody, too, since Cameron already knew how to put the flooring in and even taught Ezra! Our brother Jonathan told our dad that his birthday present to him was sending one of our friends to come help us with the floor so we could get it done faster. Our dad's birthday, by the way, was like two weeks ago. But that was the only help we got from one person, and other than that, we did it ourselves! And that's why it took a long time to get moved in. 

But so far, I LOVE our new/old house (since we used to live in it when I was little)! Our backyard is nice and big! I remembered it a lot bigger, though, when I was younger. I guess that's because I was so much smaller then. 

In the evenings it's so beautiful! The sun glistens over the trees and grass, and it's just amazing! Hey! I have an idea! I should write a poem about this house!! 

Anyway, back to what I am writing about: our Christmas!!

We went to church on Christmas Eve with my parents, Sophie, Ezra, Nicholas, and I. Our other family wasn't coming to our church but to theirs first and then coming over afterward for lunch. Nicholas and I always play our instruments for church, and this Sunday, we did! :) Usually, five players play, but three of our best ones didn't come since they were with their family somewhere else for Christmas, and the other one was sick. So it was just Nicholas and I playing until one of the girls there played a bit of piano and helped us out a little. The music went kind of bad, but it doesn't matter if the music is kind of bad because all that matters is when your singing and praising the Lord in song! 

After church, we headed to our old house and ate lunch with our family! And by then, lots of them were basically all there! So we ate, headed over to the new house, and started preparing food for that night since we were going to have a massive party!! Then, after everything was set up, we ate dinner, relaxed, and talked until it was time to go to the candlelight service!

 After the candlelight service, most of our family walked back in the dark! Including Sophie and I! It was so much fun!

When we got back, we waited until Noelle and Cameron came( because they were at somebody else's house)  and then opened presents!! I got an AMAZING bike from Cameron!!! And a new bedspread and some vines for my new room from Noelle!! And I even got cereal from Noelle, too! And some other things from my friend Abby! It was a fantastic Christmas! The best part is watching people open their gifts and seeing their expressions!! :) Especially my sister Sophie and my sister-in-law Risa! It was just an awesome Christmas!! 

Cameron, Noelle, Nicholas, Simeon, one of our friends, and Gideon stayed the night! We all slept in the living room except Gideon and our friend. They slept in our bunk beds, and around 2:30 AM, the bunk bed fell on Gideon!! And our friend was on the top of the bunk bed! There was no injury to Gideon, but we all laughed at what had happened! :) They just moved the top matres on the floor, and our friend slept on that. Now the reason the bunk bed fell on them is because we didn't have two screws that had to be in there, and so BOOM! It fell. Sophie and I had been sleeping there before without the two screws, and it hadn't fallen on us yet, but it did now on Gideon!! 

In the morning, it was Christmas! Everybody hung out and talked! And that day, Cameron helped us bring over our fridge! Oh! I almost forgot!! We shot rockets on Christmas day, too! It was a lot of fun!!! I don't have videos with me because only our siblings do. 

Well, Goodbye!!!

 I will discuss what type of sewing machine I should buy. This is about the note Gideon gave me about the sewing machine. If you don't know what note I am talking about, go back to the blog post, " What Kinds of Projects I Would Like to Make With a Sewing Machine! ". 

So my mom thought the Singer brand would be a good one to get. She said Singer has been known for a long time. So I looked it up. It was a good brand, but I wasn't used to seeing the buttons in different places. So then I asked my sewing teacher what brand hers was ( because I always used hers when we did sewing classes ). She said hers was a Janome, and hers is pretty old. But she did say that Singer is a good brand. She also said that the store Joanns was selling sewing machines half off! So my mom looked on their website. There were a lot of them so then she told me to look at it on my computer. I personally like the Janome that I am familiar with. Here's a pic I took of one that I found:

I do like this one! So now we need to check it out more! 

So my brother Gideon gave me a note saying that if he got me a sewing machine, I would have to, number one, find a good brand that I like, number two, find projects I would like to make, and number three, find a suitable course that I can follow. By the way, he said this because it was my birthday on Nov 7th. So yes it was for my birthday. Forgot to mention that. Oops.  :)

I do really want a sewing machine! So I said yes. 

So today, I will say what projects I would like to make with it! Here is the list:

1. Pillowcases

2. Cute Bags

3. Scrunches

4. Table Cloths

5. Pop Corn Bags. ( the ones you have to heat up like rice warmers )

6. Maybe Shorts. 

7. Aprons

8. Cute tie bags. ( maybe even for my mom's business )

9.  A sewing machine carrier that holds, sewing scissors, rippers, scrap pieces from other projects, uhh, anything!

10. Coasters

There is probably a lot more too! I have already sewed before, pants, shorts, scrunches, bags, pillowcases, and aprons. I sewed those things with my friend's grandma. We had a lot of lessons from her. But now she is not teaching anymore because my friend doesn't have time to do those things because she plays a lot of sports. 

Bye!

So I was Arwen from the Lord of the Rings. And our friend, Jonathan, was a hobbit from Lord of the Rings, and so was Ezra, our brother. Ezra looked like Sam, and Jonathan looked like Frodo. I curled Ezra's hair for the first time because hobbits have curly hair. And it actually didn't look bad at all!

Oh, and Sophie was a red fairy. 

Ezra put his costume together about two hours before we left. Jonathan had already had his costume planned out a while ago. And they look exactly like hobbits! But they need to be shorter because hobbits are small and elves are very tall. I had my brother Caleb's bow for looks. We took pictures right before we left. We look so cool!! Here they are!!!

So we left to go trick or treating! I went with my brother Jonathan, French Jonathan, and Ezra in one car, and Sophie went with my mom in her car. We met up with the Ramirazes on Freshwater and started from there! We did almost the whole street! This street is about four miles long!! I kept getting confused about where we were! But thankfully, we made it out in the end! After Freshwater we went to our friend James house and said hi and got some candy there. And even went to our old house that we will move back into. 

Then everybody went back home except me because I really wanted to get full-sized candy on our street that somebody had. So now I have a full-sized Hershey and Kit cat. 

I hope you liked our costumes!!

Okay, I made a post on when I first got a violin. I just went back to the post and read it. Back when I first had my violin, there were a lot of things that I wish I hadn't thought that was right but actually wrong. As I once said, " When the peg on the violin starts to slip, just tighten the fine tuners, and that will fix the problem." NO! That will NOT fix the problem. It was caused by the air temperature. When, let's say, the air gets hot, suddenly, your peg will start to slip. To fix the problem, push the peg more into the violin. Or a more terrifying way is to take out the whole peg, lightly swipe it with your violin bow, and then put it back on. The rosin should stick to the wood and not slip easily. Boom! Fixed that problem! Number two! When you are a beginner, remember only to use the fine tuners. UNLESS your fine tuners can't tighten any tighter or they can't loosen any looser, then first make sure that the fine tuner is almost the way out before switching to the peg. I don't know why you do that. So don't ask! I actually could be wrong here, so.... yeah. Risa, if you are reading this, you can tell me why in the comments. 

I now know a lot more things about the violin. I remember when I broke a string, and the bridge fell off. I cried because I felt so bad and was angry at myself for breaking it already! I even wrote a letter to the people at the music store asking if they could please fix it for free and telling them how sorry I was. Then I put the letter inside my violin case and gave it to my parents to take there. I didn't go because my parents had to run errands. Later, they came back with a fixed violin for me! I was just so happy! I asked them if they had to pay for it, but they said nope! I didn't want to touch it because I was afraid of breaking it again. But after days went by, I started to play it. 

Yep! That was my violin story! Now, I don't feel afraid of holding, touching, or even tuning it like I used to. Oh, I even named it Harmony. My friend Abby's violin is named Melody. I might change mine because I want a cool boy type of name for a violin. So comment and give me some name ideas! 

Bye! Thanks for reading this blog!!