jonathan’s blog

Bekah had a little Thanksgiving “production” for us.  It was actually only 10 minute long…just her class with a few songs about turkeys and Thanksgiving.  Here she is with a little Indian headress.  Yes, I know…Native American, but here in Kansas City they just say “Indian”, some might even make mock war cries with their hands flapping over their mouths to accentuate the point.  Pretty fun and amusing, once you get passed the non-PC-ness of it all.

The Liu clan came over for Thanksgiving.  It was so much fun hosting everyone.  Here we are, at Longview Lake, just a few minute from our home.  Yes, we are all wearing down jackets…because it was FREEZING cold!!!

Our family!  Noah is asleep and bundled up in there somewhere.

Here they are, making a run for the cars.  It was so cold…but the wind made it WAY worse! 

And then the next day…some of the best weather!  Clear day, not much wind…can’t say it was warm, but at least it wasn’t too cold.  The kids actually got to get out and ride their bikes.

For some reason…Noah REALLY likes his hat.  He brings it with him everywhere.  As soon as he senses the cold, he starts yelling, “hat!  hat!” while pointing to his head.

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I woke up this morning and had a look out my window.  The grass is greener on the other side!  We’ve all heard this phrase before, but for me, right now, it’s literally true!  Have a look…their grass is greener!  Anyways, Emily asked me stick these little flags into the ground, to clearly let our neighbors know NOT to come to our side.  Just kidding!  The subdivision management put these in, not sure why?…but I think it’s a temporary thing.

The kids, full from Sweet Tomatoes (aka Souplantation).

Sleeping on the way to the airport to pick up Emily’s parents.  The kids have been so excited that their A-Kong and A-Ma are coming…and today is the big day!  They made a huge sign to welcome them, cleaned up their rooms…and here they are recharging right before the anticipated arrival.

After picking them up, we headed a couple of miles south to one of our favorite eats.  Cracker Barrel!  Yum, sweet tea!

Noah playing with his A-Kong before the food comes.

After dinner, in the Cracker Barrel general store…Kay and Bekah are squeezing in a game of checkers.

Noah…surrounded by TOYS!!!

Lina took her little container of chocolate (i don’t think she even knows what’s in it) and went off by herself to play with it.

Last buy not least…Happy Birthday Liz!  What a day!

admin My Family, The Midwest

This morning I woke up to go to work, and what was on the grass and cars?  SNOW!?  Not much…but snow nonetheless.  Not frost or frozen moisture build up…it actually snowed last night.  And goodness…has it been cold.  Welcome to Missouri!

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Lina…Kay/Rebekah/Noah’s ONLY cousin is here with us in KC!!!  Here they are, having just woken up (can you tell?), still in their PJ’s, waiting for their waffles to come out of the toaster.  It has been so fun having Liz, Leonard, and Lina stay at our home.  The kids are having a serious blast!…it’s like a 3 week sleepover!

Yum, waffles!  It’s hard to see…but look closely and you can see how stuffed Noah’s mouth is.  Check out Lina’s smile.  What’s she smiling about?  Is it the yummy waffles?  Is it the yummy oatmeal?  Or (need to refer to above photo) is it that someone kindly came and tied her hair up?

Breakfast is done.  Time to play!  Here’s the crew in Bekah’s Hello Kitty Tent.

We are slowly getting unpacked and settled in.  Here is a train set of Noah’s that has been packed away since his birthday last March!  We knew the cross country transitions were coming up, so we never opened up these toys.  Now, with him SO into trains…opening these trains made him so happy.  Perfect!

admin My Family, The Midwest

We finished moving in to our new home today, 11/01/09! I should clarify…we moved all of our stuff from the temporary apartment and public storage to our new property. We are a far cry from actually being ‘moved in’…but hey, at least all of our stuff is here! This has been an insane adventure…not just the whole moving to KC thing that started way back in July…but this last week has been really insane.

Two weeks ago, we were in LA for Sam and Karyn’s Wedding (which was absolutely beautiful!!!). All of our kids got sick…and it carried over to this last week, where Emily and I got the fullness of whatever it was that went around. On top of the sickness, I had a last minute business trip to SD and Phoenix that took me out of commission (and out of town) from Wednesday to Thursday.

This whole time, we were aiming to move on Friday. While Emily was took care of herself and our three sick kids, she worked to get all of our stuff boxed and packed up. Alone, in SD and in Phoenix, I started to get this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had this dread that the movers we scheduled to come last week were going to flake on us. Sure enough, I was never able to reach them to confirm about the Friday move date. I left multiple voicemails a day…but got nothing. On Thursday we asked Amos to reach out to some IHOP/FMA friends.

Friday comes around, and we are supposed to sign papers to close on the house. Guess what?…papers aren’t ready! Title company doesn’t have all the documentation set! But we HAVE to get out of our temp apartment because the new tenants are on their way! Here is where it gets really crazy. Dave, our builder, lets us move in, without closing! In the beginning, we waited 3.5 months for him to get financing to build in this horrible economic climate. Because of that, he said he’d gladly wait 3.5 days for us! Emily and I get our 26 foot long uHaul and Amos meets us with 4 FMA guys. Amos and crew (Dustin, Allen, Michael, Kyle) were sent by God at a time of great need. Thanks guys!

Friday, we move out of our temp apartment and into our home! Sunday, Amos and crew return to grab all of the rest of our stuff from Public Storage. So here we are, ‘moved in’ on November 1, into River Spring Court. Thanks God! Thanks Amos and crew. Thanks Yaps!…for watching our kids and helping us move/clean and get settled in. You guys all rock!

No pictures to post…because I can’t even locate my camera in this mess! But mess or no mess…we are in!

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