Wednesday, December 1, 2010

I can't think of a great title tonight :)

This was just before he turned 6 months. About a week later he was crawling around.
Not only does Ezekiel sit and crawl, he also likes to pull himself to a near standing position!

Jon and his mom :)


The bumpkins and their Shosho :)



An attempt at a family photo with Shosho with the timer on the camera. Not too bad!

Aunt Lois enjoying some time with Ezekiel.

Mommy and her boys :)

Having fun with Grandma while watching people ice skate at the mall.

Graci and Jon hanging out for a photo op in a tree.


Oh my goodness. I knew it had been awhile since I last updated the blog, but I didn't realize it's been nearly 3 months!!! Wow, where does the time go? So I last wrote about Jon beginning his fall semester and now I can tell you that he's just 2 weeks away from finishing it. Greek has been challenging and yet fun for him. He probably wouldn't call it fun, but I can tell he enjoys flaunting his new language skills. He put together this amazing chart for all the paradigms (conjugations) he has to memorize and shared it with his classmates. Some of them commented that they think they may have a fighting chance at passing Greek because of it. Great job, Handsome :)

We are settling into our busy schedules as well as can be expected. I am working five nights a week at The Cheesecake Factory and Jon is working 2-3 mornings a week at Starbucks. God has been so gracious in giving us jobs that allow for at least one of us to be with the kids at all times so there's no daycare involved. We even get a few hours in the afternoons together some days. It really is the ideal situation considering we are both working.

November has been a busy month of visiting for us. It began with a visit from my mom for a weekend. The kids love it when Grandma comes. We took the kids to the mall to play in the play area and mom and I got to go shopping another day. So much fun!!!

Our next "visiting" was a few weeks later when we drove up to Salina, KS to visit with Tom, Kat and kids (Jon's twin sister and family). We took the weekend off work and just relaxed with our great friends who happened to also be family. The kids did superb on the road trip. We stopped at a dear extended family member's home on the way back. Aunt Lois has cats, kittens, a dog, horses and cows at her home in KS and the kids had a ball! Graci and Isaiah got to help Aunt Lois feed the horses and cows. This was definitely a highlight for them. She sent us home with yummy apple pie and lots of goodies she's been canning. We've been enjoying them all this last week!

We got home from KS three days before Thanksgiving. Jon was off from school the week before Thanksgiving as well as the week of Thanksgiving. He had to work at Starbucks on the holiday, but then came home and we enjoyed a relaxing day together with just the five of us. I didn't cook a turkey or any of the usual fixings for the celebration this year. It was much more valuable to spend time with my family, then use the extra time together standing in the kitchen and cooking. It was so nice to have the time together!

Jon's mom (Shosho- which is Kikuyu for "grandma") came the day after Thanksgiving and stayed thru Monday. This was the first time we've seen her since September '09. She got to meet Ezekiel for the first time, and it was definitely love at first sight. It was great to catch up with mom and to see her enjoy time with the kids. We took Mom to the mall where the kids like to play in the play area. It wasn't until we pulled into the parking garage at the mall that we realized the lack of intelligence on our part at the thought of going to the mall the weekend after Thanksgiving. It was just a wee bit crowded! But, I can proudly say, that we left the mall purchasing nothing. It was a great day :)

The kids are doing well considering that Jon and I are both working now. There are times when it wears on them more than others. We are constantly seeking to give them the quality time that they need from us. Sometimes we do a great job and other times we fail miserably. We are thankful that they still love us. Graci and Isaiah are growing so much it seems! They both outgrew all of their trousers from last year. Graci had been handed down a bunch from her cousin and all the trousers were too short for her. Praise God she didn't get my vertically challenged genes. I think they passed by Isaiah too. We'll have to see how Ezekiel fares in a few years. "Little man baby Zeko" (this is Ezekiel's full name according to Isaiah) is over 7 months old now and growing like a weed! He starting crawling at 6 months and THEN learned to sit up at 7 months. Apparently he didn't get the memo that babies typically sit before crawl. I guess he had places to go and people to see. We've just started giving him some finger food/snacks to get his pincer fingers working and figure out how to get food not only to his mouth, but IN his mouth. We're still working on the "in" factor.

Well, that about sums up where we're at currently and what's been going on. Oh yeah...Apartment Life is going well, but very busy lately. We started doing welcome visits and renewal visits in November and scaled back the events to just 2 a month. The visits are great because we get more face time with the residents. We went to one home and the lady opened the door and exclaimed, "It's the CARES Team!" We felt very famous to say the least :) The difficulty lies when we have 47 new move ins and 32 renewals all in one month to go visit. Whew! That's a lot!!!

Please keep Jon in prayer as he has some late nights ahead of him completing his final papers and projects. He has done so well in all of his classes and may very well continue his straight A's this semester.

Okay, now we're summed up. I pray your holiday season is off to a great start. May we all remember that Christ is the reason for Christmas and deserves all the glory and honor for the holiday season.

Blessings!































2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the update, friend! Glad all is well! Praying for you guys! Your pics look great!

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  2. Hooray for an update! It's so wonderful to keep tabs on the family from afar. I do have to say that in photo #2, Ezekiel looks just a tad like Grandma Long... :) I'm so glad to hear that all is well!

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