Camera Charades

The 10 year old boy from our Refugee Family LOVES my camera. I taught him how to use it on Friday and after a bit of practice he had the idea. He took a cute picture of Charlotte and me...

...and then captured a very entertaining "game" of charades between his dad and I.
I had NO idea he was taking these until I was going through the pictures later that night. I laughed at loud when I saw these!

Here's how the game went...

* Dad brings me his phone and acts like he wants to talk on it.
*I try to explain that it doesn't work yet.
*Dad tries to hand me the phone to MAKE it work.
* I again try to explain that in ONE month (hence the one finger I'm showing) it will start to work (because they need to have a social security number before they can get phone service. Try to explain THAT to someone who doesn't speak english. LOL!)

*Dad takes phone back and shakes his head, still not really understanding about his phone.
*I try to think of SOME way to explain why the phone won't work...

*After trying to explain again in English that it will take at least a month, both of us CRACK UP because this is going nowhere!!! :)

*Dad looks at his phone one more time and goes to put it back in their bedroom.

Hopefully he will find out that SOMEDAY they will be able to use their phone. Maybe one of his new Karen friends will tell about it this weekend?
Obviously my Charade skills need some work! :)

Fun in the Cold

I watched the kids from the Refugee Family for awhile today because their parents had to do some paperwork stuff. I thought it was a beautiful day today, because it wasn't frigid-ly cold. I was thinking like a Nebraskan though. Coming from Thailand...I'm sure it was COLD!

I was outside in a T-shirt, but the kids bundled up and looked SO cute in their new coats. I think the boy is wearing his dad's coat, but whatever works. ;)

Snow is always fun! I HAD to teach him how to throw snowballs. They have a great open lot next door to them, so it was the perfect place to have some fun in the snow. Especially since it wasn't freezing today.

I also showed them how to make microwave popcorn, while their parents were gone. These are just things you NEED to know!!!

They are doing great and seem very happy to be here.
I think we'll go back again tomorrow with some friends and check in on them, so I'm sure I will have more pictures coming soon.

Home Sweet Home

With the help of SO many people from our wonderful church, we were able to set up an amazing HOME for our new friends from Burma. It was so fun to see the tranformation from an empty, not terribly clean home (with mice!), to a comfortable and beautiful place for them to start their new lives.
Here are few pictures so you can see their new house! :)
(*I wish everyone could have seen the 10 year old boy's face when he saw his new Star Wars toys. Priceless!!!)

What a Day!

What an amazing, fun, and exhausting day!
Our new Refugee Family is here~ safe and sound and I'm SO happy for them. Our church and all the people who have helped for the past couple weeks to get their house ready have been AWESOME! I'm so thankful to have friends and a church family that are so giving and caring. I know they have truly blessed this family! :)

Here's the whole gang waiting for the plane to arrive. The flights were delayed a bit, so it was tricky for church people to make it...but we had a great crowd of smiling facing waiting to welcome them to Omaha!

Some of the older kids at our church made a banner with WELCOME TO OMAHA on it and they all signed their names. The kids at the airport held up the banner and here is Bazzy and his friend Libby anxiously awaiting their arrival.

My friend's little girl, Ava, waving the Karen flag! So cute!

LOVE the banner!
What a great way to be greeted to your new life in Omaha!

Several of the family members from the family we sponsored 2 years ago came. This is Hser Eh Moo, the youngest child from that family. She is getting SO big, but still has the adorable smirky smile that I love so much! :)

HERE THEY COME!!!

They were obviously dazed, nervous, overwhelmed, and excited. All at once. What a HUGE moment for them!

They shook hands with people from our church and their new Karen friends...

....we started to see a few smiles. :)

Greeting the little boy. Their 3 kids are beautiful!

A group picture before going to find their luggage.
They look exhausted! I can only imagine.

We were blessed to have a group of boys from Boys Town come to the airport. Very cool! I think the Karen family was in awe of how tall some Americans are. :)

We realized while we were waiting for the bags that there were NO bags! They were missing and American Airlines promised they would find them and deliver them to their new house. Hopefully they will have their belongings back soon.

Several of us headed to their new house to help them get settled in and spend some time getting to know them. An 8th grade boy from our church, Joe, came and was a HUGE help with the 10 year old boy from the new family. He helped put his new Star Wars toys together...which was a big hit. It was so fun to see how happy this little boy was with his new room!

The boys hanging out and making new friends.

We sang Lord I Lift Your Name on High together (everyone loves that song!) and I was able to tell them how happy our church was to have them come to Omaha and how much we loved them and cared about them. The pastor prayed in Karen and English and it was very moving to be with our new Karen friends, knowing they have been through SO much and are now going to be starting a brand new life. Wow!

I was nursing a baby during all the talking. ;)
I got very teary eyed when the dad from the family was explaining to Rocky about how happy he was with their house. He said he has NEVER seen or imagined anything like this and was very happy. He teared up and then it was impossible not to cry. I wish everyone from our church could have been there to see how happy he was. All the donations and help meant SO much to them!!!

Lots of Karen people and church people listening to Rocky and the Karen pastor.

I'm guessing they are FAST asleep right now and hopefully they are loving their nice warm beds and they will wake up with happiness in their hearts tomorrow.

Another thing the dad said that "got me" was that he has been praying for a long time for God to send his family to the right place. A good place! He said he knows now that God sent him to the right place. I was so happy to know they have peace about starting a new life in Omaha.

Yep... an amazing, fun, and exhausting day!

Sitting for the FIRST time

My little Lulu sat up in the bathtub for the first time today. She doesn't fit in her little infant lay-down bath thing anymore. That made me a little bit sad.
She LOVED being able to sit up, splash, chew on bath toys, and even roll over sideways onto her belly so she could lay in the water on her tummy. She is a little fishy, just like her brother and sisters. I took a million pictures, but here are a few of my favorites of my big girl!

Bath time- MB

Hobbes had become a smelly beast and needed a bath. Kris and I were busy so we put the girls to work. They loved it, but Hobbes... Not so much.

(I'm going to put MB from now on when it's a Mobile Blog. Sometimes I can't find time to post at home, but might share pictures from my phone while out and about. Just so you know. :) )

In Five Short Days...

....our new Refugee Family will arrive in Omaha. I am SO excited. I can't wait to meet them and I hope they are excited to start their new life here in Omaha. I have learned from the family that we sponsored 2 years ago, that it's not ALL joyful. It's tough to leave everything you know and move to a completely new place, with very high expectations and no idea what life will truly be like, but hopefully they will be excited and filled with hope for their new life.

I would love to know how they are feeling and what they are thinking right now. They are about to leave everything they have known for the last 10 years and come to NEBRASKA. Nebraska? I wonder if they can even imagine what it could be like? What are they going to think of the cold? The giant buildings? The lack of beautiful/outdoor landscapes that they have in Thailand? I can't even imagine. I joke with the family we sponsored before about moving somewhere warm, with a beach. They really miss the heat and beauty of Thailand. Maybe someday. :)

I found this video and it is amazing. This is the camp that they lived in for 10 years. It gives a great glimpse into what their lives were like. I love the part about them learning about what cereal is. It's funny how foods that we think are so normal are so weird to them.

Hopefully this new family will like Puppy Chow too. :)

Random iphone Photos

I have had pictures sitting on my phone for WAY too long. I figured it was finally time to share them with the world , as random as they may be. So here are some interesting (or not-so-interesting) pictures from the last several weeks...

We had our Karen friends come over for dinner after Church last week. We thought 6 were coming, and we ended up with 12. I should always expect the unexpected with them! We had SO much fun and it was great to be able to welcome them into our home for once.
Here is everyone getting ready to eat in our kitchen.

We new they liked hamburgers, so we had burgers with spicey thai bbq sauce, chips, Snicker Salad (we HAD to expose them to one of our dutch favorites) and some fruit. OH, and Pepsi. They love Pepsi!

Charlotte and her 2 BFF's from Mom's Group. :)

A cute moment when all 4 of my mobile children were having fun together at the zoo. For those of you not from around here, this is a bubble that looks into the penguin enclosure. It really feels like you are under water with the penguins and the kids LOVE it!

Katryna took a picture of my attempt at making a flapper hat.
Not TOO bad, right?

Our good friends moved to Switzerland for 3 years and just moved back. They had us over for Swiss Raclette. I'd never heard of it, but it was Yum-my! Basically you grill shrimp, potatoes, and mushrooms on this little grill that sits on your table. Under the grill you put cheese, garlic, and whatever other spices you want in these little metal pans and you wait until the cheese gets all bubbly and brown and then you put it on top of the shrimp, taters, and mushrooms and you eat! SO good!

Afterwards we had Swiss Chocolate Fondue. Again, YUMMY! The kids thought this was the best thing imaginable and they were soon filled with smiles and chocolate.

"Hey Mia, you got a little something on your face. And your arm. And your sweater. And the table...."

Our friends little boy chowing down a Strawberry.
He had a little chocolate on him too. ;)

Bazzy was ALL about the chocolate fondue and it took quite awhile to wipe him down afterwards. This was him attempting to show me that he was clean. NOT quite!

This is Charlotte just being smiley when I was trying to take a picture of one of the clippies we made on Artsy Day.

This is Mia's best stuffed friend, Perry the Platypus.
If you haven't asked her before, ask her to do her Platypus noise for you.
I can guarantee she will!

This is a pretty bad picture, but you can kinda see the fireworks we were able to watch from our condo on New Years Eve.

And that concludes this series of extremely random pictures from my iphone. Thanks for stopping by. :o)