Autumn in America

Autumn in America is a real treat for us people who normally live in the tropics ..... here is a peek at some of the fun things we've been enjoying.  :)

 

Jonathan's first day of Kindergarten -- we are so blessed with an experienced teacher who loves boys and whose kindergarten goal is that kids will leave her class learning to love school!  Jonathan says his school is the "Best School Ever!"

Joshua is enrolled in preschool at a different school and loves his school too!  Although I think he still prefers playing with legos at home.

The boys attended a "Big Brother/ Big sister" class at the hospital took their lessons with the "practice babies" very seriously ......including learning how to snuggle with the baby, change a diaper, and wrap baby in a blanket.

 We've been finding times to do traditional autumn things like hay mazes.....

 .....going to a football game (here we are with our favorite football star, cousin Daysen)....

.....field trips to the pumpkin patch!  Somehow Jonathan came home with a pumpkin that was bigger than anyone else's in his class......

......and carving pumpkins.  No scary Jack-o-Lanterns for us.  Jonathan's pumpkin has a fire engine on it and Joshua's is a submarine.

The weather is getting COLDER.  We are currently living in a very special home -- a farm home built in 1892.   The driveway is a mile long (really!)

and the house comes with a barn and 40 acres .....only a fraction of which we have actually seen!

Being an older house, though it is quite cold.....

Dave and the boys are investing quite a lot of time hauling wood to keep the house warm....

But snuggling in front of the cozy fireplace at night is worth it!

Grandma can't seem to stop buying warm pajamas for the boys ....after all they are growing out of their 3T and 4T jammies!

Hard to believe that in a week or less we will be welcoming a new baby boy to our family!  We are excited to meet him and love him!

Kartini Day Part 2

We got our professional photos back from the Kartini Day event, so here they are! 

This sweet picture was a candid shot taken by one of the teachers and handed to me as a printed copy on copy paper ....so that's why it's a bit faded and grainy.  It is a precious photo to us of Jonathan with his teacher.  While I am often stern with him and get stressed about how to help him overcome his flaws, she continually sees his strengths and patiently works with him and praises his talents. 

I knew I hadn't "Quit" blogging yet! New stuff to share!

I so wanted to post picture's from Dave's 49th birthday party, but they have disappeared!  We had a fun time at a local restaurant with 4 other families -- 24 people in all!

Now for pictures of the preschool Kartini Day Celebration last weekend.  Kartini is a national heroine, a pioneer in women's rights in this country.  Her birthday is joyfully celebrated in the schools with much traditional costuming and programming.

Our boys were able to participate by attending and dressing up in their traditional costumes.  I was so grateful that they agreed to wear their uncomfortable sarongs for 4+ hours.  They had a professional photographer there also, but here's some candid photos to start with.

 In traditional headwear, silky jackets, and sarongs embellished with gold threads.  

 As a special treat, all of the kids got to have a ride on this "mini-train."  I was one of four moms selected to chaperone the kids, i.e. sit on the end so that nobody escaped or fell out.  Josh still doesn't like to let me out of his sight in a new situation, so it was kind of them to let me go with him.  He fell asleep a few minutes into the ride.

 Oh, when the rice boxes were passed out, they were much appreciated!  Contents:  white rice, friend noodles, green beans, watermelon and a rice cracker.

Jonathan and Joshua with their wonderful teachers, in full traditional costume!  WE are so grateful for these wonderful women who give our boys so much love.  

     A few days later Joshua participated in National Education Day for the Gebyar PAUD, which translates as "Preschool Sparkle."  Each local preschool had selected a few students to participate in contest events such as building with blocks, sorting seeds, dancing, etc.  Joshua had been chosen for the ball sorting event, and he had practiced for at least a month before the big day!  When the time came, in a new situation with strange people, he was a little uncertain, but still carried out his event with courage!  

 And one last funny from the home front.....we do "bucket baths" most evenings now, and Jonathan took it a little too literally.....

New Preschool Joy!

A proud Jonathan stands tall to show off his school supply cubby --3rd orange basket from the top.  I think this will be one of my favorite pictures of all time.

Joshua's interest is caught for an instant by the teacher's lesson about parts of the face. 

      After a very prolonged absence from blogging, without further delay, I share these pictures and stories about Jonathan and Joshua's new preschool. 

      While we did have a few positive experiences at our old neighborhood preschool, in the end we decided to leave that school and go to a new one.  Thank God!  We are having such a much more positive experience at the new school -- like a difference between night and day.  In contrast to the other school, our new school is spacious, organized, populated by mostly-obedient and motivated children, staffed by enthusiastic and caring teachers and aids.   

       Our new school is further away, not in our immediate neighborhood.  To get there, we walk about 4 blocks down to the main road, hop on a mini-bus for about 2 minutes, and then walk another 3 blocks to the school.  However, even though it's farther away, I've reconnected with a previous neighbor whose daughter is in the class above Jonathan.  I'm connecting with other mothers in a way I never did at the other school, because there are sometimes up to 20 moms waiting around in the play yard and bench area during school hours!  I rejoice in this!  

Waiting for our city minibus ride on the way to school.

On our walk to school, we now have time to notice the beauty of the natural world, including our local volcano.

      The boys are in different classrooms now.  Jonathan is in the "little kindergarten" and Joshua is in the playgroup.  Jonathan loves his classroom and can't wait to get inside, sit at his desk, and start learning.  He especially loves doing worksheets and crafts.  The teacher is extremely organized, plans her lessons, and keeps her classroom extremely clean.

Jonathan does well in his classroom and eagerly looks forward to writing in his workbooks and doing crafts.

Snacktime

       Unlike the other school, this school has a play yard and a lots of local style playground equipment.  I try to get to school early.  School starts at 7:30 am and they start with a 15 minute recess.  So by the time class starts, the boys have had a walk to school and a full half hour of outdoor play.  After that, they are ready to go inside and learn.

      Jonathan is in a high learning curve trying to figure out how to relate to the other boys.  At first he would approach them and they would run away from them.  He'd chase them.  Often they'd get into a tussle of smacks and punches.  The next phase -- Jonathan spent a week digging in the dirt.  The boys would sometimes come and watch him and then wander off.   This week -- Jonathan joined the boys in their game of pile-up-on-the-slide.  For whatever reason, one of the bigger boys insisted on hitting Jonathan with a stick for about five minutes before I finally took the stick away.  Wonder of wonders, Jonathan, who does have a temper, DID NOT HIT BACK!  This was a major breakthrough!  At home he told me, "Mom I was trying my hardest to duck!"  Then yesterday, the boys had a big long game of chase-Jonathan-and-try-to-take-his-hat.  Jonathan seemed like he was enjoying it, although when we got home he told me the boys were being mean.  Indeed at the end of the game I saw they collectively picked him up in the air and then he was dropped on the ground (and cried.)   It's always a wisdom-seeking experience for me to watch these dynamics and decide when to intervene or not as Jonathan learns how to relate cross-culturally.  I know I can't always jump in and rescue him and many times I prefer the teacher to be the one to notice and intervene.

      Joshua, on the other hand, has a different style on the playground.  He putters.  He'll play on a swing by himself, then examine the water meter, or play on one side of the teeter totter.  The moms and teachers will often engage him and he's receptive and sweet.  Sometimes he'll play on the playground equipment, but mostly he just quietly makes his rounds.

      There are 6 American kids who attend this school and about 50 local kids.  It's a really nice mix because the boys do have some friends with whom they have a lot in common and don't have to try so hard, but they also are still in a language immersion environment to maximize their language learning.

Rhythm band lesson using buckets, bottles and home-made shakers.

A little after school tutoring on how to hold a crayon properly.

"Mom, take a picture of my picture!"

Making our way home on the minibus, the boys tank up on water before we hike 3 blocks up the hill to our house.

      So we got a new pile of school uniforms.  They are not as cute as the uniforms at the other school, but Jonathan just loves the patches on his uniform shirts.   The patches have the school name and logo on them.   Dave says Jonathan will be sad when he finally has to go to American-style Mountainview and will not get to wear his uniforms any more.

Exercise uniforms for Friday PE day -- yep my boys are dressed in pink and purple.

One last shot to show you Jonathan's blue uniform which he wears on Tuesdays.  He's so proud of his badge, his tie, and his vest.  Can you see he's turning into a big boy?

Happy Birthday Dave AND Happy Easter 2014! Christ is Risen!

Happy 48th Birthday to my favorite husband and the best daddy!

     Dave's birthday started off with Joshua waking up with a fever and very clingy.  He was happy enough to help stir some of the dry ingredients of the cake but insisted on being held for the rest of the process.  I wasn't sure how I was going to frost the cake....

.....but it worked out!  Jonathan helped to frost the inner layer of the cake ....he's standing just outside the picture.  Our first birthday cake made by all three of us.  

     Easter Sunday started with a fire in our kitchen!   In a crazy twist of events, a wooden trivet had gotten stuck to the bottom of our tea pot.  Nobody noticed and in the morning I put my teapot on to boil!  Off I went to change a dirty diaper, and a few minutes later Dave noticed smoke and stink and discovered a fire on the range!  Fortunately the fire went out as soon as he turned off the gas, but we were smoked out of the house and into the back yard for over an hour.  

      This Easter season we did our usual Resurrection Eggs and multiple readings of the Easter story with much interest (Joshua) and questions (Jonathan) from  the boys.  My new tradition to try this year was the Resurrection Rolls (recipe linked.)  Our local import store had some marshmallows from the Phillipines, so I was excited to give this a try.  The boys helped to prepare the marshmallows and wrap them in dough.  The baking didn't go quite as expected .....I guess the Phillipino marshmallows weren't quite the same.  They puffed up to the size of a lemon, exploded the rolls open, and then did not melt as predicted.  So, the object lesson didn't work like I had hoped.... but they still tasted delicious!  

     This year was the 4th time we participated in the Easter Egg hunt at our international fellowship.  It Jonathan's 4th time.  He knew what to do and was so fast I didn't even get any pictures of him finding eggs this year!  I did get this picture of proud Joshua!

Starting for home with a basketful of candy!  To be divvied out one piece a day for .....many days!

Our first field trip and it was a big one!

This last Saturday we had our first field trip ever.  We left at 6 am and got home at 10 pm, so it was a doozy!

We had originally signed up the whole family to go for this full day language immersion experience, but Dave was sick with a "cold" last week .  His symptoms were not quite typical of a normal cold, and by Friday, I finally determined that he had pneumonia.  So no fieldtrip for Dave.  I didn't want to try managing both boys on such a long unusual day so Joshua had to stay home with sick Dave. I arranged a few babysitters during the day so Dave could have a break.  They survived the day, but just barely, I would say.  Dave got a nice fat lip from Joshua during his bedtime tantrum.  The fieldtrip was too special of an opportunity to pass up though, and we felt God's leading for Jonathan and I to go ahead an go even though the day would be rough for Dave and Josh.  Jonathan was so excited to have an adventure with his sekolah friends.

Jonathan and I left the house at 6:15 am and hopped on a little blue minibus to get to the rendezvous point where we eventually boarded this nice air-conditioned tour bus, complete with karaoke, TV/DVD player, and tour guide.  If your wondering, the price for this once-every-two-years field trip was $15 per person.  It included one square meal and snacks.  At one point the kids all took turns singing songs in groups and solo numbers. Jonathan was happy to grab the mike and give a rendition of "Star Light, Star Bright."

After a 3 hour drive, we arrived at this ancient temple site.   It's high in the hills (the locals call them mountains) and we had to switch to smaller buses to get up the steep winding roads.   The temple is left over from the days before Islam came to this country.  It's a pyramid actually.  I was surprised that we only stayed at the site for 15 minutes.  The teachers pointed out the 3 giant turtle statues (one of which they stood on for their group photo) and everybody posed for some pictures and off we went when it started drizzling.  Before we left, 2 of the teachers mounted the staircase to the top of the temple and before I could stop him, Jonathan quickly clambered up after them.  It was quite high and the stairs quite steep.  Do you think he was afraid?

Extreme close up ......nope, definitely not looking fearful. 

After leaving the temple, we went back down the hills past fields of rice, carrots, corn, ginger, and many other things.  We had lunch at a local restaurant:  rice, chicken, veggie soup, rice crunchies and and ice cream treat.  Then we were off to our next destination, and old Dutch sugar processing plant that has been transformed into a local amusement park.  Our main purpose/learning experience at this place was to ride a real, antique, functioning steam train!  We also got to go swimming though.  I didn't know there was going to be swimming, but we improvised with an extra shirt and shorts I had brought along.  Jonathan had a lot of fun frolicking in the water with his sekolah friends.

Frolicking in the water

A mini water slide made of tile

After swimming, we were supposed to immediately get on the steam train, but we ended up having a 2 hour wait.  Apparently they were expecting another group of "important visitors", who got priority on the train.  The important of adult visitors did not even arrive at the park until our large group of small children had already been waiting for an hour after swimming.  We had scheduled this long in advance and we were the only group in the park that day.  This delay was frustrating for the sekolah teachers, but fortunately there was much to explore including a small playground, a sandpit, cages with various animals including a flock of geese, an inguana, a family of monkeys with young, pigeons, and a large display yard of antique gears and pistons from the old sugar processing plant.

Jonathan enjoyed the antique sugar processing plant parts and ran around pretending they were all grinding up sugar cane.

Jenn's favorite part was watching this family of monkeys -- 2 sets of parents with 2 babies.  

Finally, we got to have our  30 minutes steam train ride!

Another view of the train ....upon arrival at the station with the group of "important visitors."

For our interested friends, here are a few close-up pictures of some parts of the train that we thought were especially cool....

The fire box and cab

The coupling

The derailment

When we finally were all loaded on the train, we went about 10 meters and then went bump, bump, bump!  One of the carriage wheels had nudged off the track.  The teachers were practically crying at this point after such a long wait.  They thought it was all over, but the workers did a trick with some blocks of wood out of the tender and got the wheels back on the track.  The steam train inched along the track very loudly around the dilapidated sugar plantation and our ride ended just as it was getting dark.

Riding in the carriage with a classmate ....

The rest of our field trip consisted of a stop at the souvenir shop, dinner at another restaurant, and the 3 hour drive home in the bus, during which all the kids went to sleep.  We were dropped off at the rendesvous site in a torrential rainfall!  We shared a taxi home with some of the teachers and Jonathan was tucked into bed around 10 pm.

The best thing about the day is that Jonathan had such a fun time with his sekolah friends even though he couldn't talk to them much.  It's the kind of experience I've dream of for him.  All of the kids were really kind and understanding with him.  I hope that this day will be the turning point for some better days at sekolah for all of us.  Thanks for praying!