i love it!

i want to give a little update about life in indonesia... usually i just talk about my kids, which is probably more exciting, but i also want to document our transition here, the timing of stuff and how we feel.  

in general, life is good here... sometimes i really miss america (mainly when i think about my family and friends... and cheese and the ease of shopping and diet dr pepper and....).  i've realized that something that i want to grow in is having a thankful heart for where God has led us.  honestly, there could potentially be a lot to complain about here (there isn't the order and ease of america), but i want to learn to love this country and the people.  i want to choose to be thankful for the small things until i know the people and culture well enough to really love it.  SO, i'm going to start writing a little 'series' (is that what real bloggers call it?) once a week called "i love it!" and talk about one thing that i love about life in indonesia now... even if it a very small thing... like... 

our backyard

this is a view from the grass, it's our little porch that we spend A LOT of time on.  those sliding doors are always open during the day and go into our main room in the house (we have one big room with a kitchen, dining area and living room).  we love having the shaded area to play outside!

here's a picture from our living room... kitchen on the right side and that little patio table is our dining room table now.  :)  we're getting there.  there's a little strip of grass about the size of a one car garage and these big colorful plants behind it.  it's really pretty out there and will be even more pretty when a gardener comes and cleans it up soon.  :)  we didn't have a yard at all in boston so this is one thing that we are really thankful for about life in indonesia!  

this is not going to turn to complaining now but this is what real life is like here.  there are BUGS...  like the 10 cockroaches we killed in our bathroom/ bedroom today!  they have all of the sudden moved in!  we hadn't seen one in over a month and today we had 10, one of which was on my shirt!  they're the size of my thumb, mind you.  i screamed.  i found something online that says to put salt around the room and down the drain and i'll never see them again.  i'll let you know how that works out.  :)  

oh and one more thing we're really thankful for... our dressers came this weekend!!!  we have been living out of these little black bins since late june so i was thrilled to put all of our clothes in drawers this weekend.  that's another wonderful thing about indonesia... you can give the carpenter a picture of a pottery barn dresser and get it made for about 1/10 of the price.  fun!

and i leave you with this picture from our porch... 

twinkies

my best friend in 7th grade used to call me cabbage patch kid and i think wrestled her to the ground in response to her remark.  i didn't like it... but i was 12 years old so i guess looking like a chubby baby wasn't a real compliment to me.  (don't worry, i wasn't scared long term by the remark)

think the resemblance has been passed on?

**there's also a picture taken by sarahmica photography on my facebook pictures... probably the most like cabbage patch kid!  and the picture is amazing because she took it!

we miss you, daddy!

danny went to malaysia for four days and i'm here holding down the fort.  i'm really excited about this opportunity for him to get some time with some of the other men around southeast asia and be envisioned for our life here... but WE MISS HIM!  

mary made him a sign to let him know how much we miss him.  this is when mary is in charge of the sign... 

and this is what happens when luke is in charge of "holding" the sign... that blur is the sign being thrown about.  mary is singing old mcdonald, of course.

i know that many of you have your kids for way longer than four days while your husbands travel... way to go!  i'm new at having both kids by myself in indonesia.  :)  luckily we have a car now (and luckily leslie was over so i wasn't scared to death!), so when the electricity went out last night we loaded the kids up and went to mcdonalds.  sometimes it's out for 20 minutes and sometimes it's out for 2 hours... you never know.  it was back on when we got home, and leslie and i got to eat ice cream and mary and luke played on the slide.  it was a great way to spend the evening!  

he eats dirt.

yummy, dirt!

what mom?  dirt is good!

luke likes to eat dirt.  he is such a boy!  he goes straight for that corner where he can reach the dirt and ants and tries to eat them... and sometimes he gets it in before i can stop him.... and sometimes it's gets all over his cute little mouth.  

mary has a few favorite things right now... puzzles being one of them.  she's getting really good at the puzzles (probably because she has them memorized now) and loves to do them!  it's fun because she gets really proud of herself as she's doing them... when i'm doing them with her she gives me a high five after every piece she puts together.  

she loves to play her guitar also.  we have bought mary very, very few toys in her life (she has grandparents that do that) but this was one i wanted to get her as a surprise for when we arrived in indonesia.  it was one of the better buys that i made this year!  she loves it.  lately, she's been watching this video of herself when she was about 4 months old with her three girls cousins... the girls are singing "girls just want to have fun" and dancing with mary in their arms.  it's about 36 seconds long and mary will watch it approximately 58 times in a row.  well, i think this frequent viewing has helped her dance moves, as you can see below.

on another note, my kids are both turning over new leaves in the sleep department!  praise God!  :)  mary has yelled and whined for about the last 5 months every time she has to go to sleep... i have to go in and talk to her far too many times and we continually repeat... "how do you go night night, mary?" and she replies "with a happy heart, good attitude, no crying, no yelling" and then i close the door and she yells or cries.  rough.  but, the last 5 nights and naps she's gone to bed great!  as she gets in her bed she says, "go night night with happy heart and good attitude more-gin mama!"  letting me know that she's going to do it again (more-gin means more/again).  it's been nice.  and luke, well he had been waking up around 6am and sometimes 5am.  but, the last four mornings he's slept until 7:15 or 7:30am!  then he plays in his bed for a half hour or an hour.  we're thankful and hopeful that these great patterns will continue.

and on the last note, as i'm watching a lizard run across my bedroom floor, i just wish the lizards in my house would stay on the walls!  i've come to accept that we will have lizards in our house... fine.  but, i hate when they're on the floor.  i just wish they would stay above eye level on the walls.  that's all.  :)  

kuda, the horsey

we have a car!  it's a mitsubishi kuda (which means horse).  we're super excited!  we're thankful that we got a quality car but we're most excited to be able to go places as a family and FINALLY explore our new city together.  i have dreams of going on picnics, going to the mall together (which would have been a nightmare had i thought of it before... but since we haven't been able to in so long i imagine it as pure bliss... i'll report on reality after it happens) and taking the kids to a playground or something.  :)

and what did we do to celebrate?  we went to pizza hut!  :)  we went with some friends who also bought a car this week (the husband basically found and bargained for our car too) and one of our language teachers and her family.  it was fun to hang out with them outside of school.  ps. i never would have eaten pizza from pizza hut in boston... but here, it's a special treat!  :)  

and here's bubs doing one of his favorite things.... squeezing an empty bottle.  he's very pleased with himself when he can make things happen by myself, like noises from a bottle.  

strapped in

first of all, an update on mary... she is feeling much better tonight and just went to bed without a fever.  we quit potty training after saturday.  she had a very high fever sunday and was in no mood to be trained to do anything!  :)  she was pathetic really.  sad.  we'll try again in a few weeks when the trauma wears off.  i'm convinced that the third time will be a charm!  (yes, we also tried for one day when she was 21 months old... that was terrible!  she had 21 accidents and 3 successes in 5 hours.  haha!)

on a different note... we're ready to get a car!  mary and luke were practicing in their carseats this afternoon (they've been in our foyer since we moved here).  this evening they watched a bit of a video strapped in.  it was mary's idea and luke was less than thrilled about it after about 10 minutes.  

and here is the other reason we want a car... raining season is starting.  it DOWNPOURED on danny when he was coming home from the grocery store.  you can't really tell how wet he is, but he's completely soaked!  thanks for going, danny!

and yes, that is our spikey gate behind danny.  funny, huh?  we hardly even locked our doors in boston and now we have some dangerous gate blocking our driveway.  all of the houses on our street have a gate.... really all of the houses in the city have gates.  it's very welcoming.  :) 

potty training: day 1

potty training went a little bit like this today.... 

mary, 4 months old, in her cousin mary's chair

it's not entirely true, but right now it feels that way.  she started off really well, had two accidents on the ground but went a lot on the potty.  she was excited about it and loved her M&Ms... which she calls 'cinnamon.'  we were putting cinnamon on our oatmeal this morning and talking about her treats if she goes on the potty.  she got them confused.... and we let her stay confused because i thought it was funny. way to go mary!

i was a little discouraged because i felt like she was getting less excited about it as the day went on (usually i can get her excited about almost anything).  well, at 1:30pm i pick her up to put her to bed for her nap and realize she's kind of hot.  oh, she has a 102 temperature.  no wonder she wasn't herself.  after medicine and sleep she was a bit better, but the medicine wore off and she just went to bed with about a 103 fever.  she got progressively more resistant towards the potty but was also resistant towards everything.  she didn't eat, she wouldn't take medicine, she wouldn't do anything.  she just wanted to lay on me.  sad.  she's never cuddly and she kept saying, "mama, hold you."

we'll see how she's feeling tomorrow and see if this little 'potty training boot camp' will continue.  we'd love prayer for her though.  i'm sure she'll be fine, but it's sad to see your little girl so uncomfortable.  thanks!