christmas time!

mary being very proud of her work!  

 mary loved decorating the tree this year.  unfortunately luke was really tired from his long day (we bought and decorated the tree after his birthday celebration) so he went to bed... and oddly enough, has hardly noticed the tree.  i thought it was going to be terrible because we have a ton of red and silver balls on the tree and he LOVES all things round... but he hasn't touched it.  anyways, mary loved it and has touched the tree.  in fact, today she hung a plastic bag on a branch because she so badly wanted to keep hanging ornaments.  it was a really fun night for us because she was so into it.  she put her hand up to stop me and say, "mommy, not help me.  i do it all by myself."  and she did hang most of the ornaments. she did great!  leslie was also here to share in the christmas joy with us.  we're thankful to have leslie around... she is such a special person for us and especially to our kids.  and, she made some amazing home made hot chocolate to add to the christmas experience!  yummy!

the tree seems so small to because i'm used to my parent's huge tree, but i think it's perfect for our little family.  and if we bought a bigger one we couldn't have afforded to buy more ornaments (christmas decorations aren't in high demand here so they aren't so cheap).  :)  we're really thankful to have a tree... even though it's hot and very little else in the city reminds us of christmas, it feels like christmas.  

last week danny preached at the english church service that we attend here... it has been such a good reminder for me this week.  he spoke about Immanuel. before Christmas, one Israelite got to go into the presence of God once a year to atone for the sins of the people.  when Jesus came at Christmas (on December 25th, of course :), he graciously brought his presence to us.  He came to restore His people back to His presence.  now we can have relationship with God and enjoy the presence of God through the Holy Spirit.  and one day, as it says in Revelation 21, God's dwelling place will be among us and we will dwell with Him in fullness.  thank you, Jesus.

Happy Birthday Bubbalu

our little boy is ONE!  

 yesterday we had a fun day of celebrating our little lukey and being together as a family.  it was great!  danny and i took the day off of language school so that we could go to the animal market and out to lunch.  our babysitter and helper (who i will talk about later) came along because they are such a big part of luke's life thus far.  he loves them both so we wanted them to celebrate with us.  

everytime luke looked at an animal he started grunting and 'talking' to it.  i couldn't get many good pictures of his excitement, but he loved it!  it was fun to see him excited.  and, of course, mary loved it too!  

then we went out to this little outdoor restaurant that has a little green patch of grass that the kids could play in before we ate.  it was a great place for our family because the kids didn't have to sit down and wait for their food.  

luke proudly walking in the grass!

luke loved the candle too!  he tried to blow when i did and it was really cute.  he didn't really care about the cupcake though.  we tried to get him to eat it but it was a long day for him and i think he was about done.  he had a few bites but don't have the normal 'baby covered in cake' picture.  :)

we had the english and the indonesian happy birthday song this year!  

and here is luke's gift... that he doesn't care about at all.  he did love the ballons that we gave him at home though!  

and lastly, my three favorite people... 

i'll write more about luke later... just wanted to document our fun day to celebrate him.  

we love you, luke daniel pierce!  

i love it!... the monkey man.

one of the great things about living in indonesia is that anything can be delivered.  i don't feel like we've fully taken advantage of that yet (because we're afraid to call stores and ask for something to be delivered... understanding indonesian on the phone is hard!)  but we did take advantage of the MONKEY SHOW that was delivered to our house.  :)  a guy on a motorcylce rides around beating his drum to let everyone know that he's outside with the monkey (every item for sale has a different sound so people know what is available as the seller passes the house).  we happened to be outside and somehow got that our neighbors (whom we had never really met) thought it was too expensive to pay for the show, so i suggested we split the price.  it was about $.80 each.  the 10-15 minute show was well worth it!  the kids loved it!  

here are some of the tricks the monkey did... 

mary wanted to go sit with the neighbors whom we'd never met (of course) and they loved it!  she danced to the drum and had a great time.  and then she said she wanted to go into their house and walked right in.  luckily, 'dropping in' is very welcomed here so they were excited to have us.  the next day we were walking by and were invited in again.  so, the monkey and my pushing daughter helped us make some new friends!  

oh, and in case you happen to notice her outfit, i did too.  she had on a tie-dyed tank top and blue bloomers (those aren't underwear, she had a diaper on under them).  that is a very usual outfit for her.  our babysitter lets her pick out her clothes so i usually come home to something like that... well, i hope that mary is picking out the outfits and not ibu sri.  that would be weird if ibu sri put her in something like that.  i'm sure our neighbors just think it's a cultural difference.  :)  the first thing out of danny's mouth when we got home was, could you at least put some shorts on her.  oh well.  

i couldn't take many pictures of the kids watching the monkey because it kind of scared me not to have them with me.  at one point mary knelt down and said 'hi monkey' closer than the monkey liked and he hissed at her and showed his teeth.  mean monkey!  but, i'm going to ask my neighbor for pictures because he was taking a lot of luke squealing at the monkey.  

just one of the perks of living in indo.  

thanksgiving #1 in indonesia

first thanksgiving.  

leslie's amazing turkey!

we had two thanksgiving feasts here in indonesia this year.  the first was friday night at our language school.  leslie and i arranged a traditional american thanksgiving meal for the group and it turned out to be a lot of fun!  they were really excited about it and loved the food.  i think there were only two indonesians that had ever tried turkey before so it was fun to introduce something from our culture.  there were actually a lot of people there (maybe 40ish) but these pictures don't do it justice.  it was hard taking pictures and making sure my children weren't kidnapped by the few indonesians that were obsessed with them.  i kid.  :)

mary had a great time playing with some of the kids there and a lot of the adults.  the boy on the right is one of our teacher's sons and he is always so sweet to her!  she really likes him.

mary dancing

mary doesn't quite get the stick out your tongue thing... 

they played 'london bridges' (probably called something else here) and the kids loved it!

and this is what luke did all night... was grabbed by someone, i tried to hide and he looked for me.  after a few minutes he started fussing and then i'd take him back.  everyone wanted to hold him but he's into a MAJOR mama phase... like one that has me wondering if i'll loose my mind by the end of the day.  but usually in the evening he starts snuggling up on me and i can't get enough of it.  i love you, luke!

'mary, what are you thankful for today?'

me: 'mary, what are you thankful for today?'
mary: 'dod' (meaning God)
me: 'what else are you thankful for?'
mary: 'Jesus'
me: 'well, what made you happy today?' (in an attempt to get her to think of something that happened in her day)
mary: 'dod'
me: 'okay, that's great!'

mary last thanksgiving... 

 we *try* to ask eachother what we're thankful for every night at dinner (usually happens about half of the nights) and this is mary's response every night!  somewhere she learned that we should be thankful for God and Jesus.  either she is really spiritual or she doesn't quite understand that you can be thankful for other things also.  i'll go with the thought that she's just really thankful for what God has done for us through Jesus.  i pray that she is always be aware of the love and grace of God for her and be thankful for Him.  and i pray that we learn to be thankful everyday from her.  

proof

luke started walking and this is his proud/ concentrated face while walking.  it's kind of hard to get pictures of his whole body walking since he can only walk a few steps and i have to be there to catch him.  can't get back far enough... but here's his cute face while walking.

and here's the first night he took steps.  yes, he's always that dirty.  he always has food on his clothing (sometimes i wonder if the ants get on his cloths during his naps... sometimes i put him in clean cloths).  :)  and he's ALWAYS that sweaty!  his hair is usually wet around his ears.  i think he get's it from danny (an obvious joke for anyone who knows me).  

he's walking....

and he landed.

we're proud of you, bubbies!  

"i love it!" and we have a walker....

the "i love it" series... to help me choose thankfulness and to love the place God has led our family... today is a really spiritual one... 

today i'm thankful that there is a starbucks in surabaya and that i got to go last weekend.  that's right, surabaya (the city we're moving to next summer) has a starbucks.  it is exactly like the starbucks in america and it was oh so comforting.  we took a short weekend trip to surabaya to check out different areas of the city and just enjoy the city that we'll soon be calling home.  it's a lot bigger, dirtier and crowded so we want to be proactive about trying to find things we love about it.  things i loved... starbucks, the italian and the thai restaurant that we ate at and the huge malls.  spiritual, i know.  :)  it's hard to love deep things about it after visiting for 48 hours.  but, i also really liked that there were a lot of people just hanging around (hopefully it will make it easier to get to know them) and there were a few nice parks for the kids to play and me to meet other moms.

anyways, on to our WALKER!  luke took his first steps last week... it was three steps as he was falling into my arms.  now, only a few days later, he's taken about 7 controlled steps.  it's so stinking cute!  he gets really proud of himself and looks at us for approval.  we'll try to get it on video one of these days.  here he is at the park last week... 

he was laughing, not crying.... i think. 

going after a ball... his FAVORITE activity (besides eating)

about to crawl towards me... he also loves to do that.  whenever i get on the floor with him he gets so excited and comes right over to tackle me.  yes, he full on tackles!  he's a tough boy.

and here's my big girl reading in her big girl bed.  sometimes we send her to bed with a few books while we clean up and she just reads them.  she has a few memorized (or at least the idea) so she tells the story.  it's sweet.  gosh, she is so stinking funny these days!  

today she came running to me when i was cleaning dishes.  she said she was scared (just wanting my attention).  danny said, "well, when mama gets scared she always wants dada to cuddle her. do you want to come to me and i'll cuddle you?"  she looks at him in all seriousness, "no thank you, dada." 

we all went to the mall/grocery store tonight to get a few things.  mary went with danny to go buy some clippers at the department store.  the entrance they enter through led straight to the lingerie section.  mary proceeded to touch every bra and say "i like this one, daddy."  she picked up some blue underwear and told danny she like them too.  meanwhile, danny was trying to hurry her out of that section as all of the veiled women are watching him stop his two year old from picking up bras.  awkward.  

one more thing that she's doing now that is really sweet.  whenever luke walks or does something that is a little bit of a challenge for him (get down stairs, throw the ball, etc.) mary yells for danny and i to watch him.  she says, "look what luke can do, mommy!  yeah, bubba!  you did it, bubba!"  i hope that she always encourages her brother like that!