Jonathan is FOUR! Happy Birthday!

Jonathan is FOUR!  We are so blessed to have him in our family.  We decided to have a "big" party this year and invited 10 young friends over to help celebrate!  The theme:  FIRETRUCKS!

It was lot of work but I think our 10 little friends had a lot of fun!  Thanks to some firetruck theme decorations given to us by a friend, a fire truck cake, and a giant box, this party was the most elaborate ever for our simple family.  Oh yes, we had fire fighter hats too!

Talk about perfect timing!  Around the beginning of November the school got new weight room equipment. They were kind enough to let us pick out a few boxes.  I got this giant box, which I think contained an elliptical machine.  It is bigger than even a refrigerator box and quite sturdy!  One thing I think is funny is that the machine and the box were made in Hungary of all places!  I tried to explain this to Jonathan and he kept asking "Why is that place named Hungry?"  So as you see the giant box was transformed into a firetruck. Whoops I forgot to put lights on the top, but it does have 3 steering wheels, 2 doors and 6 windows.  It was a big hit at the party.  At one point there were 10 kids inside, and shortly afterward they decided to start driving it and pushed/lifted it all the way to the end of the dining room!

Oh my, getting photos of the party action was a challenge!  There was so much movement that most of my pictures were just a collection of blurs!  Here are a few fire truck action shots, though.

We had a firetruck version of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey."  The kids had to put a missing balloon on the bunch of balloons in the picture.  First Dave demonstrated to the kids how to do it and made everyone laugh!

Here is Jonathan's turn.  Everyone who participated got a gummy fruit candy.

So, the cake. 

 I'm not the type of person to make elaborate cakes, but somehow I got inspired.  My first google search for firetruck cakes left me feeling defeated, but then my friend told me to search for "easy firetruck cakes" and I found this one!  My friend, who IS the type to make elaborate cakes, came over twice to help me out with the supply list and the decorating.  It was a 4 layer cake!  The funny part was the frosting.  The local red food coloring is just pink....the more you put in, the more pink.  I thought I had it made because I had a small bottle of American food coloring.  I guess it must have been from the dollar store because we put in the whole bottle and ended up with a bright pink cake!   None of the kids ever mentioned it though.  They all accepted it as a valid fire truck and there were no complaints!  

Frosting can really only be enjoyed if you eat it with your tongue!

The eating of the cake was the best part.  Somehow, all of the kids spontaneously wanted to go outside at cake time to play.  So as the cake was served, they all found places to sit outside and there were several spills but no mess to clean up inside the house!

We had the party on Saturday and Jonathan's birthday was Sunday.  I had to include the morning surprise, a big floppy pancake shaped like a FOUR!  I had a fiasco with the syrup, though.  It's a long story, but I accidently mixed our maple syrup with sweet soy sauce (which looks identical in a jar in the fridge!)

Jonathan received several nice gifts this year, but here is one of his favorites:  a box of "colored cheerios."  A few months ago we were at the store and Jonathan quietly stroked the Froot Loops box and wistfully (but not whining) said "Mommy, I really like these colored cheerios."  I couldn't justify buying them on a normal day ....so much sugar!  His birthday seemed like a good occasion!

Sublime to be 39!

Well, I had my 39th birthday last Sunday.  Several people have asked how it went, so here is a little report.  I had a wonderful birthday!

 I woke up to find 3 hand-crafted birthday cards on the table from my 3 Patrow men.  The cards were beautiful and two of them had CHOCOLATE inside!

A few weeks ago Dave asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said "I want to go to national church!"  Since we arrived in town, we have attended an international fellowship that meets at the school where Dave teaches.  For a while we have talked about going to national church once a month or so.  My birthday seemed like a perfect time to kick it off.  It was lovely!  The whole family enjoyed it and Dave says we should return on a regular basis!

Here are the boys in their Sunday School class.  This is actually a weird picture.  It looks like there are only 3 kids in the class, but there were more in the back.  Normally, they have Sunday School in an outdoor courtyard area, but it was being used for some kind of bazaar so for this week they used this classroom instead.  All of that was not important, though.  The boys did great.  They didn't goof off and participated in class.  I can't wait to get back and learn more non-English Sunday School songs.  After our bad day at pre-school a while back, I was really nervous today....but I was wrong to be. They will be excited to go back!

My favorite moment of the day, though, was when Dave brought out the birthday ice cream (coconut flavor) with candles and he and the boys sang Happy Birthday with much gusto.  I wish we could have recorded it.  They all sang so well together, even Joshua knew all the words.  The Patrow Trio for my birthday!

Thank you Lord for another year!

Preschool at our house!

First of all I want to say thank you to Becky for somehow finding ABC Jesus Loves Me and then telling me about it.  Second, thank you to the makers of ABC Jesus Loves Me who have developed the perfect program for our home and made it free for use in private homes.  (For those who are interested in more detail, we are using the "4 year curriculum" at present, just doing the parts that fit into our lives or out of our library and supply box.)

The curriculum is very extensive, but I've decided to just pick and choose what is best for us right now.   I don't want Jonathan to be one of those kids who knows how to read, write, do math, but not how to behave or be kind.  I'm not going to focus on teaching the "intellect", but focus on training the will/spirit and do the fun activities that support normal development.  It would be scary to me if Jonathan were able to read all of the material that is out there in the world if he didn't yet have the spiritual foundation to help him process it all and discern what is right in the eyes of the Lord.  So the 4 year curriculum focuses on a single character quality each week, such as Faith, Obedience, Attentive, and has a corresponding Bible Study and activities to go with it.

Here the boys are working at their new desks.  I mostly focus on teaching Jonathan, although Joshua likes to join many of the activities too.  In this picture, our focus of the week was "Giving."  They are coloring a picture of the widow who gave her last two coins to the temple.  

One of the corresponding activities was to make rubbings of coins and start learning about money.  We used local coins.  One of these days I'll have to teach them about American currency!  We also made "offering banks."  They get a coin for helping me do the dishes in the morning, and then we empty the banks on Sunday mornings and take them to church.  The boys love putting their OWN money in the offering.

I've made a rotating gallery on the wall here, at the boys' eye level, for all of their artwork.

We do a handful of worksheets every week, which gives the boys some practice at deskwork.  Most of the activities are more active though.  We've done a nature hike around the neighborhood where we collect samples and make a big poster.  Every week there is a suggested game for developing fine motor skills (like moving small objects with tweezers or painting with q-tips) and large motor skills (kicking balls, jumping and hitting balls.)  Below is one of our favorite large motor skill games called "put out the fire."  I made a chalk ladder and fire on the sidewalk.  The boys had sponges (washcloths for us) and got them wet at a bucket at the bottom of the ladder.  They had to walk "up" the ladder and then squeeze out their water on the fire until the chalk was all gone.

Jonathan puts out the chalk fire at the top of the ladder.

This was a fun game for Joshua to participate in too.  Here he is dripping water from his washcloth onto the "fire"

Here the boys are playing with kidney beans.  This activity didn't work so well for the intended purpose, but they still had fun.  The theme of the week was "Patience" and the story of the week was about Abraham being patient to have a baby, Isaac.  In this activity, we counted out beans to show the ages of people in our family (Joshua, 1; Jonathan, 3; Mommy 38) and compare them to Abraham's age (100).  I just don't think their brains were ready to understand the comparison concept ...but they had fun playing with the beans!

This activity was so fun!  We were learning about "Obedience" and the story of the week was Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace.  We made these "Fire Crayons" by melting old fire-color crayons in a muffin tin.  

We needed some new play dough for several activities so the boys really enjoy helping to make it!

When we Skype with Grandma and Grandpa in America, we can show them the projects we've been working on!

Things that are different: The Day of Sacrifice

Here is Dave with our village leader, a kind man that we respect and appreciate.  To the left you can see the girls and women working on the smaller pieces of meat.  Giant tarps are spread out on the front patio of the mosque to keep the wet, blood, and slime contained.  To the right you can see the men in the background working on the larger animals.

The Muslim community in our neighborhood recently celebrated Idul Ahda, or the Day of Sacrifice.  On the Sunday before the holiday, Dave joined the neighborhood work party to cut the grass and rake leaves in the field adjoining our local mosque.  It is custom to have a work party, kerja bakti, every month and Dave joins when he can.  A few days later the neighborhood children, including our own, were delighted to see 6 goats and 2 cows grazing there.  I didn't have the heart to tell Jonathan they would be slaughtered on the spot the next morning …maybe next year when he's five.  On weeks like this I just want to be a vegetarian.  

The animals were delivered the  day before.  The neighborhood children all came and giggled and gawked like it was a petting zoo.  The animals grazed nervously.  I wonder how they liked all of the chanting and activity at the mosque all night long.  

The night before Idul Adha is one of the noisiest of the year -- even more so than the eve of Idul Fitri, when the adults are tired after a month of fasting.  Starting at 6:30 pm, parades of batik-clad children rotate the streets to the beat of drums and Islamic music.  Then the volume is turned up on the mosque speakers and the chanting begins.  First the boys of the community take turns, and then the men, for several hours.  "Allahu Akbar," the takbir, over and over.  Oh, and did I mention there were also fireworks?  About 10 pm or so, the community leaves the mosque and someone puts on a recording which keeps the chant going at high volume…..all….night….long….until 8 am or so when it is time for the sacrifice to begin.

As outsiders not involved in the festivities, this is a hard night for us.  We worry about the boys sleeping.  They did, though.  Jonathan slept through the night without any problems.  Joshua I did give some antihistamine because we are night weaning him and I felt he needed a little extra help.  Dave puts in his earplugs PLUS noise reducing headphones with white noise playing.  He even slept with the ear muffs for part of the night.  I don't hear the sound quite as much as Dave, but it does get wearying after several hours and especailly in bed when it's finally time to go to sleep.  And every hour waking up to hear it still and then try to go back to sleep again.  When the speakers are finally turned off in the morning, the silence is truly golden!

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In the morning, honored men in the community take turns reading special passages from the Koran while the animals are killed.  Finally the speakers are quiet at 9 am and the men and women are busy for several hours butchering the meat, cleaning the entrails, cooking rice and stews.  There is a community feast, and portions of meat are divided to all and special attention to the poor. 

Disclaimer:  The following photos portray some of the butchering process-- parts of dead animals, blood and entrails.  You don't have to look if you don't want to.

The neighborhood women working on the smaller pieces.

The men working on the larger pieces, the 2 cows.

Nothing is wasted.  Here a group of men have the special job of cleaning the entrails.  Cows have 4 stomachs.  There were 2 cows and 6 goals.  That was a lot of entrails.  

Dave stopped by the mosque midway through the morning to say hi to the neighbors.  It really is a festive scene with all of the community working together to prepare the meat.  The price of meat has been going up, up, up at the markets so it is a real treat to have so much meat in one day.  I suppose, to the typical person here, it's a bit like Thanksgiving.  For us, the entire sensory experience is a cultural stressor but it is a good time to interact with our neighbors and build rapport.  We were invited to the feast, but didn't feel quite comfortable enough to join.  To our surprise, later that afternoon a portion of meat (a mix of cow, goat, and entrails) was delivered to our house too!  Interestingly enough, in our neighborhood there are perhaps 8 ex-pat families but none are very active in the neighborhood activities.  To be honest, we are not that active either, but we are trying to increase our involvement.

Dam builders

We really enjoy the PBS series Curious George and were inspired by an episode where George learns about dam building.  So we made use of a little drainage ditch in our yard and had a grand time making a little dam of our own!

Restarting our blog! September 16, 2013

It's always a bit awkward restarting the blog after a long lapse.  I feel guilt.  I feel like I have to start off with a bang....wonderful pictures, expert prose.  I don't know whether I should offer excuses or long recaps of the last 4 months.  So I will just jump in and share some everyday photos of our lives these last couple of weeks.

(A quick recap for those of you who are wondering:  We spent June and July in the USA making wonderful memories with family.We returned to Salatiga at the end of the July and had a long adjustment from jetlag and restoring of routines.  We've had some sickness.  Probably my biggest reason for not blogging, however, has been that both Jonathan and Joshua have decreased their naps -- Jonathan now with no nap and Joshua with just an afternoon nap!  This leaves much less time for computer work!)

So here goes!

     These 2 pictures are from our first trial-run day at preschool.  Dave and I are hoping and praying that we can do something to help the boys learn the local language.  This little preschool up the road, just a 1 minute walk from our house, seemed perfect.  They look happy to to go, but our first trial run was kind of a disaster and I had to push my "abort mission" button after just one hour.  I am still re-grouping and planning for a second attempt....if they will accept us back!  Oh by the way, you can see the boys are all gussied up in their matching batik outfits.  I even combed their hair.  Then we got to the school and discovered it was casual Friday....and we were overdressed!  Oh well!

    Ha, ha, you know how we laugh at how big the cell phones were in the 80s?  This is Dave using our laptop for a wireless phone call to Grandma and Grandpa Patrow....I thought cell phones were getting smaller?

You may wonder, do I just have large empty bins around for the boys to play cars/trains in?  No, these are our toy bins.   If this fun game is being played it means that all of the toys have been dumped out unceremoniously somewhere in the house!   It's the ancient truth....kids like the boxes better than the toys!

Here is one of those moments where you say "Wow, that looks dangerous, but hold still while I get a picture!  Don't fall in the meantime!"

We don't have snow, so the other day Jonathan had an idea.  "Mom, I want to make a Duplo angel!"

Here is the result ....my photoshopped outline included.  Joshua is trying to make a Duplo angel too.

I know Joshua's hair was getting long.....yes, was.  This photo was in the last moments of his wanna-be-Dutch-boy look.  The back of his head was plastered in blood as he had just had a fall off the bed and bumped the edge of a desk, resulting in a small laceration.  We had to give him a hair cut to get down to the wound and apply steri-strips.  And here is what he looks like now.....

 

 

This is Jonathan's version of helping to carry in the groceries!  (Takes quite a long time this way, but it is imaginative!)

Jonathan just had to climb into daddy's lap for one extra hug....

You may be wondering, where is the mommy?  Ah, yes, in the files I did find a picture of myself with two precious friends, Calista and Christy!

Our dear friend Calista is living in our town for 6 months studying language before moving on for service on another island as a nurse-midwife.  We are loving having her in town ....she is a real life auntie for the boys and our evenings are always more cheerful when she comes over for dinner!  Christy is another friend I've known since my single missionary nurse days, and she was also living in Chicago at the same time I did!  Now she is serving on another island and was in our town for annual meetings!  It's a rare event and an amazing blessing to have two "old" friends here at the same time!