Our life in pictures -- October 2012

Normally I would separate these photos into separate posts and make them a little more cute and a little more organized....but I have quite a backlog of cuteness going on here and I realize it's now or never!  The boys have been sick with colds and fevers the last week or so, so I'm just happy to be getting them on the blog as they are.....ENJOY!!!

If you look closely, you can see that Jonathan is slowly learning to write some of the letters in his name here!  We enjoyed this cheap box of colored chalk we bought locally last year.

Shadow play

Did you ever know that Thomas the Train is also a pilot?  While I think it's safe to say that Jonathan and Joshua like their toys, I have to confess I have a true toy obsession.  Over the summer, I spent much of my spare time on the hunt for "new" toys at thrift shops and garage sales.  What you see here is part of the results of my treasure hunting! 

Awh, this is my old friend Minarni, a colleague from Bethesda Nursing Academy where I worked when I was single on the island of Kalimantan.  She was passing through and stopped by our house for a few hours.  Joshua fell asleep in her arms within 60 seconds of meeting her. 

Jonathan put these puzzles together ALL BY HIMSELF!

Morning tooth brushing time.  I have to work hard to keep him from spinning around in circles while he is brushing....try to get him to focus on actually getting his teeth clean!  (In the evenings, I do the brushing for him, so they get one guaranteed good scrub per day.)  Blue potty chair in the background is now stored on the toilet instead of the floor to keep little brothers hands out of it!

It's not the first time you've seen train tracks in our house, and it won't be the last!  This one was special because of the "tunnels" going round and round under the bed!

Our guest room got a bit of use this month when our dear friends Paul and Becky Geary came to stay for a few nights.  They still serve at Bethesda Mission Hospital in Kalimantan, and currently their youngest child is attending Mountainview.  They are coming to town from time to time this year to check on their kid, which is great for us since they are some of my most favorite people in the whole wide world! 

We are getting more and more of this in the house every day -- Jonathan and Joshua sharing toys and playing peacefully together.  It still usually ends with Jonathan hitting Joshua on the head (and subsequent consequences from Mommy), but at least it's progress!

 

Awh, isn't he sweet?  This is his 5 a.m. smile, and indeed this photo was taken at 5 a.m.  Sometimes I can keep him quiet in bed until close to 6 a.m., but often he makes so much noise cooing and being happy that I just take him into the guest room so he doesn't wake up the entire household.

Yep, he's got four big teeth now.

I turned my back on the baby for 2 minutes, and this is what he did ....climbed up on the ottoman and then to standing by holding onto the couch.  He was pretty pleased with himself....his first big climb.  When I ran to grab the camara, Jonathan had to show that he could do it too.

We got some Cheerios via a friend who went to Singapore for visa purposes.  Rice Krispies and Kellogg's corn flakes have gone global, but we still can't get Cheerios here.  It's so hard to find healthy snack foods for kids here...so the Cheerios are a big blessing.  I can make a 14 oz. box last for 2 months by keeping it in the freezer in ziplock bags and doling them out in scanty portions.  Whenever a Cheerio lands on the floor, I grieve the waste.  Joshua loved them INSTANTLY. 

Did you know that Cheerios can make you so tired?

My birthday pedicure!  I turned 38 on October 20!  It was a lovely day!  Dave watched the boys while I went for a pedicure with Becky Geary (who also had a birthday that week!)  A two hour pedicure here only cost $6.50.  Dave and I were also able to slip out for a date night in the evening while the boys stayed with a babysitter. 

This little guy has been loving mommy and daddy's bed lately and often will not sleep in his pak-n-play!

Yep, it's another train track picture.  This time with our thrift shop Lincoln Log ("Winkin Wog") station and signal house. 

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of "Our Life in Pictures!" 

Remembering Bethany in October

It's October.  Most of my life, I had thought of October has being my birthday month.  However, I'm now aware that October is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.  I'm sure you didn't know that.  I sure didn't before we had a reason to know.  Prior to Bethany's death, I had rarely ever thought about what it would be like to lose a baby.  Soon afterwards, I discovered that many -- a dozen or more -- people I know and had known for years, had lost a baby and carried those scars for the rest of their lives.  As we do now.

If you are new to our blog and to our family journey, Bethany's complete story is HERE.  

We celebrated Bethany's 4th birthday on July 22.  Below is a photo of the birthday party we had for her.  Her picture.  A balloon.  A cake that said "Happy Birthday Bethany Joy." Ice cream.  Family.

Our Forever Baby turns 4!

I still get teary eyed at times when I remember our daughter.  The grief is changing though.  How amazing to look at this photo.  Her photo remains the same black-and-white image that will never be replaced with pictures of her growing up.   Our family is changing and growing -- the photo from Bethany's birthday last year did not have Joshua in it!

How does grief grow and change?  After 4 years of avoidance, I'm now thinking about getting Bethany's music CD out again....and it doesn't pain me to think of it.  In fact, I found myself singing one of those songs to Joshua the other day.  It's a sign to me that we are healing, and our boys are the greatest healing salve of all.  We are so thankful for them.  We are also thankful for Bethany's vibrant life in heaven -- I think of her as a growing girl there. 

I met a couple last year who had lost a baby to SIDS about 25 years ago.  They now say that, although the grief process was long and painful, it was one of the best things that could have happened to them, because of how God showed his graciousness to them.   I don't know if I will ever say that Bethany's death was the best thing that ever happened to me.....but I am thankful that she is safe in heaven and am confident in her security.

We still give our deepest gratitude to the wonderful organization, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, who helped us in our time of need to provide such beautiful pictures of Bethany during her last day on earth.   These photos have been a crucial part of our healing process.  Do you know that we never held her, wire free, until her last 14 hours of life?  Yet we have dozens of professional photos of Dave and I embracing her -- just herself with none of that ugly medical equipment in the picture.  Those 14 hours were far too short, but our photos keep those memories fresh in our minds while the other less pleasant times are actually fading away to a place too deep to recall easily.

Please, if there ever comes a time in your life that you would know of a family who has just lost a baby, or has a terminally ill infant, do what you can to help them get Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep involved.  They offer this free service to anyone with this specific need and have volunteer photographers on call all throughout the United States and some other parts of the world too.  

Learning new moves

When Jonathan turned 2, we told ourselves he would be getting a bike as a late birthday present.    Finally last month I was able to find his bike!  See for yourself how he's doing!

A few things to watch for in the video .....Joshua practicing his wave and a surprise ending!  (No band-aids necessary!)   (P.S.  Gem, if you're out there, thanks for the great sun hat for Joshua!  We're using it a lot!)

Joshua is continuing to work very hard on his motor skills.  He just turned 9 months old yesterday, so check out what he can do!

hh

Learning to move!

I know it's been a while since I blogged anything.  I got on the computer tonight to put something new up, and then Dave and walked in and said "Jenn, you'll never believe it.  There's a snake wrapped around our door handle."  So I grabbed the camera and my machete --  I purchased this item in brilliant foresight a few months ago as I have had to use it in the past to chop off snake heads.  Now it's an hour later and I can't find the camera.  The snake is now headless and the machete back in it's safe storage spot.  Lest you get too excited ....it was just a little brown baby snake and Dave did the chopping ....snakes just don't belong in the house.  It was our first Salatiga snake.  

In other news, it has finally started raining.  We've had a bit of rain 4 days in a row now ....just spits and spats....hardly enough to even get wet with.   It has definitely brought about a change in the atmosphere though....lots of nice breezes and thunder and dark rolling clouds overhead.  

So since I don't have time to post any new pictures tonight, I'll just publish these pictures that I uploaded about a month ago and never finished up.  They are still cute.  :) 

This picture cracks me up.  Joshua started crawling just a few days after we arrived back from the US.  Jonathan wasn't used to Joshua getting into his toys.  This picture represents one of his first frustrating attempts to prevent his little brother from bothering his stuff -- all spare train track parts stowed inside train loop.  Then he would grab a "Baby Toy" and put it in front of Joshua.  As you can see Joshua is totally ignoring the now boring rattles and making a bee line for the train track.  I can't remember what happened, but I don't think it was pretty. 

Here's Joshua chasing a ball in his early days of crawling.

Brotherly interaction is becoming more positive.  Since Joshua has been using his Fred Flintstone car quite a bit, he and Jonathan can interact eye to eye.

I couldn't believe it when he starting pulling up to a stand just a day or so after he started crawling.

More practice standing ....and more train tracks as you can see.

More of the same .....so cute!  The sense of pride, amazement, and pure fun accomplishment is such a sweet thing to witness in these little ones!

Oregon Coast 1 -- Summer Recap 2012 part 4

One fine week in July, my aunt Marlene from Seattle came to visit in Lebanon.  We took our opportunity to head to the Oregon Coast for the day!  The last time Dave and I were at the coast was our honeymoon 5 years ago, so it was fun to visit there again with Jonathan and Joshua, plus Mom and Marlene.

Our first stop was the Mark Hatfield Marine Science Center, which has been totally revamped since I was there last!  We decided it was just enough aquarium for a toddler, and plus it's free!  They still have the wonderful tide pool displays where kids can touch starfish and abalone and anemones!  

Sea stars!

Oh, the wonderful experience of touching a sea anemone and watching it pull in it's tentacles!

Wow, has the octopus display ever improved!  When I went to the science center as a kid, the octopus was always hiding at the bottom of a black opaque bucket shaped tank!  This octopus isn't shy to stretch out her arms for everyone to see! 

Joshua enjoyed some sensory experience too!

The wave pool was a lot of fun!  We all took turns building a dike and then making waves to knock it down!

And last, a group picture in front of the yellow Actually, this is the only picture from the whole day that has me (Jennifer) in it! 

Check back next week for part 2, pictures on the beach!

Things that are different: Dry Season

Showing off our quickly drying laundry!

It's the tail end of dry season at the moment ...at least we think so.  Wet season is supposed to start around September, since it is an "ember" month.  In Indonesian, "ember" means BUCKET, get it?  So September, October (should be Octember, ha, ha), November and December are all bucket months....but so far no rain for at least 9 weeks here.

So this post is an ode to the dry season.....things we like, and things we don't!

NUMBER ONE THING WE LIKE (ABOVE PHOTO):  Dry laundry every day!  (During the rainy season, our laundry can literally hang around for DAYS before we finally fold it up a bit damp!)  The same is true about our dishes.  They air dry really fast these days.  We have a rule that we don't towel dry dishes here.  Did you know that most pathogens do not survive the air drying process?  Since our water quality here is very questionable, we've just made the decision to kill more germs by air drying.  The only problem is, during wet season, sometimes our cups stay wet for hours and hours!

NUMBER TWO THING WE LIKE:  Dry dust.  In my opinion, dry dust is better for playing trucks than wet mud, because it is a lot easier to clean off of a dirty boy and his clothes!  However, I could also say it is a number one thing I don't like, as the dust gets everywhere in our house.

Demonstrating the excellent play possibilities of dry dust

NUMBER THREE THING WE LIKE:  Patriotic Cheer and Sprucing up of the Neighborhood!  Indonesian Independence Day is August 17.  Since it is the only holiday that all Indonesians of all religions share, it is the most largely celebrated holiday of the year.  Traditionally, everyone spruces up their homes and keeps their yards clean and tidy for Independence Day. A lot of people even put fresh coats of paint on their gates and such.  It's also REQUIRED for every home to display the Indonesian flag....even the foreigners!

Indonesian flags in front of every home

The neighborhood display of 5 neighborhood flags, right next to the neighborhood list of rules/values

Freshly weeded and swept flower beds and gutters

NUMBER FOUR THING WE LIKE:  Red Tomatoes!  During dry season the tomatoes actually get enough sun and heat to turn red and ripe....while during rainy season we are often stuck with green, hard ones. 

Red tomatoes.  Still not as tasty as Walla Walla back yard toms, but good enough.

NUMBER FIVE THING WE LIKE:   Daily viewings of our local volcano, which is always covered in clouds during the rainy season.

Our volcano, Mount Merbabu (which means Ashy Mountain)

NUMBER SIX THING WE LIKE:  It's kind of like Autumn!  While we don't have autumn here, we do get a lot of leaf fall because things are so....dry....and so trees take the opportunity to change their leaves, as the local expression goes.  The bad thing about it is .....it's a lot of leaves.  Interesting, the Indonesians don't call them leaves once they fall.  They call it "sampah" which is garbage, and if we don't get our leaves cleaned up often enough, to them it's the same as just leaving piles of garbage laying around our lawn.  So, while it's fun for Jonathan to get to jump in the leaf piles, the truth is I don't really like this component of dry season.  I can't find a decent rake ANYWHERE ....here we just sweep our yards with a witch's broom.  

It's "Autumn" but it's still 85 degrees right now!

NUMBER SEVEN THING WE LIKE:  Frequent swimming!  There is a hotel nearby that has a nice pool and best of all they also provide free pick-up and take home service.  We all 3 can swim there for about $5 which includes towel and drink and transport!  During dry season we try to go every Sunday afternoon.  During the rainy season, it's usually raining at that time.  

Thank you to our Australian friends for giving us this very special pool walrus!

Now that I've accentuated the positive, I just have to share a few things that I JUST DON'T LIKE about dry season.

 NUMBER ONE DISLIKE:  Smoke!  Every day is burn day.  Since every thing is dry, our neighbors delight in burning their trash and leaves in their yard every day.  The smoke stays close to the ground and floats around and comes in the house.  Dave loves to keep the smoke out by turning on all of our ceiling fans to their highest settings....which keeps our house smoke free, but is kind of like living inside a hurricane.  Fortunately, no one in our family suffers from asthma, but many people really struggle with their respiratory system during this season.  We even know one woman who had to return home to the USA for treatment and healing because her dry-season related health problems were so severe!

NUMBER TWO DISLIKE:  Our yard has turned into a gravel pit.  We do have grass when it's raining, but all of our grass has now died to reveal.....this.  Now I know why our yard worker always uses a weed eater instead of the lawn mover he has access to.  To sift out all of this gravel would take 100 men with shovels a week to clear! 

Close up of our yard in September

Another result of the dryness -- large cracks in the soil, right in our front yard!

Savoring a small patch of green

I do have a lime tree and a hydrangea I am trying to keep alive by watering ....and thus there is a small patch of green in our front yard where some of the grass has been able to survive.  One day Jonathan crawled onto this little  patch and made up his own song....."I love grass!  I love grass!"  It made me remember this summer when he ran barefoot through the lush backyards of so many of our friends ....we couldn't even catch him most of the time! 

Neighborhood dust bowl----er----soccer field

The soccer field across the street from us has really turned into a dust bowl....we get so much dust when people ride their motorbikes or cars on it.  Or play soccer.  Or if a nice breeze comes through....

So soon the rains will come and I will have a whole new list of likes and dislikes to document and share with you.  Dust will be replaced by mud.  Dry laundry by damp.  Gravel pits by mold.   Stay tuned!

Sunny Days in Lebanon -- Summer 2012 recap part 3

In July, we spent several days at home in Lebanon ....it went far too fast!  Here are a few pictures of the good times!  Above:  Joshua gets his first bottle ....he didn't really know what to do with it.  To celebrate our 5th anniversary, Dave and I went away for a night.  What a blissful night of uninterrupted sleep!  Grandma Coral kept the boys, and poor Joshua wouldn't have anything to do with all of the milk I pre-prepared for him.  Sometime in the middle of the night Grandma convinced him to have some rice cereal to tide him over until we got home in the morning. 

Play with Grandma Coral is always fun!

The boys soaked up lots of love from family, including Uncle Gary and Aunt Lorri in this picture.

Playing with cousins in the backyard!

Playing with cousins again -- this time it's Jonathan's first experience on the trampoline!

Taking a cruise with an older girl ....this time it's cousin Emma!

While the boys enjoy their little red round bath "tub" in Indonesia, it's fun to take baths in America and enjoy a full stretch ...and room for more than one kid at a time!

We even got to have lunch at McDonalds with Jennifer's brother, Allan.

How nice to have some variety in the people who read books out loud to you.  Usually it's just mommy.

Variety in toys is a fun thing too!  We found the old Fisher Price Little People train set that Jennifer and Allan had as kids....still complete!  That was fun to play with as well as other toys that Grandma has collected here and there, plus some garage sale treasures we discovered ourselves!