Like sister, like...sister

Does this look familiar? Her sister loved to do this very same thing at our house in Ringwood. She sure finds it fun to make a mess...

Our kids and pembantus

The first part of this video is of Ellie helping our helpers. She loves to do what they do. We often finding her "dusting" the TV with a dripping wet rag or cleaning the walls with the same. She loves to clean the toilet with the toilet scrubber (especially before it is flushed), sweep the floors, and she will even clean up her own messes on occasion. She is seen here with Ibu Indri.

The last segment is of MG and Ibu G. Both of our helpers love to hold and play with MG. As you can see, between her and her sister hearing "no" all the time, she has learned how to say it quite well.

Hide N Seek

This is one of Ellie's favorite places to hide. She doesn't quite yet understand the object of the game is to NOT be found.

Big sis

Is this cute or what? Big sis reading to little sis.

More fun in the pool

Ellie invited some of her new friends to come swimming with her. She is really taking to the other children in our neighborhood. As you can see, there wasn't room for one more kid in the pool. They had a blast!

Our first "tikus" experience

We want to share with you a recent experience we had in our house. We had a rather large mouse (or tikus) running around like he owned the place. Whether or not it was a mouse or a rat by Indonesian standards, I don’t know. What I do know is that that little feller was at least six inches long from snout to rump and over a foot long from head to tail. We first caught a glimpse of him a few nights ago when Jon heard some strange noises in the kitchen. The next night we chased him under the refrigerator. The next day we went out and bought an enormous mouse/rat trap. We were bound and determined to rid ourselves of our uninvited guest, or Mickey as we like to call him.
Jon set the trap that night. He was told to put a chicken bone on the trap, so that is what he did. When he checked the trap at about 3:00 that morning, the bone was gone, but there was no mouse in the trap nor had it been triggered. Not to be outsmarted by a rodent, Jon slathered some peanut butter on the trap. Sticky peanut butter surely couldn’t be removed from a mouse trap without setting it off. When we woke up the next morning, the trap had been licked clean of any remnants of peanut butter. No mouse. At this point we came to the conclusion that this was no ordinary rat. Jon took it personally.
The next night Jon secured a piece of beef to the trap with a twisty tie. That would surely do the trick. But as he was in the process of setting the trap, he saw the pesky critter climb the wall and perch himself on top of the kitchen cabinet. Jon went and got Raegan so she could get one last look at Mickey before he met his doom. She climbed up on a stool, took one look at him and he bolted out the window onto our back porch. We quickly closed all the doors and windows so he couldn’t re-enter our home. We opened up the screen door providing him a route to freedom and avoiding inevitable execution. It was quite a sight. Raegan was holding up a piece of cardboard which was serving as a temporary wall, and Jon was attempting to flush the little guy out from under the cabinet and through the door while holding a wooden bat, a broom and a flashlight. He was standing on a stool the whole time (what do you expect, he wasn’t wearing shoes). Finally Mickey was ushered out of the house without any injuries to human or rodent. All parties involved were very satisfied. We were rid of the mouse, and the mouse continues to breathe.

Toy cars on a cycle, thingy?

Ellie got to take a ride on this toy car/duck mobile. She had so much fun, that she had to ride it twice. As you can see, the man in the background is making the four cars "go" without assistance from any kind of mechanical device. He travels around to different neighborhoods and provides entertainment for the kiddos. He told me that his legs are really strong...