my 3rd birthday party

(I'm ready for party!)

couldn't wait for this in weeks :) Mommy promised me to get a spiderman cake, so we went to Kroger 2 days before to pick out a cake for me. I was confused when we didn't bring the cake home. Mommy said we'll pick it up on Sunday. Tante Shien also made me the spiderman cupcakes, so yuuummmyy... eventhough the icing color turned out to be pink, because tante Shien didn't want to put a lot of coloring on them :)


Daddy went out in the morning to pick up the cake and got me an Incredible's Birthday balloon!


(goodie bags for my friends)

I couldn't wait for my party to get started, and then Quinny came with his dad, mom and uncle. He brought a gift that would be a surprise for me :). Then some of friends came by like Andrew, Matthew, Michael, Abby, Gavin, Jacelyn, Adithe, Glen and Sammy. Daddy's and Mommy's friends were there too. It was a blast to have some of my friends came for my birthday, and they all brought some special presents for me.


The food is also great. Mommy made macaroni schottel (it's Grandma's recipe), oma Aychu made mie goreng, om Dudud made martabak telor, tante Bebe made chili dog nachos, Matt's grandma made some corn soup, and tante Ria made a delicious desert of konyaku jelly with cocopandan syrup and condense milk.


We had time for making crafts after lunch. We made Christmas ornaments that you could put your picture on it. And my friends made that for me too.


(craft time)

The best part is when Mommy and tante Shien brought the cake out. The one we picked has a Spiderman candle on it, and tante Shien's cupcakes were spectacular. It has this little Spiderman on top of each cupcake. Then, finally.. I blew the candle.. yaaayyy I'm 3 years old.





When the time for picture came, you know how hard it would be to get together all kids in all good postition, but we get the best that we can :)


(opening the gifts)

Thanks to all my friends for coming to my party, also daddy's and mommy's friends who helped with the food and everything. I had a wonderful time.

a day after my 3rd birthday

8.45 am: doctor's visit...
I did a very great job at the doctor's office. I answered all the nurse's questions about my knowledge and abilities :) She asked whether I'm a boy or a girl, how old I am, can I stand on one foot, do I wear clothes on my own, and some other questions for Mommy like how much milk do I drink a day, how long do I sleep, am I a picky eater, and do I speak well... ofcourse :) but dr.Francis encourage me to speak Indonesian at home.
I checked out the drawers at the exam room while waiting on dr.Francis. I was going to get the the stethoscope out but Mommy said no and I only can get the wooden stick for checking on my mouth :)

When dr.Francis examined my belly, I felt a little ticklis :) She checked on my eyes, mouth and ears. And she gave Mommy some medication for my pimple. I am at more than 50% percentile on weight and height. dr.Francis said I'm a pretty tall boy.
I didn't pay attention when dr.Francis said I will get a flushot and a hepatitis vaccine today. Mommy just told me that the nurse will give me some medication through my nose. I was a little bit nervous about that. So she sprayed on my nose and I refused it the second shot, but they made me to get it anyway.
Then I had to laydown to get the vaccine. And surprisingly, it only sting a little bit. The nurse said I did an excellent job and didn't cry at all. She told me I can pick 2 prizes. I followed her while Mommy getting all the papers and coats. There're several things to pick, but I took 2 small yo-yos with a snowflake on each, and I gave one to Wyatt later on.


9.30 am: off to Wyatt's house for playgroup....
Jinx, Wyatt's black lab greet us and sniffing on my face, but it didn't bother me. He's a nice dog. I was the first one there. Then Caroline and her baby brother Michael came, Andrew, Alexander, Hope, Avery, Connor and his baby brother Owen, and Clara.
They're all sang happy birthday to me while we enjoyed our lunch. And Mommy gave a cupcake for each of us, and finished in seconds :), a box of wingko and klepon for each mom, and goodie bags for all my friends.
Wyatt gave me a pair of waterproof gloves and a motorized dinosaur for my birthday present.
12.15pm we're off to go home, and I was very sleepy and went straight to bed for nap.
Later I will spend the whole evening with Daddy, and couldn't wait for my birthday party on Sunday :)

my 3rd birthday!

woo hooo...
Today is my 3rd birthday. I am so exciting that I become more and more independent. I'm proudly announce that I'm 99.9% potty trained :) I never wear diapers anymore except during the night, or in some cases that Mommy thought I needed to. I can go to the potty on my own at home. I can wear clothes, socks and shoes, even buttoned my shirt. I always brush my teeth my self every night. I help Mommy hold the door, sweep the kitchen floor, and many other things.
I can spell my name, read most of the alphabets and numbers, know right or left (but I still mix it up sometimes :)), I say please, thank you, excuse me. I am very patient on every grocery trip. And the big accomplishment that had been my struggles are sleeping on my own bedroom and going to Xenos.

Everytime Daddy or Mommy asks me what I want for my birthday, I always ask for a Spiderman cake :) Mommy doesn't really like the idea, because I know nothing about Spiderman or any other superheros. But she'll go with me after Daddy insisted too.

Today I woke up early to say goodbye to tante Janet who's leaving to Jakarta. I'll miss her, eventhough I'll see her again in a couple weeks.
Grandma, Grandpa and Ommy called to say happy birthday to me, and I talk about Spiderman with Grandma that Mommy didn't know.
I'm so happy that today I got some presents from tante Janet: Rheneas and the Dinosaur (a motorized Thomas & Friends), a shirt, outerwear, a sandal, a Jeep control car and a birthday balloon. Wooww..

I also thank Daddy and Mommy who brought me some extention tracks for my rare set of Thomas & Friends. It's the blue track with some motorized trains. Daddy put up the tracks in my bedroom. It is so cool. I'll ask Daddy to take a picture and show you all.
Mommy got me a small monster truck Spiderman from the Dollar Tree when we're up shopping for some goodies. Nice buy :)

Mommy was very busy today. She made some cupcakes, wingko and klepon for my playgroup tomorrow. I help a little bit. Put the cup liners into the pan, pour the sprinkles, and check-out the wingko in the oven and tell Mommy when it's done.
Then we prepared the goodie bags together. It's a surprise so i can't tell you here :)

In the evening, we went to City Barbeque with Daddy, Mommy and om Richard. Om Richard gave us a free full slab coupon. So Daddy only paid $9 for the 3 side dishes and 2 drinks.

Later, Andrew and his dad came over and brought me a set of Christmas train, so I can put them under my Christmas tree. Yaayy! Thank you, Andrew. It was a great day today, especially because I get a sugar rush by eating some sweets when packing the goodie bags and drank the sweet ice tea from City Barbeque :)

Thanks Bebe and Dudud who tried to call me, but I didn't want to talk :) I just don't like to talk on the phone sometimes.

Tonight, Mommy and I prayed and giving thanks for all the best 3 years of my life. I am very thankful for having Daddy & Mommy who love me so much and also Grandpas, Grandma, Aunties, Uncles, and all Daddy & Mommy's friends who spoiled me sometimes :)

That's my 3rd birthday today.

jon & matt taking a studio pictures

Daddy had a photo shoot project at home, and when finished Matt & I are taking advantage of the setting and we had good times posing and playing with pinecones, while holding a fork :)

our christmas tree is up!

yaaay! Our Christmas tree is up and bright. I love it.

I couldn't wait yesterday when Mommy told me we're going to put our Christmas tree up.

And just after nap, Mommy, Daddy and I went to the basement to get the tree and the ornaments. I helped to carry the ornament, clean-up the space, and my favorite thing is I put the 'star' tree top by my self. Mommy and I were very busy putting things on the tree, and Daddy was busy taking my pictures :) But, Daddy hasn't take the picture of the finished tree.

I really looove my Christmas tree, because all of my little soft toys are up, and all the big fluffy soft toys are under the tree.

It is nice and bright. Mommy even put the boombox behind the tree, so I could start to learn some of Christmas songs.

I even start to read Christmas story with Mommy & Daddy. I am more excited about Christmas than my birthday next week.

( Half finished tree)

turkey day

Turkey day, or Thanksgiving day.. is more like 'lebaran' indonesia, told Mommy. Many people travel to go to visit their family and relatives. They have a big meal with a roasted turkey as the main dish, and ofcourse acommpanied by the mashed potatoes and gravy, greenbeans caseroles, cranberries sauce, and lots of sweet deserts :). But as Indonesians we always modify the food, and sambal on the side.

Today, I went to oma Aychu for the Thanksgiving dinner. (Mommy forgets to bring her camera, so no picture :( There're so many people there. It's a mix party of families and college students. It's nice that they have this split level basement with a pingpong table, so the kids can play and run around freely. The food were extraordinary good and plenty. Ofcourse oma Aychu cooked the turkey, pastel tutup, sup jagung, and bakso babi.. yumm.. Mommy cooked labu siyem, Matt's mom brought chicken cordon bleu, Glen's mom brought bacon wrapped greenbeans, Jaceyn's mom brought tiramisu, tante Vonny brought rigatoni pasta, and many more I don't even know, because I was busy playing and drink juices.

I met several of my friends whom I don't hang out a lot. I met Glen, Sammy, James and his little brother Dave came from NY, Matt and Michael, Jacelyn, Davin, Sara and her little sister, and there's Maya from Pitts.
Quinny's mom & dad were there, but Quinny went to his grandma's and stay over there for the holiday.

After tired of playing running and chasing around, Mommy asked me to go home, because there's another party at my own house! Om Piter and om Lester cooked a 12 pounds turkey at home, and it smells sooo good. Mommy also said Om Piter's curry puffs were very good. I tasted a little bit of the ham that om Acong brought, then I played again with Andrew.
Around 10pm everyone started to leave because some of them were going to the Jeffersonville Outlets for the black friday shopping.

And for me, time to bed... Happy Thanksgiving everyone...

potty incident

Today, Mommy host the playgroup at home. It's nice because I have to learn to share my toys with my friends. I had some fights over some toys, but it turned out well. The older boys weren't allowed me to play with them, and they even kicked me out from my own bedroom!
But later we're all play together and made some mess around the house, since we couldn't play outside today. It's chilly and windy.
We were playing around the house, the livingroom, my bedroom and in the basement on my 'working area'. I miss some of my friends like Jack, Connor, Megan, Rowen, Aiden, Evelyn and Wyatt because they're in the school now. So today it's only me, Alexander, Caroline, Avery, Hope, baby Brandon and baby Michael. Clara and baby Owen are sick, so they didn't come. It's pretty 'quite' lately, and most of them have to leave early because they go to afternoon school or need to pick up their siblings.

Anyway, around 12.30pm everyone started to leave except Alexander and his mom. I saw Mommy and miss Melissa had a very serious conversation and they're praying, so I thought I wouldn't disturbed them when I need to go to potty. I can do it myself several times, so I just went to the potty without informed Mommy.
Just right after I finished potty, Alexander came to the bathroom looking for me while I was washing my hands, and it ended up we're playing with water. After awhile we had fun together, Mommy and miss Melissa checked on us, and they were surprised and upset to see Alexander took his shirts off and I haven't put my pants on, and we're all wet. I even had the liquid handsoap all over my body, so it's very slippery.
Then when mommy saw the potty, she was very angry, and I was on a time-out right away, so did Alexander. Actually we were putting all stuff into the potty, like 2 rolls of tissue papers, potpouri, straws and plastics from the juice boxes, and even the handsoap bottle!
Alexander and I were very sorry for what we've done, and he had to go home right away, and me... mommy put me on bath and I had a quick lunch and straight to bed for nap.

Hopefully I won't do the same thing again in the future. It was fun, but it wasn't the right thing to do. And I'm just glad that mommy forgives me, eventhough I'm not allowed to have juice boxes for several days because I took the straws into the potty and threw the juiceboxes into the trashcan.

'shoe box' operation christmas child

Mommy told me to participate in Operation Christmas Child from the Samaritan Purse http://www.samaritanspurse.org, it means that I bought and collected toys and other things for my friends who live in another part of the world, who don't have many toys like me. I put them all in a shoe box, but mommy gave me the plastic container so that it can be useful for my friend to keep their toys inside.

I gave toys like cars, ball, doll, binocular, harmonica, crayons, coloring books, toothbrush and toothpaste, fruitsnacks, sandals, socks, t-shirts and some other stuff.

It's pretty hard to do this, because I want them all. Eventhough I already have most of the things, but I want more.

Mommy even wrote the letters for the kids, because I can't write yet.

Hope they like them all and most of all, hope they experience the love of God I share with them.

leaves, leaves and leaves everywhere

This year, I helped mommy and daddy clean-up the yard ( I play more than raking :)) It was soooo fun! I love throwing the leaves, sit on pile of them, raking them with the small rake and my own shovel, and collect some nice leaves in my jack o lantern. The most fun thing is when mommy asked me to stand inside the leaf bag and jump on the leaves to make them packed, or sat on top of the bag with mommy and fell down on the ground.



The only thing I didn't like was when mommy used the blower. I like to see the leaves blowing everywhere, but it was too loud. I told mommy not too loud next time.




When we did the front yard, mommy talk with our neighbor, grandpa John. They talked for quite long, so I just play by myself and I decided to go to the garage to find something. I decided to get into the car, and accidentally I pressed the garage remote control and in just second the garage door closing down. I heard mommy calling me outloud to opened the garage (since mommy was panicked and realized that mommy didn't have her keys, both car or house).


I was panicked too! I cried just right after I knew the garage is dark. And just after I opened it, mommy came to rescue me :)


Hopefully lesson learned :)

javapalooza..

Daddy & Mommy told me that I can come to this 'adult' meeting at xenos. It is very rare occasion, because I usually have to stay at the childcare, so I was very exciting.
This event called Javapalooza. Mommy told me that this event is to raised some money to the needy children in Indonesia, because they don't get the chance to eat enough food everyday, don't have plenty of toys like me, and lotf of them don't go to school. It's great I can be part of it.

I don't really know what's going on on the event because I was very busy playing at the play area with Andrew, Emma, Sophie, and the twins Lucy and Olivia. There was a silence auction with lot of stuff to bid. I'm very glad that Mommy bid the movie tickets and Mc. Donald's gift certificate and got them! We use the Mc.Donald the next morning for a happy meal and I got the 'Marty' the zebra toy.

I went to SLANK concert!

Believe it or not, I went to SLANK concert! I think it was awesome, because I was on the front row so I can see them clearly and amazed by them :) It's cool to see how they play the musical instruments.. and how loud it was. But most the time I spend playing with Andrew on the back :)

Oh oh.. I also watched om Richard sang with his Columbus band. I think they are as cool as SLANK, because I know them :)

red, orange & red leaves, pumpkins, halloween, cold & breezy

fall is coming...

it's nice to see the changes of colors, lots of falling leaves, carving some pumpkins, halloween, feeling warm inside the house and have some fun activities too!

I got the chance to go to a pumpkin patch this year. It was at the Jacquemin Farms http://www.jacqueminfarms.com/ with my school, Kindermusik. Tante Yiklit and Om Dudud came along with us, and we picked a big pumpkin, and 2 small pumpkins for me and Matt.

I took a hayride to the patch and I rode an unused tractor on the sie. It was awesome to see hundreds of pumpkins there. I would picked the biggest pumpkin if I can carry it :)

I watched tante-tante carved the pumpkins. I like the cat better :) Mommy made some cookies with the pumpkins, om Piter cooked pumpkin soup, and Matt's grandma cooked the pumpkin like labu siyem, which I like :)

I went to the zoo early in the morning with my playgroups friends, Alexander, Avery, Hope & Clara. It was pretty chilly in the morning. I have to wear my gloves and hat. There're no more rides except merry go round, because the season is over. I saw some big animals up close, like bison, grizzly bears, moose, eagles and also wolves, sea otters who were very playful.

(Watching the big Bison eating some frozen grass)

(Playing with the Recycle Wheel inside the Habitat Hollow with Clara)

When the Halloween came, I dressed up as a cute little froggy. I went to Glen's house for trick or treat. So many kids and grown-up were dressed up. All my Indonesian friends were dressed up too. They're: Abby the sweet ladybug , Glen the Batman, Sammy the little Nemo, Andrew the Caterpillar, Jacelyn the Pink Unicorn, Matt the little Zebra, and even Michael the sleepy little doggie :) I got a bunch of sweets, but I can eat just 2 pieces :( I had diarrhea a couple days before the halloween. It was fun to go with some friends and collect candies, eventhough I saw some scary decorations with scary sounds and scary people with costumes.

daddy's birthday

Today, October 22nd is Daddy's birthday.
Last night, when I was ready to snooze, suddenly I heard a loud noise of people singing happy birthday to Daddy as they passed my bedroom. I was shocked and jumped out of the bed. When mommy checked me out, I started to cry. I don't know why, maybe I was in shocked.

Then everyone went down to cut the cake. It was a tiramisu cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory (I took some bites for my breakfast this morning, yuumm.. :) When I got back and realized that everyone was there to give a surprise for daddy, suddenly the front door open and I saw om Lester, Piter and Erik saying 'surprise'! And I was shocked and cried out loud again :)
But then it was fun to play with the candles and saw everyone eat the cake and some ate dinner's leftover.

Thank you om Ricat, Dudud, Piauw, Ray, Lester, Piter and Erik, and also my new lovely babysitter, tante Janet :)
It was a surprise and lovely night.. and Daddy asked me to sleep with him last night.

Here's a gadget for daddy, for his love of grilling :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY! love you, nitey nite, sleep tight, sweet dreams...

going on 3

I will be 3 this December, and there're a lot of changes in my characters, attitudes, knowledges, and inteligence beginning on my 2.5 years of age. Here what's happening...

Start last summer, around late June, I started to love 'Oasis' Xenos Children Ministry. I starts to involve in some activities and socialize with other kids. I still remember how hard it was for mommy to put me there that mommy decided not to take me to Oasis for at least 6 months, because I would scream and cry for at least 30 minutes until mommy got paged every week.

And now, I go to Xenos every week with a ritual of getting a donut after the class and play for a while at the playground. Sometimes we have the same ritual accompanies with Quinny.

My involvement in Xenos' playgroup also make a big deal on how I feels more secure to play with Americans. I starts to learn English and communicate with my American friends in a language that is super hilarious, said Mommy. English, mix Indonesian with Javanese accent and some make-up words.

"Alexandeh, whatca doing?... I'm having the saos.. Hey, why you doing that?... Is mine.. It's my mainan"

(That's my friend Alexander on the picture while we tried to find fish in the creek)

I also like to read, write and color. I like writing the letter 'H', and learn to color inside the boundaries. I can read letter A,B,C,H,J,N,O,S, and T. I love to sing and learn many new songs. Mommy sang to me Indonesia Raya the other night before bed and after the lights off, I sang out loud,"Indonesiaaa.. darahku tumpah di tanah!" Mommy was exploding with laugh and ran to tell Daddy.

Other thing, I just love playing with my closest friends, Andrew and Matthew. We have different characters, but they know me the most and we grow together.

Mommy says it's just lovely to have me around, to see how silly I act, say funny words and sentences, and also to see how smart I am, even though I still needs some time-outs, but it's part of my learning process. I am a toddler, a stage of learning, growing and loving, so everyone should bear and keep up with me...