Lots to Celebrate!

As if Mom's Day wasn't enough to get excited about, it's also Dad J's birthday as well as Sai's 1/2 bday (yep, we celebrate those too 'round here!) So here's a special post for Mom D & J (Happy Mother's Day!) & Dad J (Happy Birthday!) WE LOVE YOU 3 SOOOO MUCH :)

So before the Bs left for the good 'ole USA, we had 1 final beach afternoon together. They'd found a sweet beach with huge sand dunes that the boys could jump in & around...of course we had to "help" them jump by joining in the fun :) Here's our 5 boys enjoying some homemade ice cream & cookies (thanks to Mama J!) before we head out...

This pix has "Got Milk?" written all over it - what a cute model ;)

Our older 3 guys & Mama J

Jumping off some dunes with our oldest 2...

Lij brave enough to jump off solo: Here's some pix around town with some of our guys - this one's at our local fruit stand:

Outside the big store in town (& yep it's about like a 7-11) - our bike parked in front

Inside our local mart:

Only public slide in town but has a sweet view of the ocean- perfect octopus shape with 3 slides so our oldest ones can all slide simultaneously :)

Our little beach bums!

So J & E fit all 3 guys on our bikes by carrying 2 on 1 bike...go J go!

Stop by to see Lij's good friend Alden:

Using little mosaic pieces to make the letter "H for Hippo" at our little school :)

Shortly thereafter we all flew to Java together (just as the huge earthquake was happening actually) & met up with friends & colleagues for about a week...Lij's 1st jungle gym experience

Got family physicals in the capital - thankfully there were several aquariums in the hospital to help keep the guys occupied between getting poked & prodded!

A haircut was in order for Sai although this is probably the only 5 secs he was completely still...probably because he just grabbed the hairdresser's water bottle.

Hanging out at our friends' place in Bandung: Here's a video showing a bit of Sai' personality on a halfway stop of a fam bike ride...notice how it ends up with him trying to eat the camera! Also on that stop there were some fishermen fishing off the bridge so Sai wanted to hold their catch:

A week ago (yes, we're somewhat up-to-date with these pix!) we went to the capital & the boys had a blast on the new indoor playground in town...

Making "beep beep" sounds, whatta cutie!

Can't believe it's Easter already!

Went to a wedding near the end of last year - finally getting a few pix up! We were invited to come but since the wedding was several hours away they didn't think we'd come - the groom was shocked & honored :)






A little comic relief - pretty sure all 3 of Sai's different looks happened in about a 5 second period of time...




In December we went to Bandung for a couple weeks. We think this picture is very telling of our boys - sweet smiling Lij in the forefront with little Sai in some more hidden struggle in the background :)

5 of our 6 team boys!

Merry Christmas!

Saiah enjoying some corn:

Which dropped shortly thereafter - ah, the drama that has come to this house with #2!


November brought Sai's 1st bday, here's Lij trying to show the bday plates ;)

A birthday brownie which Sai enjoyed the most of all of us as the video shows...


Balloon fun:


A few more pix from the fateful day when Sai got into a can of paint!


Fall time means pool-time here!


Better to be up on the porch to keep the cows from drinking the pool & kids feet out of cow poo!


A sweaty but great Thanksgiving with friends (complete with 2 turkeys shipped in)- Sai could only eat ice chips as he was teething...!


More to come soon, just trying to catch up from the last few months...hope everyone's had a great time celebrating Christmas with family & friends!

Away for awhile...

So in May we had to leave our home due to unrest in the area. We spent about 7 weeks "on the road," sleeping in about 9 different beds...however we did have some pretty memorable moments while our fam was nomadic.

We had already planned a week in Vietnam with Mom & Dad D before we went mobile. We spent one day in an amusement park there in Saigon. The gardens were beautiful so we tried to get family pix, even with the boys' hair pasted to their heads in sweat :)


Lij & Dad enjoying the bumper cars:

As we were heading out of the park, there was a guy making amazing figurines from playdough. We're always impressed at the Vietnamese ability for great detail!

Mom & Dad were so great to be with the boys while we went on a date one afternoon. We ended up at the tallest building in Vietnam with a 360 view of Saigon!

And at the bottom of that huge building was a sign we just couldn't pass up...

So fun to run into Uncle Tim & Aunt Jody in the airport as we were leaving Vietnam!

We got back to Indo & had a couple day team retreat & then our yearly field conference. Here's 3 of our team's 6 boys enjoying the McD's slide:

Lazy afternoon at a playground after lots of field meetings...

After the conference we took the weekend to play - beginning with a minibus ride to grab lunch at a yummy Italian restaurant:

One of many great things about Indo is their love of babies, especially white ones. We were freed up to manage the other 3 boys while our babies were loved on :)

Even had time to snap a few pix of our 3 little men!

Next day was a water park that Lij could really enjoy for the 1st time:


Wasn't long afterwards, we boarded yet another plane & Lij found the best hiding spot ever...

Priceless video :)

And our drive back home over not-yet paved roads during nap time:

Poor Saiah had fallen completely over by the end!

Being back home brought new fun like Saiah's 1st bike ride in his own seat:




Amazingly in the last week a "county fair" type thing has sprung up...


Our date this past week included a campfire, s'mores & 5 curious boys:


These guys had never tried marshmallows before, it was hilarious watching them try to eat them w/o getting sticky! Notice the one boy who only has 1 soccer cleat on, he was sharing the other one with his friend so they would each be able to play...

And finally random fun with a new puzzle from Nenek & Kakek: