Christmas Party

Every year for the past 6 years we have been celebrating christmas at the Chamberlain's residence. It's always a special party and the kids love it because Santa comes and he brings presents for everyone!

This year the tradition came to an end...... Unfortunately...for us..... the Chamberlains are leaving JIS. We wish them all the best in Geneva !

Noah's Christmas Show

Noah was in his first big show last week , when he performed in the PIE ' Show of Lights'.

It was really nice to see him on stage singing and enjoying himself .

Are we witnessing the first Sietsma (besides my mum) who actually has some musical talent?

Doubt it!.............but who knows? Time will tell!

Ayla's New Best Friend

After the Christmas Party at the Chamberlain's, Ayla told us that she has a new best friend.

It's Rob, aka Grandma!

Check Out the pictures and you will know why !

One of the reasons why we all love Rob!

Posers

Check out our cute little posers!

If they are in the right mood, they take great pictures, but unfortunately they are not always like this......

Noah Turned 6

Believe it or not, but our little man turned 6 last week.

For his actual birthday on Tuesday he choose to go to his favorite restaurant Pizza Hut just with the 4 of us. His Birthday Party was on Saturday when 8 little and very loud rascals came over to the house for a pool party.

Check out the photos!

T-Ball

T-Ball season is here! Soccer is over and T-ball started 2 weeks ago

For those of us, who have no idea what T-ball is....It's basically Baseball for little kids. They hit the ball from a stand (called a 'T')and run the bases, just like in real baseball. There is a batting team and a fielding team and each game ends in a tie (to keep all the kids happy!)
Noah plays for the Angels and seems to enjoy it.....so far. As long as he can be active and spend time with his friends he is usually happy.

Diploma A

For the past 2 years Noah has been going to swimming lessons every week at the NIS .
In the Dutch swim system you can first get your swim proficiency certificate. If you get that you can further develop your swim skills by getting diploma A,B and C.

Last Saturday Noah was tested for Diploma A and ......he made it! It was not easy, but he did great. There were 10 kids to do the test and he was one of the youngest ones.
Some of the requirements were : swimming fully dressed 1 laps of breast stroke and 1 lap of back stroke, 2 laps of breast stroke, 2 laps of elementary back stroke, 1 lap of freestyle , 1 lap of back crawl, 1 minute water treading, diving from starting block and underwater swimming for 10 mtrs.

Well done Noah!

The End of Soccer Season

Last Saturday was Noah's last Soccer Saturday. The U-7 kids ended the season with a tournament for all the teams involved and afterwards each kid received a ball, a trophy , a team photo and....pizza!
It was a great day for the kids and a great way to end the season. Noah loved it and wasn't happy when we told him that the soccer season is finished for now.

JIS Road Race

Every year The JIS Road Race is organized for families in Jakarta. You can chosse to participate in the 5k run, the 2.5 fun run or the 100 m dash ( which is for little ones only).
It is a big event which attracts hundreds of people!

This was the first year that we signed up to run as well. Ayla was supposed to do the 100m dash and Noah the 100m dash and the 2.5k fun run.
Ayla refused to run , so Sue ended up carrying her. That was pretty funny......
Noah on the other hand loved it! First he sprinted 100m dash and after that he ran the 2.5 k with me. He not only finished the 2.5k, but also ran most of the way. We were very impressed and so proud of our BIG boy! Well done Noah!

IASAS Soccer

Two weeks ago the 2008 JIS soccer season came to an end with the IASAS tournament taking place in Taipei. IASAS is always a 3 day tournament between 6 schools in the SE Asia region (KL-Singapore-Taipei-Manilla- Bangkok-Jakarta).
This year we had a pretty good team and we were expecting to do well. We did and we had a very good tournament and made it to the final, but unfortunanetly had to settle for silver. We lost the final 3-2 to Taipei because of a very dubious goal 'gifted' to the home team.....
We were the best team out there, but football is a funny game. It's one of few sports where not always the best team wins.

Our kids were great though and we had a fantastic season!

Halloween

Noah and Ayla went 'Trick or Treating' for Halloween last week for the very first time.

Needles to say that they had a fantastic time collecting lots of candy, melting marshmallows in the bonfire and playing with their friends.