BEING ELMO

This is one amazing documentary that I hope will hit theatres in Indonesia. This was featured on E! News yesterday (yes, a woman deserves a bit of celebrity news once in a while). I love the story of Kevin Clash, the puppeteer behind Elmo - how he had a calling for puppeteering from an early age, and got teased by his friends because of it, yet he continued to fight for his passion and finally landed a job with Sesame Street. That just gives hope to so many kids out there who have a passion which might not be mainstream but if it's a passion, they should stick with it and their parents should support them as much as possible.

Take a look at this and tell me if it's not heartwarming :)

YUM CHARITY GARAGE SALE

YUM organized it's first charity garage sale on October 16th and it was a great success! We sold second-hand clothing, toys, books, accessories and even had a bake sale with cakes made by the YUM staff and volunteers. It was a tiring yet fun event. Thank goodness, we had help from our volunteers, Beata and Kim, as well as 5 energetic JIS students who were helping out during their school break.

Here's a slideshow of photos made by Beata:

HALLOWEEN INSPIRATIONS

Halloween is coming up and The Cooking Playdate girls & I are planning to have a Halloween-themed gathering very soon. So of course, with a bit of time on my plate, I went through my fave site pinterest and found a couple of amazing halloween inspired decorations & ideas for a party. Have a look and you might be inspired to make a party too!

I also found 2 sites with great halloween costume ideas: go here and here if you're curious :)

Liz from Say Yes to Hoboken shared a great idea to decorate your pumpkin and also some free Halloween printables

THE COOKING PLAYDATE #4

We haven't been doing our monthly Cooking Playdate for quite some time now. First came the summer holidays, then back to school, and of course Ramadhan. We finally had some time early this month, but just in a casual sort of way, so the kids could play together as well as us getting some cooking done.

The theme we had was real simple cooking, with a healthy twist. We decided to make Spaghetti with vegetable bolognaise sauce, a peach tea (with real peaches) and Strawberries with Vanilla Honey Yoghurt dip. 

Did a lot of chopping for the vegetable bolognaise (even Sandri joined us!)...hehehe...

The result of mixing a little bit of minced meat, garlic, onions, mushrooms, celery and carrots, all diced in small cubes (you'll find the recipe in The Cooking Playdate blog).

This peach tea is always a hit whenever Ranie makes it. Just use tea (make black strong tea in a pot of boiling water), add ice, mix with real peaches and it's juice (in a can) and a little bit of sugar.

These strawberries were also a big hit, especially with the kids. I had got some strawberries from Cipanas the days before and they were really juicy. The dip was made with: Cimory natural yoghurt + vanilla essence + honey. Just try it out before you serve to make sure it's not too sweet or not sweet enough.

Here's an additional photo of the day: the kids were totally wet after being sprayed by Sandri & Arka. They loved being soaked!

KIRK FRANKLIN - I SMILE

Stumbled upon this beautiful gospel song while listening to the weekly iTunes review I downloaded. It's a really happy pick-me-up song, but even better 'cause there's the appearance of Ms. Jill Scott looking so fine (love her earrings!)...

CATE PARR ILLUSTRATIONS

I find these fashion illustrations just absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous! By Cate Parr, found on thecoolhunter's website...

AMAL'S BIG BOY ROOM

This post inspired me to put up pictures of my son's room, which we just finished decorating. I think it's really important for a child to feel happy and content in his room. Amal chose himself the colors of his walls and I like that it's quite spacious enough for him to play in.
It took a while to decorate this room because we decided to give him a big bed instead of his small one that he had previously. Also, we repainted a bookshelf that my parents had and generously gave for him to use.

Amal's bookshelf and drawing board, with paintings he had made when he went to the Abrakadoodle camp this summer

Lots and lots of books :)

The "big boy" bed and on the wall is a map of the world I had bought 10 years ago when I was a student in Paris

Amal's clothes cupboard (previously owned by his dad) with Amal's paintings above it

The study area where he's supposed to be doing his homework (though he still prefers to do it in the living room!)

ALL THINGS FRENCH

My mom came back from France 10 days ago and brought back some very french things for me: Le Petit Marseillais shower gel in Peach & Nectarine scent, some fresh herbs like thyme, lavender and raz-el-hanout to make couscous and some colored pastas for Amal's lunches :)

ABSTRACT POLAROIDS

Love these abstract polaroids, especially the one with the many unicolored ones (middle photo). I'm ashamed to say I don't have a clue where I got these because it was a really long time ago, but I found them again while browsing my computer and thought I'd share with you the joy of these beautiful colors :)

HAPPY WEEKEND :)

Some photos taken recently...

Homemade quiche & spaghetti at the Rekso's housewarming party on September 10th

The lovelies, Mabel and Sabine, who calm my heart whenever I long for a daughter :)

And my baby who just lost his upper tooth!

COMMUNITY SERVICE AT DESA YUM CIPANAS (part 2)

Et voila! Here are the results of the hard work that was put by the 200 JIS students who came to Cipanas:

 New colored bookshelves for the library

Repainted playground equipments

Repainted gazebos for the kids to hang out and do their homework

A recycle station

A children's flower garden

And health and environmental signs to put all around the Cipanas Community Center

COMMUNITY SERVICE AT DESA YUM CIPANAS (part 1)

A few weeks ago, around 200 students from the Jakarta International School came to the Cipanas YUM Village (CYV) to learn about organic farming. However, since they were there, they decided that they would like to help out the CYV in any way they could. This was a first for YUM and we were overjoyed! A mutual decision was agreed for the JIS students to help out in renovating the playground, repainting some bookshelves and cupboards, making a children's flower garden, making a recycle station and doing some craft and sports activities with the local children. Here are the photos below of the activities: