Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

We got invited a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt and Brunch. The kids enjoyed way too much sugar and so did I. I made some pulla and they were a hit.  

Eerika wore her cute Easter dress courtesy of Grandma, of course. And Saku wore his Easter outfit of Lighting McQueen and shorts made by Grandma.

The kids were excited about finding the eggs and opening their eggs. But again, I am reminded that the kids would be just as happy with five eggs as they were with their 10.

Watermelon, fruit roll and cup cake for lunch.

Jacob and Eerika have not really learned to play well together, but they are cute!

Saku was excited!

I always look like "a good mom" when Eerika is sporting her theme dressers. I always do give the credit back to Grandma.

Can you just say "go" already?

Playing duck-duck-goose while waiting for moms to hide the eggs. 

Leprechaun and Marshmallows

Thanks to grandma our kids showed their green pride on St. Patrick's Day. 

The kids woke up to a fun surprise of green water in the toilet bowl. We couldn't believe that the leprechaun had peed in our toilet and forgot to flush! Thanks Hilary for the easy and fun idea. Saku especially appreciated it since we are constantly reminding him that he needs to flush the toilet. 

Our leprechaun was original and left marshmallows instead of gold coins. And the kids were just fine with it. A treasure is a treasure. And since we are in the middle of a big backyard project, there were easy spots to hide the treasure.

Saku's treasure was under a big rock.

 Marshmallows before breakfast? Yes please!

Eerika found her treasure on a big pile of dirt.

Classy lady with a PJ shirt, diaper and her aviators.

He stuffed his mouth full of little marshmallows.

I think she has a celebrity look with her aviators and messy head.

I love these skirts that Grandma makes for her for different holidays. She chose this pose herself. 

I love the fact that with few very small things I was able to make our St. Patrick's Day a fun event for the kids. Colored milk, toilet water and a treasure of marshmallows made the kids happy. 

BMX baby

Few weeks ago we got invited to the a birthday party at BMX bike track. We had never done anything like this. We brought the kids' bikes with us and helped them go through the course. Saku was able to go up and down all the big hills while Eerika and I had to skip one of the big ones.  Saku was even able to do few of the small ones on his own without any help from Troy.

Ironically, it was Saku's friend's party, but I only have pictures of Eerika and myself. 

Cute little biker girl. 

We got a good work out as we pushed through the course.

Eerika would make  "vroom vroom" sound as I pushed her. It was awesome.

My favorite girl!

Quotes

Saku throwing dirt in the trench that we had been digging. Isi asks Saku to stop. Saku's response " I can't resist". 

Isi asks Saku to go and get him a shovel after isi had jack hammered and needed to get rid off the loose dirt. Saku's response "you have two feet you can go and get it". 

We often tell Saku to go and get his own plate or a cup or a spoon at dinner time and I often tell him "Heavenly Father gave you two feet so you can walk and get (blank) on your own". Well he decided to use our own line on Troy.

Eerika and I were being silly about something and I told her "no way". She quickly told me "yes way".

After a double stroller run I lifted Eerika out of the stroller and she kindly told me "stinky" and laughed. 

Little bit of pouty lip

The girl mastered her pouty look at a young age and still continues to show it as often as she feels the need. 

Tonight

Tonight I am sitting in the dark. It is 7:35 pm and Saku is asleep. Eerika is still awake in her bed, but I am hoping that she is quickly fading into the dream land.

As every Tuesday, Troy went straight from work to mutual. We shoveled rock. We ate dinner. Thekids showered to remove all the dirt and dust. We had PJs on at 6 pm and we played hard for an hour. There was  hide and seek. Reading tons of books and wrestling with your sibling while äiti takes pictures. 

These pictures capture our moments better than any words. 

I think she is pretty happy with her life.

I think this picture could be in a Baby Vogue if such a magazine existed. Look at that messy hair and beautiful eyes.

Saku pretend sleeping. His poor cheeks need some lotion!

Saku's favorite thing to do. OK, maybe not favorite but he sure likes to make this face.

"I am so funny" laugh after making the face above. 

Best of friends. Worst enemies. Couldn't love them more. 

"äiti help me" she said

She is finally talking.

I think I can finally say that Eerika is talking. She can say full on sentences such as  "where did isi go?" or "come hide äiti".  And I hear ""äiti help me" a lot:)

I do not believe in comparing your children, but I have to say that Saku was always a very clear speaker. It was easy to understand him. 

Eerika, on the other hand, has her own language. She says words but there is much translation that I have to do for other people. 

However, it doesnt mean that I am not very proud of her and the progress that she has made in the last few weeks. Her language development has truly been an example of how sometimes learning things slowly can be very rewarding. 

Saku loves to play "Eerika say bumble", "say bee", "say chair" and he can keep naming objects for good five minutes and she repeats them. Some of the words can be understood and some are definitely not any way near of real words:)

And her primary language is English when it comes to full on sentences. Yeah, it kind of breaks my heart but we are just too much surrounded by English and I just speak way too much English to them. So our five week trip to Finland can not come soon enough for their Finnish language development. Ukki better speak 100% Finnish when he comes in a week and a half so all of us can get a better handle on our Finnish!

Neverland

Last Friday was our planned Fun Day. We started the day by going on a hike in the Saguaro National Park. We hiked for about two hours and covered 1.4 miles. It was mostly fun with few frustrating moments when Eerika started to run the wrong way and made us walk extra mileage when Saku was "so exhausted" in his own words. Saku also tripped over, which resulted in a small amount of blood and a lot of wailing. A man happened to pass us at the trail while Saku was crying. He did not make any eye contact. I found it very funny. Maybe we were just too scary of a sight for him with a mom and two young kids...

Overall I am proud of the kids and their energy and endurance to walk for that long. We were fueled by string cheese, animal crackers and PB&J sandwiches. 

Stopping for a water break. Drinking from Camel Pak makes drinking water so much more fun. 

Once we finished the hike, we headed to Target. You know you live in the "country" when going to Target becomes part of your adventure. We filled our cart with popcorn, root beer, bubbles to blow and  bubble bath bubbles.

After Target our next and fortunately final stop was the library. I am so happy to say that library is one of my kids' favorite places. Most of the time we have 40+ books checked out. They truly share my love for books. 

In the evening, we had planned a movie night with Peter Pan. We also made some cookies and the kids excitedly watched the whole movie. Eerika got little wiggly at one point, but it was a successful evening. 

Due to some technical difficulties, we ended up having to watch the movie on the computer. Fortunately,  the kids  didn't care one bit. They were happy with the movie night and the cookies. 

Kids engaged with the movie.

I had promised that we could have a sleep over in my room, so once the movie was over we headed downstairs. The kids were so wild. They jumped on the bed and I was afraid that they would never go to sleep.

After few books, we turned off the lights. Saku was asleep in few minutes and Eerika even laid next to me quickly for a long time. I could tell that she wasn't asleep so I finally asked her if she wanted to go to her own pack-n-play. She said yes, which I was happy about, and I think everyone was asleep by 9:30. 

Miss E had her pack-n-play set up because she hasn't quite mastered the art of sleeping with other people in the same bed. 

Blurry picture that captures the excitement from Miss Eerika that she got to sleep with äiti. 

Every day can't be an adventure and I don't think every day should be something extraordinary, but I have tried to make our lives a little bit more like Neverland of fun, laughter and love. So yesterday we spent an hour and a half playing Peter Pan in the backyard. Eerika would happily yell "fly fly" and we would fly away from Captain Hook or the ticking crocodile. There is a kid's laughter and then there is kid's laughter that is so magical and pure. I got to listen to that magical laughter as we flew and flew and replenished our pixie dust every once in a while. 

On another note, I am very happy that Troy is coming home in two days. Putting kids to bed for two weeks by yourself is exhausting. Saku also informed me today that "cleaning is exhausting" and "toys are exhausting". 

Day 7 since Troy left to Japan. I am doing well. The kids are doing well, except for a bruised face for little miss and a nasty cough for Saku. I dont feel like life has been much harder since he left (granted it has only been seven days, I am not pretending that I am single mom or anything), BUT it is boring. I want that man back here so I can have some fun! Don't get me wrong. The kids have been great and we have done lots of fun things, but most nights, I am ready for bed by 9 pm just because why stay up by myself? I guess I have been doing more blogging:)

Tonight I feel blessed. 

The Nielson family had us over for dinner. After eating dinners with the kids for a week, it was such a treat to eat with adults. I am very grateful for their generosity and hospitality. I almost wanted to pray that someone would have us over for dinner, but it seemed silly since we didn't really have a big need. I think Heavenly Father still answered that wish in my heart. 

Troy gets to go skiing in Japan. How awesome is that. I mean it 100% sincerely. What an amazing experience that he so deserves after working 60+ hours there. 

My calling is a nursery worker, which means that I hang out with 2 year olds for two hours. This also means that I do there what I do every day at home. However, today I realized what a privilege it is to watch Eerika interact with the other kids and leaders. She comes and plays with me but there are times I think she forgets that I am there. She very much likes Brother Jacobs (Casey) and loves to be silly with him. Now that she is talking more, I feel that she is truly blossoming.

After I made all those phone calls yesterday to find someone to give Eerika a priesthood blessing, few of my friends called back hours later to check on Eerika. And people offered to watch Saku in case I needed to go to urgent care with Eerika. We have only been in this ward for little over a year, but I feel so well taken care of by the people around us. It is a huge blessing. 

I wore my mother's old skirt to church. After she died, I went through her closet and picked out few things that I might wear one day. It felt nice to wear something that was hers. 

I have been running. It is nothing crazy. Easy three milers on the treadmill in the evenings, but it makes me feel good. I still can't decide what my next running goal is, so I am just hoping to maintain my endurance, weight and love for running. 

And down she goes

Our quick walk to the mail box ended up with blood, "Saku run little faster",  "I am running fast", sweet little girl crying and very much worried äiti. 

We walked to the mailbox in our single jogger. Both kids were sitting on it while I pushed. When Saku got up to open the mail box and while I was bending over to get the mail, Eerika decided to stand up and lean over the side where I push the stroller. Yeah, the stroller fell down so fast and she went down with it. I could hear the terrible smack when her little face hit the ground. 

I am sure we were quite the sight as I was pushing the stroller, carrying a child and some mail while Saku is running behind us with rest of the mail. 

The nose bleed didn't last long, which was nice and made everything little easier. However, she just wanted to cuddle and asked to go to sleep. Of course, that is the worst thing after she had just hit her head. She would be just fine until I tried to have her open her eyes so I could check her pupils and make sure that she was acting normal. I could tell her forehead and nose were bruising up as well.

I called about 10 different families in our neighborhood to try to get someone's husband give her a blessing since Troy is away. No luck. Everyone was out and about. I did a small freak out moment as she seemed sleepy and I wasn't sure what I should do. I was debating whether to take her to the urgent care or not. I made a call to our personal nurse Starla, pediatric ED nurse, who confirmed my conclusion that urgent care wouldnt do much for her at this point since she wasn't showing any symptoms except the bumps and bruising. 

Sweet girl finally took a nap around 2 pm and I woke her up promptly at 4 pm to check on her. She complained of her nose but other than that she was fine.

She was acting like her crazy self by dinner time, so I am feeling calm about her status now. I think I will wake her up few times tonight to make sure she is okay. Saku said two beautiful prayers for her well being and was so well behaved and understanding of all the extra attention that Eerika required today. When I asked if we should take her to the doctor, he said "No way". Not a fan of doctors:)

Tonight I am ever so grateful for these two kids. I am grateful for my little boy's faith to pray for his sister. I am grateful for my faith that I know that Heavenly Father hears Saku's prayers and answers them. I am grateful that miss Eerika is okay and sassy enough to ask for extra food when it is bed time. And you know that I totally gave in and we had a little cereal snack at 8 pm. I am grateful for technology that allows me to Facetime with Starla so she can reassure me. And of course, I am grateful for Troy's ability to stay connected with us while he is so far away. The man is working way too many hours and staying so positive about it. I am grateful for him. in. so. many. ways.