My 30th birthday

I love birthdays. And I still expect my birthdays to be awesome. Maybe it is selfish but I feel like that is the one day that is about me so I want to be pampered.

I had three requests this year: a nap, an ice cream cake and a happy children. 

I did not get a nap, but I got a day time movie date with Troy while Saku and Eerika played at Corrye's house and Aleksi slept for an hour and 45 minutes. Just his nap was a good birthday present, plus cuddling with Troy while watching a good movie and not feeling like I am sacrificing my sleep was awesome.

The kids were mostly happy. And that is all I can ask. It is probably a bit unrealistic to expect them to 100% happy all day.

I got my ice cream cake. SO delicious! I had three slices on my birthday and three additional slices on the following two days. 

Two days before my birthday, we went to Monkey Burger to enjoy huge burgers. My one condition was that I didn't want to be holding a baby while eating my birthday dinner. Troy complied.  

The night before my birthday, Troy and Saku had a father-son camp out so Eerika and I made cookies, watched a little mermaid and read a stack of books. She snuggled up next to me and snored through the night:)

The main event of the birthday was a Sabino Canyon Sunset Run. I had emailed few friends to see if they wanted to run with me. There were conflicts such a stake conference talk, pregnancy, recovery from a surgery, husband coming back from 4 month training that weekend that prevented some of my runner friends from coming. However, Corrye, Nicole and Jaden came and we had a great time.

I was undertrained and I probably started out a bit too fast. However I was smart and power walked some of the hills so I would save my legs and then I was able to run a 8:30sh mile on the way down the canyon. Overall pace was 9:05 and I was #10 in my age group. This is the first race that I have done for fun and it was fun. My music didn't work, so I listened to a podcast for the first 45 minutes and then I ran without anything for the other one. It was just me and my thoughts and the beautiful scenery. 

These awesome people were cheering for me and waiting for me. Troy is always so supportive of my running endeavors. Thank you sweetheart. 

This guy didn't make a peep while he waited for me to run and come and feed him. We ended up nursing on the side of trail while sitting on the dirt.

I got a bit overheated as I had a hat on, but I felt good and happy as I finished the 7.4 mile run.

Nicole, Jaden, birthday girl and Corrye

10th in my new age group!

This cake was so delicious. I enjoyed each one of the slices!

Eerika's Big Accomplishments

Eerika gave a talk in primary today. We did the talk together. She drew pictures of the words and we practiced many times. And she rocked it. There is something amazing about watching your child confidently speak in front people. She has a very good memory, so I was not surprised when she gave her talk in such a smooth and confident manner. I stood next to her, just in case, and I am sure I smiled like a proud äiti the whole time, because I sure was.

She has also learned to swim. She doesn't do any strokes yet, but she can swim a good 10 feet on her own. She is excited about swimming in the deep area and pushes herself. It is fun to watch. 

While Troy was at scout camp last week, we had the perfect, awful, combination of Aleksi having ear infection, respiratory infection and first tooth coming through.

He was so miserable. He had fevers for three days. He didn't sleep well because of his cough. I didn't sleep well because he was up and even when he was sleeping, I was worried about the fever in the middle of the night. I was in Phoenix so I wasn't around our friends and the kids' pediatrician. Aleksi wanted to be held all the time which made things challenging and physically tired. 

We survived. Thanks to antibiotics to Saku and Aleksi. Aleksi got a priesthood blessing from Trent. We ate dinner with Trent, Regina and McKenna. Grandma had left some food for us to eat so I had to do minimal cooking.

We also were fortunate as we drove home from Phoenix, Aleksi was crying so I decided to nurse him and give him his antibiotics. Plus Saku was freaking out because Aleksi was crying so much. So we pulled into the McDonald's parking lot. After a 20 minute stop, we tried to get back on the I-10. A sheriff was blocking the entrance and instructed us go another way since there was an accident and the delay was two hours. I was so grateful for Saku's freaking out as we would have all started freaking out if we had spend two hours without moving anywhere on the freeway. 

Troy had a successful camp. He was sick the whole week as well. 

Little Traveler

We have taken trips with all of our kids when they were babies. Saku was 11 months when we went to New York City. Eerika was 4 months in Paris and 10 months in London. Aleksi's first solo trip was to Colorado Springs. 

We are pretty confident travelers, but Aleksi was a bit sick and refused a bottle and nursing when we were taking off from Tucson. He wailed for the first 15 minutes, which made me and I am sure the people around us pretty nervous. Then he fell asleep and was a happy camper after his nap.

Since he doesn't sleep in our arms anymore, the evening flight home was hard as he would fall asleep in my arms, but he would want to move around and he would wake up after 10 minutes or so. He finally fell asleep on the empty seat between Troy and I and got some sleep. 

Showers make sick babies feel much better

The weather was in the 40s and 50s during our weekend there. It rained and hailed.  We literally drove around Colorado Springs for hours as we wanted to see where good neighborhoods would be.  We stayed at Catherine and Jon's house and they were so gracious and generous.  We left Colorado in good spirits and a feeling of confidence that this would be a good move for our family.

King Chef's diner with a delicious breakfast burrito.

He was so relived to be out of the car seat.

Gratitude after a long day

It has been kind of a long day. Not because it was a bad, long day, but a long day with two sick kids and Troy gone to Scout Camp. We are grandma's house so we don't have to worry about keeping the house clean for showings. This is a blessing but someone else's house is always different than your own house.

It is summer break. I have looked forward to this. Of course it probably won't be as good as I have made it in my head, but it is nice to not have a schedule, at least someone else's schedule, to follow. The two coughing kids obviously put a damper on this so it felt like a long day as I tried to think of things that would keep everyone content.

Aleksi took a long time to settle down for his morning nap. He would fall asleep and then wake up as he started coughing. We did this at least four times.  An exhausted sick baby meant that I carried around. And when you carry a baby around, you can't quite focus on your other children as much as I would have liked.

Cereal with strawberries and watermelon was our dinner. Tinkerbell movie helped us all relax. Aleksi fell asleep in my arms as I snuggled him, which doesn't happen anymore. Saku fell asleep while I was reading stories and Eerika got drowsy while I sang to her.

Some nights I am in a hurry to escape the role of a mom for few hours. When the request for another song or story comes, I feel irritated because I have used all of my mental powers and patience in the last 12 hours of mothering. Tonight I decided not to hurry. I sang many songs to her. I tucked her in. I am sure Aleksi will wake up in the next hour. He can't breath well. He fell asleep before he nursed so he will be hungry. I most likely will not sleep well as Troy is gone, Aleksi will be up a lot and Saku will be up and let's be honest, Eerika might be up as well. 

My sweet Aleksi is barely unhappy, and it is sad to see him be miserable. While he snuggled against my chest, I felt so vulnerable for the love I have for him. I have felt that love similarly for the older two when they have been sick and in a fragile state. 

I am so grateful that the fact that Troy's absence and the presence of illness in our home doesn't push me to the edge like it would have few months ago. It is amazing what a difference a month or two can make. I can handle my life again. I can feel confident in my ability to be äiti. I have energy to show love and support to Troy.

And Aleksi just woke up...

Aleksi at 7 months

Aleksi at 7 months

He has found his voice and likes to squeal when he wants our attention. It is not an angry or upset squeal, it is simply "Hey I'm here"

He loves to eat. He has tried many different baby food flavors, puffs, pancakes, tortillas, yogurt, raspberries and avocado and banana. He accidentally got some green chili sauce in his mouth when I was feeding him part of my tortilla and the flavor was clearly too much for him. We have started to eat three meals a day and he still nurses every four hours or so.

He sits like a champion and reaches for toys.

He flips on his back every time we try to do tummy time and work on that crawling business. He can move around in circles on his tummy if he wants to but he doesn't have tons of patience for that.

He moves around in his sleep like crazy and does not like to be held. This made our trip to Denver tricky as he wouldn't sleep in our arms. SO ironic as we held him so much during months 3 and 4. 

He takes two great naps on his own. And now it is summer time which means I don't have to wake him up from his naps for school pick up!

Still wakes up at least twice a night. I have come to terms with this so now they aren't emotionally hard on me and I nurse him quickly and I am back to sleep within minutes so it isn't physically too bad either. Of course I am looking forward to more continuous sleep, but I feel happy and content with our sleep nowadays. 

He loves baths.

He likes sitting in the stroller and going for runs and walks. 

He takes naps in his car seat so well. Our first baby to be happy in his car seat. We put on some white noise, give him his tutti and cover the car seat and he goes to sleep. Of course it isn't as good as napping in his own bed, but it makes mandatory car time much more doable. 

He continues to be a happy and social baby. He is flexible and goes with the flow. 

He wears fashionable bibs to prevent skin breakdown around his neck from the excessive amount of drool that he produces. 

As I look at Aleksi, it blows my mind that Saku was crawling and pulling himself up to standing at this age. However, Aleksi is so content doing his thing that I will enjoy that. Plus he is very strong so I am not worried about a developmental delay. 

When I asked Troy how Aleksi was today (as they didn't come to church due to sickness), Troy said "he was Aleksi" as in  "he was happy".

I love you happy little boy!

Moving Forwad

After Aleksi was born, the 20 minute commute to Saku's school started wearing on me. Driving in a car sucks energy out of me, and the daily one hour school pics up became a major cause of exhausting. I was already high strong about Aleksi's napping and the fact that each day, we spent an hour in the car was hard on me. The fact that Troy took Saku to school each morning meant that he had a hard time getting all of his work done, as he didn't get to work until 8:20sh and, and he tried to be home around 5:45 when I needed some reinforcement during dinner time. Plus I very strongly feel that it is important for us to spend time as a family. 

So around February, I started to bug Troy about moving closer to town.  He didn't feel a need to move, but he understood my need to be closer to places. At first, we talked about Sierra Morado and Rita Ranch area. They didn't appeal to Troy after we had lived in the beautiful Corona and enjoyed the cooler weather and space between houses. Then we found out that Saku's Chinese immersion program might get shut down. As we loved the fact that he was learning another language, we looked up another school in Tucson with Chinese Immersion Program. It was up on the Foothills area, which also happened to be close to Troy's work. It was perfect, except for the fact that houses are about double the price of our current home.  

However, we prayed about moving and felt like we should do it. After hours of work from me, Troy, Paula and dad we got the house ready for sale and listed it on May 1st. 

Right before we listed it, the president of Rincon Research approach Troy about the possibility of moving to Colorado Springs. She knew that we had talked about the possibility of international relocation, so she wanted to check if Colorado Springs would appeal to Troy.

Despite the fact that we didn't know what the job would be like and the fact that I had never been to Colorado, we felt pretty excited about this possibility and decided to pray about it. All of us prayed independently for a week to know whether Sabino Canyon or Colorado Springs would be the place for us. We prayed in different ways and all got the answer that Colorado Springs would be a good place for our family. It was a cool lesson and experience on prayer for all of us. 

Troy went for a visit and came back pretty excited about the job and very excited about Colorado Springs. We just visited Colorado Springs for three days and loved it.

We have received the "we are moving you there" and "negotiate your relocation package", but we don't have official contract or dates yet. However, in my mind we are moving to Colorado Springs. 

The move to Sabino Canyon always felt right, but not just right and when I thought about just staying in Corona, it didn't feel right either. I want to think that Heavenly Father got the moving process going for us, so when this opportunity came along, we were ready to take this step.