I love miss E

Miss Eerika's words tonight

"I will miss you when I'm a missionary"

"Do you think Saku and I can have babies?" 

Me: you mean if your bodies will be able to have babies

E: "yeah because some people are too sick"

Me: I hope so

E: when you are a mummi, if i dont want my kids to have candy, you need to ask me first before giving it to them.

"I can't wait to grow up"

She was also extremely kind to Saku today. When Saku was trying to pull the recycling can inside with one hand while holding his lunch box, Eerika offered to help him.

Eerika's Spy Party

Eerika wanted a spy party for her 5th birthday. I don't know where the idea came from except that she "likes being sneaky".

We went all out with the invitations and delivering the invitation.  We drove up to each friend's house, Eerika climbed out of the car in all black and delivered the invitation on to their door step. She rang the doorbell and ran back to the car. She was so excited to do it that at the first house she actually ran back with the invitation in her hand.

The friends were invited to come and use their spy skills to solve the mystery of the stolen royal jewels. So our party bags had ring pops for each kid. Eerika decorated the bags.

This is the face of the girl few hours before the party. She did get whacked by a hockey stick that morning which left a bit of a mark on her cheek.

This sign was at the front door to welcome friends in. It was cute to hear the gentle, quiet knocks from most of the kids. Eerika obviously dashed to the door each time.

We started the party by having each kid finger printed.

And the kids got to choose a spy name. Eerika was chose "pink pony" and Saku "lightning bolt".

  We had sunglasses for the kids as sunglasses seem to be a classic spy prop. We only got silly pictures with Clara as she showed up early.

  

Our games included Simon Says, a laser maze made with streamers and hide and seek. 

Since the party was from 2-4 pm, we only had a little snack for them and we ended up putting a table cloth on the living room floor since there was no way to seat nine kids. It actually worked really well. Juice boxes, string cheese, apple sauce pouches, red vines and oreos made up their snack.

Between snack and cake,  we did our scavenger hunt for the royal jewels. I hid a clue for each child and they first had to find their clues and then we read them all and the kids raced upstairs to find them.

We made a bomb cake. I baked it and Troy decorated it. Though we decided that this will be the last cake to be made since no one really seems to like cake. 

I loved that Eerika's party consisted of kids that are truly her friends. What a serious blessing since we have only been here for six months. 

Luke and Eerika go to pre-K together.

Cheney was the first play date for Eerika.

Grace is another pre-K friend.

Norah is year older, but they play well together.

Clara is one of the sweetest girls and a good friend for Eerika.

Adria is in Eerika's sunbeam class and the girls seem to really enjoy each other's company.

The party was loud and crazy and Eerika loved it. 

God's Hand in Our Lives

Today I was preparing for my lesson for Sunday school and the topic really spoke to me about seeing God's hand in our lives. 

While I truly love living here in Colorado Springs, and I honestly don't wish to be back in Tucson, there are growing pains and some degree of loneliness when it comes to establishing your life in a new place. Or maybe there is a certain degree of loneliness just in adult life. I had few days of texting back and forth with old friends and I was almost scared to put myself out there with new people. One Thursday morning, I prayed for a friend. Within an hour, Jess texted me about going to body pump class with her. It was such a clear answer to my prayer. 

This weekend was a social weekend for our family. On Friday Jess and her kids came over after school for a play date and all the kids, including Aleksi, happily played together. It felt effortless to chat with her which was a huge blessing. On Saturday, the Sidwell family came over for dessert and again, we really enjoyed ourselves. It was nice to see Troy chatting away as he doesn't get the same social opportunities as I do with play dates and the gym. The kids were crazy but happy together. 

On Sunday we went over to the Brinton family for dinner. It was nice to be invited into someone's house and have a relaxing night.

I am writing this down so I can remember that when I put the effort in and when I reach out for people, good things take place and I need to be more willing to swallow my pride and get out of my comfort zone and just ask people to spend time with me and our family. 

Other note worthy things around here:

Saku is currently reading the 4th Harry Potter book. He can read so quickly. But I think he reads much like I do, he doesn't get quite all the details due to his high speed and desire to know what happens next. And to make things even more fun, he has a piano homework of learning a Harry Potter theme song. There were some tears tonight as Troy was trying to have Saku count the appropriate rhythm and notes and Saku felt like Troy was pushing too hard. I am writing this down because I feel like this is the first time that this has occurred. It could have been me just as well. How to push them to reach their potential but not make them feel like a failure for not getting it perfect right away.

Eerika has started gymnastics and she is such a perfectionist so she has struggled with the fact that Saku's bridges and handstands are better than hers and that she can't do everything perfectly yet. Today we practiced many handstands during the day and she actually improved already quite a bit. It is good to have this growing experience and learning to not give up. Gymnastics is very hard and it requires a lot, so this will give her a good foundation of trying hard things. Eerika has made progress with her reading and can sound out words such as "me" and "see". Or she has them memorized, but either way she feels better about he reading. She has also started to show interest in playing the piano. She has figured out few simple songs and does an impressive song trying to figure them out. 

Aleksi loves to walk around saying "mamamamama". He is constantly trying to get on the computer and bang on the keyboard. He likes to sit on the piano and play music just like Saku and Eerika. 

Ordinary things that I want to Remember

As it snowed yesterday, Eerika asked me who was in charge of the snow. I asked her what she thought and she came up with "Jesus". Then she wondered if "he uses a remote control". 

Aleksi learned to sign "yes", which brings his word count to four in sign language:dog, more, please and yes.

Aleksi is also quite fanatic about watching shows while driving in the car. He points at the screen and signs "more". And while I am quite the fanatic of not letting kids watch tv, he kind of manipulates me into it. And Eerika, very happily, informs me "Aleksi wants to watch a movie" as if she wouldn't have any interest in it herself. 

Aleksi will give you a big open mouth kiss when you ask for one. He will also bite you every once in awhile, though it isn't out of spite. He just seems to want to take a nibble. 

Saku has been shoveling our drive way. And spend a good hour and a half outside when it was about 30 degrees outside. 

Eerika and I finished our first chapter book today. It was "Anna and Elsa" chapter book; however, while it wasn't great literature she was engaged in it and loved just listening to it. Before she has said that chapters books were too hard for her to listen. So I take this as a win. We snuggled together under blankets and with the kids' rice bag warmers while Aleksi kind of roamed around. 

We have started doing reading lessons with her and while she knows the right sounds, somehow putting them together seems very hard for her. We might have a long road ahead of us with reading, but I might be wrong. She has a very strong foundation in math, which is nice so something will come more naturally for her in school. 

Big Kids Updates

Saku loves snow. He loves it so much that our most effective form of discipline is to threaten to take away his snowsuit if he doesn't do what he is supposed to do.  He has also gone skiing twice this year and mastered coming down the mountain doing "S".  This kid is usually hot and refused to sleep in pajamas in Tucson. The Colorado winter has changed his mind and he finally wears pajamas. 

His favorite friends are James and Emily. James does tease him about liking Emily and while it bothers Saku, he doesn't let it ruin either one of those friendships. 

He posed for me in this way when I wanted to take a picture of the awesome leather jacket that Ukki and Mummi got for him for Christmas. The new church suit was from Grandma.

Eerika loves to write things down and her newest skill is typing things on the computer. 

Eerika's favorite friends are Luke, Owen and Grace. She goes to preschool with these kids so they are 

She is so witty. She has also shown plenty of drama lately which has made us struggle. She is a very confident girl which we embrace but now we need to work on some humility and kindness when playing with friends. She definitely wants to dominate the game and be a leader. 

Today she informed me that I had promised to make her a sandwich for lunch. When I said I didn't remember this conversation. She said "Maybe your mind is horrible". Troy and I just started laughing. 

She showed her kindness last night as Saku and she were playing some silly game that involved throwing magnatiles. Saku threw one at her face, it cut her lip and there was blood everywhere. Once the bleeding stop, we found Saku hiding in his room and crying because he felt so bad. Eerika said "I want to something" which followed by "It's ok. I am not mad at you. It just hurts". A little moment of forgiveness that felt good. 

Eerika was blessed to wear Ella and Julia's handme downs for the last four years, but now that we don't live near them anymore, I finally shopped for her.  It was fun to choose clothes that fitted her personality.

Idyllic Fall Photo Shoot

In October it was time to rake some leaves so I figured that I should try to capture some pictures of the kids playing in the leaves. Saku was at school, as it seems to be the case a lot, so Eerika and Aleksi were my photo objects.

I am obviously no professional photographer, but I think these pictures capture some of the fun that we had that day. Eerika happily complied when I asked her to throw some leaves in the air. 

Grossarth Turkey Trot

On Thanksgiving morning, we ran a Grossarth Turkey Trot. Isi made these awesome bibs on powerpoint and we ran about 1/4 mile race. Saku won. Eerika and I got second and Isi and Aleksi took a third place.  Through our week in Phoenix, I went running and it was nice to be running on lower altitude and flat streets.