Donuts with Dad

Ranch Creek had a Donuts with Dad one Friday morning. It was nice to send the kids off to school with Troy while Aleksi was still sleeping. I also didn't make any breakfast since I figured they would have donuts at school. Then I get a text from Troy saying "this wasn't meant to be breakfast" as in "there isn't enough food". So the kids got one donut and a juice box so Troy ended up coming home for breakfast. But the kids were happy and didn't complain about being hungry so I think it was an overall successful morning.

Eerika's Surgery

This past week has been exciting and exhausting. 

Eerika had a her tonsillectomy. I was naive going into the surgery. I didn't realize how much pain she would be in and how the recovery would really take more than a week to get back into semi-normal life. 

Eerika was so brave on her surgery day. Her surgery was delayed for four hours, which was painful for Eerika as she was hungry and thirsty. A huge blessing was that she napped for two and half hours of that time on the hospital chairs. Troy gave her a blessing in the bathroom as I was worried that we would be rushed once we got to the pre-op area. Eerika was so calm while she was being taken to the O.R. She just laid on the O.R table and inhaled strawberry nitrogen oxide before getting the gas that made her sleepy. She was so calm that it was almost unnerving to me. The surgery was less than an hour and the PACU nurse was nice and Eerika woke up nicely from the anesthesia and had two slushees (sprite and orange popsicle). 

The boys were at the Barker's and Nicole said they had a great and were very sweet.

Eerika was a model patient at the hospital.She took her medicine easily every three hours when the nurses brought it in. The nurses were nice and Eerika and I snuggled through the night.

Steve discharged us early in the morning and we were home around 10 am.

The recover was hard. There were days when Eerika was in a lot of pain and nights were hard as I would wake up with her every 3-6 hours and give her medications. She only wanted me to give her the medication because I am a nurse. But there were nights when it hurt to swallow and she fought me about taking the medication.

I miss Eerika's snoring. It is weird to have her fall asleep and not hear that sound.

When she was finally well enough to do something other than sleep or watch movies. Maybe day 8 after surgery?

Legos for everyone

Saku has loved legos for years. Now Eerika loves them as well and Aleksi is addicted to building as well. He will go upstairs and build on his own. And he is so happy when he gets to build with the big kids. 

 He is also excited to do selfies. 

South Dakota

Our summer was spent with my family, with Troy's family, in the process of moving or recovering from Eerika's surgery, so over Labor Day weekend I suggested that we go camping as a family vacation. 

We spontaneously decided to go to South Dakota to Mt. Rushmore and to camp since it is only 6.5 hours away. New possibliities have opened to us since moving to Colorado and being at a different geographic location. 

Troy scored a great camping site for the three nights that we were there and we enjoyed our new family tent. 

On Saturday morning we went to check out Mt. Rushmore. The picture of the kids and I makes it look like the kids were unhappy to be there but they had a great time. We hiked along the path that had different viewing decks. 

On Saturday morning we went to check out Mt. Rushmore. The picture of the kids and I makes it look like the kids were unhappy to be there but they had a great time. We hiked along the path that had different viewing decks. 

Aleksi didn't sleep well. He had a cough on the first night which kept him up and the other two nights while he wasn't coughing, he was up and wanted to sleep with me. I didn't get great sleep on any of those nights. However, I was able to not get worked up about it.

One of the awesome thing about this trip was the wild life we able to see. There were huge herds of buffalo. 

We fed burros (wild donkeys), saw antelope and prairie dogs. 

We had hot dogs, green chile chicken casserole, smores, peach cobbler, eggs and sausage and cereal for our meals. 

Our tent was awesome. It rained on one of the nights and we stayed dry and everyone had plenty of room. 

 Aleksi was a tired boy and sweetly fell asleep on Troy's lap while we were at the Bear USA park. We saw

We visited Sylvan Lake. There was a mile long hike around the lake. Saku and I did it together at first and then we picked up the rest of the crew and hiked around it again.  I enjoyed spending some one on one time with Saku. Usually Troy goes on the big kid adventure so it was nice to get my turn.

Aleksi was excited to see himself on the selfie image. 

August update 2016

It is end of August. It has been a rather eventful end of the summer with moving, Eerika's tonsillectomy, Troy's family coming to help with our landscaping and Ragnar relay. I have posted on instagram so there is documentation and captions of our life but it isn't quite the same as a blog post.

Saku started 2nd grade. His teacher is Mrs. Craig-Fischi and she seems absolutely amazing. She has a very well planned ideas, she doesnt want busy work and she seems very hands on. We were sad that Saku wasn't part of the immersion but I am very excited for Saku. He is in the same class with Luke, who is our neighbor kid. 

Saku loves nerf guns. He reads a lot and fast. He read five books over the weekend. He is currently addicted to nintendo. Troy set up the old school original nintendo and Saku asks for it a lot. He gets to play for 20-30 minutes after he has done piano practicing and taken care of any other possible chores. He is supposed to read for 20 minutes but let's be honest, I dont really have to push that. 

Saku started piano with Miss Angie and while he is a bit rusty after three month break from piano, I think he will enjoy and do well with Miss Angie. 

Aleksi is 22 months. He is a very happy and silly boy. He is pretty addicted to his tutti and gets to have it way more than Saku and Eerika did. He loves books. He loves blankets. He still likes warm milk before he goes to bed, BUT we are done with the sippy cup which I am very happy about. 

He isn't talking that much. He did learn "no" and "oh no" last week. He loves to go digging outside and he asks for "kiki" which Troy figured out is digging. 

While Aleksi isn't communicating to us with words a ton, he is so perceptive and processing so much. When I told Saku and Eerika that I was going to take a shower, Aleksi quickly came to me because he loves showers. While he was in the shower with Troy, Troy said he hadn't soaped up yet and Aleksi quickly found the soap and handed it to Aleksi.

Aleksi loves church. When I ask the kids to get ready for church, Aleksi yells out "yay" and skips along the hallway. He does pull Eerika's hair and whacks Saku when he is frustrated. But he also gives kisses and hugs and has learned to make the kissing sound when he gives kisses.

He is more and more excited to see Troy and happily goes to him over me. He loves to take his tutti, blanket, and cars with him when he goes to bed and gets out of bed. 

Eerika started Kindergarten. She has gotten in trouble, by her report not her teacher's, for talking too much. She is loving school and she complained that she couldn't stay for the whole day. However, I think she is happy to come home and play with Aleksi and I and also still have the chance for play dates. She comes to our room each night and sleep half of the night on our floor. She doesn't snore anymore because of her tonsillectomy and it took a while to get used to the silence when she is sleeping. 

Two of our neighbor girls are in Eerika's class. She is making progress with her reading skills. She is actually sounding out words and she is good at many of her sight words. I try to not push her too hard as she loves reading books together and I don't want to mess with the joy of reading. Her teacher, Ms. Jacoby, seems good. I haven't been able to get a good idea of her yet. She seems confident and happy and I truly love watching Saku and Eerika walking to school together. Eerika talks about a girl named Scottlynn a lot and hopes to have a play date with her. She cruises around the neighborhood on her bike or razor. 

Troy is busy with work. I have really enjoyed working together with him on the yard. It is tricky with Aleksi but when we are building the retaining wall together and talking and accomplishing things together, I feel very happy. Work seems overall happy for him. There is more work in the Springs which is great. He has worked hard on our yard and continues to play hockey and have guys' nights with Corban on Tuesday nights. 

Happy things in my life include my new curling wand, being surrounded by friends, almost daily nap, our house, cuddling Troy when I am so tired, living in Colorado, 

San Diego 2016

We made it to San Diego again. It was a bit different than last two years as we didn't have a place of our own and we didn't drive, but flew. Troy's mom felt strongly that driving all the way to San Diego would be crazy so she paid for half of our flights. It really did make getting there much easier, but I did miss having a car there to go to places. The kids shared a twin sized air mattress and I was impressed how well they slept. Aleksi slept in the closet and had some good nights and bad nights. He even slept in our bed for half of a night which is the first time that it has happened. 

Troy flew back on Wednesday morning and I flew back with the kids on Saturday. My hands were full with a pack-n-play, car seat, and two suitcases plus Aleksi. The kids had their pillows and boosters to carry. Regina's dad was kind and helped me to checked in. We did a curb side check in for the first time and it worked wonderfully. 

The kids were so happy to be on the beach and at the beach house. They played Cambree and Makayla and occasionally McKenna was well. Saku loved boogie boarding and kept going at it even when he was tossed by the waves and had salt water going to his nose. I was very impressed. Saku actually had a great week overall. He was happy throughout the week. 

Eerika loved playing with Cambree but they had their moments where there was screaming and yelling from both sides. But still Eerika felt that it was so unfair that she couldn't keep playing with Cambree after we came home to Colorado. Eerika had a bit more moments of sadness and being upset, but it was a good week with her. 

Aleksi loved having Makayla and McKenna to play with. He loved playing in the waves. He would want to hold onto your hand and jump in the waves. He would be shivering but still wanted to keep going. He didn't play in the sand as much as I would have expected but he did like sitting in a huge  hole that was filled with the ocean water. 

I bought this hat from Target for our trip. I have never had this type of hat but I loved it. This week was full of sand, sun and hair that barely got brushed after the multiple showers that I took each day. I ran three days a week which was my goal.  

We watched the bike parade on 4th of July. You can tell that the kids pretty much went to the beach and then to watch the parade as Eerika still a bed head and Saku looks rather sleepy as well. 

The safest place for Aleksi is on someone's shoulders as he can't run away from there. 

Eerika got upset when we missed something that she wanted us to see. This is a pretty typical behavior right now that she feels a great sadness or frustration or even anger when things dont go exactly right.

These girls loved being with Aleksi and most of the time Aleksi was happy for all the attention. It made the week easier for me as well as they would have Aleksi with them and that way I didn't keep my eye on him at all times. 

I bribed Eerika with Heath Bar pretzel to come and be my model. I made the mistake of having Aleksi with us too so it wasn't the best photoshoot because I had to make sure that he didn't run to the street. The colorful background is the wall of the shell shop.