Saku Aleksanteri on June 27th, 2013

Likes to:  swim, play with his legos, do tricks such as cartwheels and summersaults, reading books, watching Secret Agent Oso, Super Why or Transformers, go to the gym

Plays: pretends to be superhero, builds on his legos,  cars and play dough

Does not like: the fact that isi has to go to work every day

Has learned: to hit a baseball and throw a frisbee

Needs: lots of love and encouragement

Friends: James, Curtis, Ethan and Will. We play with other friends as well, but I think these are the friends that Saku mostly thinks about. Cameron is also on the list, but not available for hanging out anymore. 

What are we working on: using our words instead of crying over things, checking on Eerika and friends when he accidentally hurts them, not being sneaky, but asking for permission because most of the time we say "yes". 

Miss Eerika on June 27th 2013

Likes: to climb into her crib to lay down and suck on her tutti when she gets upset, sad or feels like the world is just unfair.  Bug Saku. Wrestling with Saku. Read books. Swing at the park. Jump into the swimming pool and doest mind going underwater even when she tells you "no underwater" right before she jumps. 

Does not like: when anyone tells her what to do. Going to potty can be a struggle if she doesnt want to.  That is when I have to use bribery.

Wears: big girl underwear during the day and a night underwear (pull up) at night. Some days she chooses what she wears but mostly she doesnt really care. 

Plays: with her play kitchen and has cupcake parties, Saku's legos and her babies/stuffed animals.

She has a great imagination and will often by independently very well. 

Needs: a story before nap and bed time, a song and a prayer before bed time, her kitty cat and 10,000 tuttis, okay it is only 4 but she can still make a scene if she doesnt have a multiple ones in the bed with her. Also she now requests her door to be left open when she goes to bed. 

Has learned: to put her head completely underwater when we swim. Sings "ABCs".  To count to 10. 

Friends: Ella and Julia, Carter and Amber 

What we are working on: using kind voice and words. She is quite bossy.  Getting 100% potty trained. She does very well but we still have accidents here and there. 

Morning routine:

Eerika's morning routine is breakfast, getting her clothes on, brushing her teeth, going potty and doing her hair. Once she has done all those things, and if we are staying home for the morning, she gets to watch one episode of Super Why.

Typical Eerika. Showing her pouty face just because she wants to.

Then I tease her "dont you dare to smile or laugh or have fun. Just keep showing me a pouty and angry face"

"Hey sweetheart"

"I am not sweetheart, I am Eerika"

Eerika "that's my binky"

Isi: "whats a binky?"

Eerika: "binky is tutti"

Little Moments Worth Remembering

After a world wide broadcast from our church leaders, Troy sincerely said "I need to be a better home teacher, a better missionary, a better husband and a better isi"

Saku just as sincerely answered: "you are a better is".

On Tuesday morning, I slept past my alarm and finally go out of bed when I heard some stirring upstairs. When I walked up the stairs, I saw Saku and Eerika both hanging out. This was the first time that both kids have woke up at the same time and Eerika climbed out of her on her own.

Eerika is capable of climbing out of her crib. She demonstrates this skill more often at night than in the morning. If she does get out of bed in the morning by herself, she usually brings her blanket, her kitty cat, and variety of other stuffed animals with her. She is a bit of a hoarder. 

Saku: "Eerika can speak Spanish"

"Eerika just twist your tongue and make weird noises, that's Spanish".

When I tried diplomatically say something about that, he said "oh she is just pretending".

Saku eating a breakfast. "äiti, thank you for this delicious breakfast" with a huge smile on his face. Yeah it was a good start for the day.

Saku's Fantastic Fourth Birthday

Our week started out nicely as we celebrated Saku's 4th birthday. It was fitting to start the birthday celebration early in the morning since he arrived into our family right before 8 am on June 17th. 

Somehow he had ended up in our bed during the night. This happens very rarely nowadays. When he climbed into our bed around 4 am, he whispered "there are some spiderman ABCs in the stairs". We had hung a spiderman themed "Happy Birthday" banner on the stairs. 

We made a simple breakfast of Finnish style sandwiches and orange juice to take to our birthday boy. We wanted to keep the tradition of breakfast in bed, but figured that he wasn't going to eat much as the presents would get him so excited.

He was fast asleep as we walked into the room singing "paljon onnea vaan". It took him a while to wake up but he woke up with a smile on his face. He knew exactly what was going on.

Birthday presents included a batman t shirt and spiderman water bottle that he had asked for six months ago. I told him that I would buy it but he had to wait until his birthday. And we did just that. He got a Cars book and Transformers work book. A BYU sweatshirt from ukki and mummi.

Our big present was legos. We thought that he would love being creative and building things. We bought mostly generic legos and one set of Ironman 3 legos. Since the generic legos came from Craig's list, we ended up with a dragon castle as well. Troy spent two hours putting it together and Saku and James destroyed it, as part of their playing, in five minutes. We will not be building it again like that. Sadly I did not take picture of Troy's master piece.

Orange juice is a bit of a treat in our family so he was happy to wake up to it.

I asked Saku if he wanted to have a birthday party or just spend time as a family. He decided against a party, which did not break my heart. 

We did invite James and the girls over for a play date so Saku could play with his best friend. Saku has had two life long friends, all of his four years; James and Cameron. Cameron moved so we are even more grateful for James' friendship. 

James and Saku play well together and have a great time so I knew that James' presence would make Saku very happy. James surprised Saku with a Superman cape and a Superman water bottle.

These boys play SO well together. I think it safe to say that Heather and I are both very grateful that they have each other as a friend. 

Saku's birthday dinner request was "bread, cheese and ham" so we had sandwiches and corn on the cob for dinner. This boy was so easy to please on his birthday!

When isi got home, we enjoyed a brownie cake and some sparklers.

We ended the night with a movie night of videos of Saku. He did not enjoy the very first video of him crying at the hospital just minutes after his birth, but liked watching himself on the big screen. It sure made me miss that little baby Saku and brought all those memories of learning to be a mother. 

Just before bedtime, we found a box that was delivered in front of our front door from grandma! Saku got two new Mickey Mouse Club House movies and two Mickey shirts. They were a hit!

Saku, you are amazing! Pretty much each night, isi and I go to bed and say something along the lines "man he is just amazing/awesome/funny" "he is so big now"  and "i love him so much".

Life is happening and it is good:)

I have been too tired to blog but life has been going on and good things have happened even when I haven't been writing them down.

• Eerika doesnt wear diapers anymore. She has accidents still, but there is no going back to diapers anymore and most of of the time, she does really well.  When we were in Utah, she only had one accident in the whole week. There have been more accidents since we are home and I am more relaxed about checking on her. Either way, I don't have to change diapers anymore.
• Troy fell into a cactus while going on a four wheel ride. He had about 200 needles stuck in him, but he was very lucky to not get hurt any worse. He learned that Elmer's glue and duct tape work well to pull needles out.
• I had a liver transplant patient last week and it was the coolest experience to inform him that the doctor thought that the liver was good and he was finally going to get a new liver. This was his 5th time being admitted for a possibly transplant and each of the previous times, it had not happened. When I said that they would take him to the OR in half an hour, he looked like a kid on a Christmas morning, except much more grateful:)
• It is summer here. Full blown summer. The forecast is 100 degrees for the whole week. It makes me anxious and I am looking forward to the weeks that we will be in Finland and in a cooler weather.

Happy Mother=Happy Family

Happy Mother's Day!

I got to sleep in until 8:30. That by itself was a great present. There might have been a foot or two on my back, but I am not complaining.

We ate breakfast around 10 am. Troy served whole wheat banana chocolate chip pancakes. 

Miss Eerika was sick so Saku and I went to church without isi and her.

This boy got to sing in the sacrament meeting for the first time and he was amazing. He loves singing but does not sing in public very much. However, when it was time to sing "Love is Spoken Here", he rocked it. I was so proud and happy to see my boy shine. 

Saku often tells me "I love you to all the stars and back" and Eerika has started to say "i love you äiti" multiple times a day. Some people say that being a mother is a thankless job. While my kids do not comprehend all the work it takes to make their world go around, I do feel very appreciated by them. 

The Last Hurrah!

For the past three or so years, we have done a monthly family home evening with four other families; the Cherrys, Gryglas, Ertels and Rowsers.  We were introduced to the other three families by Brian and Alia when they moved to Tucson five years ago. Over the years, we have become friends and we have watched as each family has grown.

While hosting a dinner for twenty or so people was stressful at times, I feel so blessed to have the chance to spend time with these fine families. And it sure was nice to show up to other people's houses and have a delicious meal without cooking or doing dishes as well:)

Steph, Alia, Cristy, Eevi and Kendra. 

All the kids showing off their cuteness. From left: Eerika, Saku, Maddy, Tyce, Ryan, Cameron, Jackson and Cade.
2nd row: Caleb and Kyler
3rd row: Leyla
Mister Dane is missing. Quite the total tally for each family. I think there were less than half the number when we first started to get together.

Some good looking and happy families!

Brandon, Brian, Troy, Mike and Joel

Since Brian and Alia and their boys moved away last week, May was our last chance to celebrate our friendships. It was a fun gathering with everyone. We swam, ate delicious food and chatted it up until it was time to put the kids to bed. 

I have a feeling that as the years go by, it will be more and more difficult to establish such great friendships as we have in our younger years as our kids are little and growing. I do hope that I am wrong though.

Thanks to Mike for these great pictures.