First Day in Åland

First day in Aland was spend at the cottage.  We arrived on the boat around 2:30 and after a quick stop at the store, arrived at the cottage 45 minutes later. Along the way, there were so many darling, well kept houses and yards. The locals speak Swedish and everything around us is in Swedish. 

We explored the beach, which is way windy. Eerika was brave enough to get her swim suit on twice and play in the water and sand. I was huddled in my hoodie on the dock. We explored the nearby woods. We grilled some makkara for dinner.  Ukki did some mountain biking. 

Aleksi fell asleep at 6:30 in my arms. That is how tired he was. All of us fell asleep as I was telling a good night story. I don't know in what order people fell asleep but within minutes everyone was snoring. 

We all slept until the morning. No, we didn't sleep all through the night. Eerika had an accident (very atypical), Saku was up twice and looking for the bathroom in his sleepy stupor (kind of typical), Aleksi was up twice BUT went back to sleep until 6:50 which felt like a victory. 

The beds are comfortable, which is huge.

First Day in Finland

Our first day started at 4 am this morning. We tried to keep it quiet for a while, but finally we decided to go for a walk. I didn't think the greenery wouldn't be as shocking since we live in a green place now, but I am still amazed by all the trees everywhere.  Saku was so worried that Aleksi would touch nokkonen. Eerika got a bit cold, but Aleksi enjoyed the walk.

By 8:30 am, Eerika was ready for bed. I followed her and by 11 am everyone was napping. And everyone had a nice deep sleep and it was so hard to wake Aleksi and Saku up. They just kept sleeping no matter where they were. 

We spent the evening on the beach. All of the kids loved playing in the water.  Eerika would actually dip in all the way while the boys stuck to staying only knee deep. Aleksi started signing "car" which means that he was the first one to want to go home. 

The day included eating ruisleipa, eating too much candy, Eerika writing letters and drawing pictures, Saku playing chess with isi and ukki, sauna night.

Saku's last day of 1st grade

Saku's last day of school party was on a cold rainy, windy day. The school had planned water balloon toss and watermelon eating. They still went ahead with the water ballon toss and the kids enjoyed it but fortunately we got to go inside for the water melon eating. Eerika got to sit next to Saku and his friends and she seemed happy to be part of the group.  Saku played with these boys the most; James, Preston and Zachary. Zachary is moving which is too bad since he seemed like a nice boy. And James will be around as he is in our ward and not plans of moving.

Saku had a great year. It is mind blowing to me that just a year ago, we didn't know anyone and anything about this area. Saku loves school. He sometimes struggles to get up to go to school and pretty much each day he would say "today was absolutely awesome/fantastic/great". He loved his teacher  and other than having too many tardies and two "fights" (boys playing rough) at the playground, he didn't get in trouble. Not that I thought that he would get in trouble. 

He has become independent about after school pick up and the other day, he ended up walking to the Stettler's house and wasn't even worried that no one was there to pick him up. Grandma had been wedged between two cars and Saku didn't know to look for Grandma. 

I was able to look at some of the work that his reading enrichment group does and I am very happy how he is being pushed in that aspect. If all of his school work could be like that, it would amazing. But I still think that it is the most important thing that he loves reading and he loves school. Everything else will fall into place. He did make a comment about being "one of the smartest kids in the class". So Troy and I emphasized how we want him to be hard working. 

Favorite thing about school: friends

Favorite lunch: pizza

Least favorite thing about school: missing recess

What are you excited for 2nd grade: new friends

Eerika's First Love

It should be noted that on Friday May 27th, Eerika fell in love with Luke. Luke came over for a play date and the kids happily played. When it was time to take Luke home, Eerika came to me  "guess what, Luke wants to marry me and I want to marry him too". Both of the kids are smiling at me and looking. So I happily respond, it would be awesome if you got married after your missions and going to college. Both also wanted to become doctors.  Just as we are about to step out of the door, I can hear Eerika whispering to Luke "do you really want to marry me" and he smiles and nods his head.  He also wrote down his phone number for Eerika and later Eerika said that she needs to keep the paper so she can call him as a teenager.  When we came home few hours later, the first thing she did was write  "Luke and Eerika fell in love" on the piece of paper where Luke had written his number.

We did reminder that she can't be kissing Luke until she is married. Troy said not until after her mission. And she cant really date him until she is 16. 

Let's hope that she will be this open about all of her crushes. 

Eerika's Last Day of Pre-K

We survived two weeks of sickness. We have never had anything like this.

Eerika had her last day of Pre-K today. She got to the leader and do show and tell. She took a treasure box that she had made with Grandma yesterday. She took Goldfish and marshmallows and fruit snacks. There is a girl, Piper, in her class who has a milk allergy. Last time Eerika wanted to be so conscious of Piper and wanted to make sure that she could have whatever the snack was. I made a mistake and made pumpkin cookies with milk. Eerika was so sad. SO this time, I made sure that there were original gold fish that don't have milk so she could have the same snack as everyone else. After the program at the school, Piper's mom came up to me and tearfully thanked me for including Piper in the snack. It was pretty awesome experience, not because it showed anything about me but just the reminder that little things make a difference.

Luke has been Eerika's most talked about friend. He is sort of a crazy kid, but he draws people to him. He loves to joke about hair and diapers; you know the typical boy stuff without being inappropriate.

I bought this dress for Eerika the day before her last day and I love it. Something about it's simplicity just compliments Eerika.  She also rocks the high bun look. 

Eerika enjoyed playing with Reagan at school. 

Mrs. Morton and Mrs. McDonald were so personally engaged with each student. This picture sums up Eerika's love for school, friends and her teachers. 

Troy was so sweet and wanted to share Eerika's last day. He ended up being five minutes late and missed Eerika's spotlight moment.  But the fact that he shows up for these types of events, shows his amazing dedication for his kids. I was too busy taking pictures and didn't quite listen carefully enough about the things Mrs. McDonald said about Eerika but I remember she mentioned how Eerika loved school, probably wished that she could do school during the summer, how she is very smart and ready for kindergarten. 

 

Eerika and Piper; I remember seeing an art work from Piper that was about Valentine's Day and I think it said something along the line s "Love is...playing with Eerika".

My precious ones

Troy is traveling to Baltimore. Ironically, I look forward to the kids going to bed and once they are in bed, I dont really do anything productive. But I have realized that about myself, I am not "to-do list" type of person, I don't feel more accomplished if I had worked all day at home doing different projects. I truly feel accomplished when I feel like I have been with my kids and connected with them. 

While I don't feel like I should be scrubbing our bath tubs at the end of the day, I dont also want to waste my time. And I find much joy in reading our blog and remembering the different things that happen to our family. 

I see these two every day but somehow today it really struck me to see these two brothers next to each other. They are 5 years apart but they are brothers and I think this will give them a bond for years to come. It is also crazy to think that Saku is almost 7.

Aleksi enjoys the trains. He loves putting the little guys in the trains just like he loves to put hats and helmets on lego guys. He has quite the excellent fine motor skills. 

Saku stayed home today from school since he had had fever yesterday. He was well enough to practice piano, do his homework, read books with me and finish his chore list from last week.  

Sometimes unstructured days can seem long, but I realized that I need to embrace these long days. It means more time to read, play games, for the kids to play together and just be together. We ended the day with a game of Go Fish and a Shopkins matching game. Eerika was a bit tired so she was tearful and neither one of the games was super successful. 

  

We were outside for about 5 minutes before the kids asked to go back. It was a bit windy and the kids got cold. It is crazy for the weather to be in the 40s in May, but I guess this is the reality of Spring in Colorado. 

I find Eerika's jacket, jeans and rain boots combo so adorable. We got the razors for free from someone in our neighborhood who had left them by their garage for anyone to pick up. I feel that this was a blessing as both of the kids like to ride them and their old ones were getting too trashed.

It had been raining in the afternoon so I asked if the kids wanted to go and jump in the puddles. There was no puddles and Aleksi wore Eerika's old Hello Kitty rain boots that were a bit too big for him and kept coming off. 

Eerika was ignoring Saku so he came outside and expressed his frustration. Fortunately this frustration only lasted about two minutes.

Aleksi loves being in the front yard. This picture shows how crowded our garage is. It is not well organized so it could be better if we put some energy into it, but we are really just excited for our 3 car garage. Aleksi also loves to jibber jabber while he plays which is shown here with his open mouth.

Aleksi likes to climb up on the trampoline and "jump" which is really him sort of skipping on it. He has a pretty good common sense not to go too close to the edge but it will be nicer to have a new trampoline with a net around it. 

A long week

I just got sucked into looking at pictures on instagram feed of a family who lost their little girl. I am not much a cryer when it comes to movies or books, but this is the second time that I have looked at an instagram feed of a family in this type of situation and I just want to cry. 

I just love our kids so much. And then I get tired after a week like this week and I feel guilty because I want few hours to myself while other parents have experienced the loss of a child. But I do have to give myself the permission to need a break so I can empathize and be patience and loving to them. I think that is what makes parenting so hard; it is an on-going job that wears you out no matter how much you love your kids. 

 Both Saku and Eerika are sick. They have fevers and they have literally slept most of the day. I don't remember this ever happening before. Saku doesnt ever nap, so the fact that he hasn't moved from the couch since 9 am is crazy. Eerika is a bit more perky and she actually ate some cereal, but even she just slept most of the day. We missed our last weekend of soccer games which was a total bummer since Saku has really enjoyed playing soccer and he has gotten very good at being midfielder and defending his goal.

Eerika has been so brave for the past four days since she got sick. She barely whines at all. In fact the only time she would was when Aleksi would jump on her while she was laying now. I think that is a good excuse to get a bit whiny. 

She didn't feel quite right on Wednesday but I took her to school anyway. She ended up falling asleep in class and has been sick since. She didn't have a fever yesterday but today it was back. 

Saku rocked his first week of doing his jobs. Today he didn't complete anything except piano since he was sick. I am proud of him. I can't wait to pay him after he completes his last job of vacuuming his room. Eerika missed many days because of her sickness but she rocked her sight word practice on Monday and Tuesday. 

Aleksi is doing fine. He loves being outside so I left Troy with the big kids and Aleksi and I did two exploration trips around the neighborhood. Aleksi loves being in the front yard and walked up and down the side walk. 

Aleksi learned another word. He now says "Go". He loves to say it. Our word count is up to four now: ball, yay and yeah and go.

Aleksi knows to put his shoes away to the shoe basket and he knows where to find his shoes. He signs "äiti" though it is his own version of the sign. He will now ask for me by signing "äiti" when I am not around.  Aleksi loves eating scrambled eggs, and sausage. He is weaned off from bottle!! He throws his tuttis at bed time which can be annoying because then he wont fall asleep without one. 

He continues to love dogs and balls. He goes to nursery and child watch at the Y without a problem. 

I ran 8.7 miles with Audra this morning and felt strong the whole time. We averaged 8:55 per mile. That is pretty good since we are talking the whole time. I have never had a running friend and I am super grateful to have someone that I can meet up with and run and get to know each other more. I feel like I have been able to reach out to more people since we moved here. I feel like I have found a social place that feels comfortable and where I feel like I am needed and people around me can rely on me. It feels really good.