Big boy firsts

Markku is a school boy now! He goes to First United Methodist Church preschool in San Marcos on Tues and Thurs. Here is a photo of his school- they have a pumpkin patch in October.

Here he is walking down the hall on his own to get to his classroom. He has his race car lunchbox by his side.

This is his classroom and his teacher, Ms. Melissa:

He was very excited to go. Here he is with Suvi, waiting to leave for his first day of school. He picked out his own clothes too:

Of course, with school comes homework (yes, preschoolers have homework!!!). He had to decorate his pumpkin. We were at our new Target in Kyle (that was one happy day for me when they finally opened! My own Target only minutes from my house!!!!!) and Markku spotted some firetruck stickers and said "we need to buy them for my pumpkin". He remembered he had to decorate it! So we bought them and he has the only pumpkin with firetrucks on it! There is a mouth, nose and eyes as well, but they are just randomly stuck on so it just looks funny! He is very proud of his pumpkin.

The end of Sept/early October also brought us some much needed rain. We are in such a drought here that even with tons of rain this month we are still in a severe drought in Kyle/Hays County. It is amazing how much it can rain here! One of the rainy cold days was the day we had tickets to go see Thomas the Tank engine. I was not too prepared and forgot to charge my batteries, so I only got a few pictures before the camera died. But here is one of Thomas arriving:

Markku and Suvi were both tickled beyond belief to see him. They were in awe! Suvi just pointed and screamed! It was like seeing a rock star... We did have fun with Mummo, Ukki and Isa so it made for a great day out. The rain even stopped for us for our visit, thank goodness.

One beautiful fall day I decided we would finally go visit the Austin Zoo. So Markku, Suvi and I went to feed the animals and see rescued wildlife. The Austin Zoo is a rescue zoo, so it's animals are limited to those that they have had to rescue. They have goats, llamas, pigs, chickens, peacocks, lions, tigers, wolves, turtles and birds. And a few monkeys too. It was small but a nice place to visit for the afternoon. The lions were roaring when we got there...it was a little freaky, like maybe they had escaped and were about to hunt us down. But we actually never even saw them stir as they were either asleep in the grass or inside (the inside one was making all the racket). The kids got to feed the goats and llamas. They loved that. And there was a small train to ride as well.

Markku is also learning to ride his bicycle with training wheels. He is actually riding it! He can't turn yet or go up even the slightest hill, but he is pedaling.

He is going to start in an indoor soccer league this week as well. We are trying to get him involved and playing with other kids and learning how to be on a team, etc. He is not quite getting the idea of sharing...we are battling it out at our house right now. His teacher told me he was a little worse at sharing than most of the other kids in his class...great! I am definitely seeing that at home as well. But hopefully we will get through this phase soon, and maybe even Suvi will learn how to share with all our training, fighting and taking toys away since no one wants to share!

We have had a busy month with Heikki going back to Corpus Christi for his 2 weeks of active duty and me working at the emergency clinic and one clinic in San Marcos/Wimberely.

We are getting ready for Halloween. I think our new neighborhood will be really busy with trick or treaters unlike our last ones....I wonder how much candy I need to buy!