End of an era, Start some New Beginnings!

Time sure goes fast these days. We have been busy as usual. So busy I haven't blogged even. But there is so much that has happened it is intimidating to start!

 

This is a cute picture of Kai riding my little bike from when I was young. Trust me, that is a pretty old bike! He only goes a mile an hour with it, maybe slower. We have to stop and pick up roly polies, leaves and such along the way and he stops and stares at ant hills. Even so, it is cute to watch him have fun. He wants to take it when we pick up Markku from school, but that would take forever, so I we haven't tried that yet (and now it is summer).

 

Speaking of summer, that means we had the end of school here the first week of June. Suvi ended preschool, and we will truly miss her wonderful teachers and the staff at First United Methodist Church in San Marcos. We had Ms. Ron and Ms. Becky for 2 years and Suvi has just thrived in her school environment. Finishing preschool is so bittersweet. We are excited to start "real" school in the fall, but will really miss these guys! Kai will likely start the following fall, so it will just be a little break!

 Suvi and Ms Ron

 Suvi and Ms Becky

 

 

Markku also finished up his school year at Negley Elementary. He had a good first grade and is enjoying not having to go to school now! He is a very good student, which is really not surprising. He is currently reading chapter books (DRA level 34, which means very little to me!) He does like reading, and one of his favorite books to read is a book all about space and another all about Crested Geckos. He loves his non-fiction, but enjoys a good story hear and there as well.

 

 As we finished up the school year, he had a fun filled Field day. He won 2 first place ribbons in a foot race (about 100 yards) and he really is a good runner. His class also won the tug of war, which is very exciting as his class also won it last year!

Here he is with Zane, his good friend from first grade.

 

 

End of school year also means Dance recital time! Suvi participated in her third dance recital this year. She had a Tap routine to "ABC, 123" and a ballet routine to "A Whole new World"-I think from Aladdin, or one of the princess movies! She really enjoys dance and this year I did let her put on some make-up for the recital as well! 

My beautiful dancer

 Suvi and her friend Marli

Receiving her flowers after recital

Standing with Ukki after recital.

 We will be planning on trying Suvi on pre-team next year, to see if she will start competitive dance in the future. I am not a dancer, so it is very exciting for me to think she could be that good! Her Aunt Kaisa is a dancer, so it is in her genes...

With end of school also comes my birthday. This is not super exciting for me these days, but it was for the kids! They love birthdays, even if it is not theirs! I turned 41 (part of why I am not so excited to have these birthdays any more) this June and had a great day celebrating with my family. Heikki and I went out the night before on a little date night. We saw a movie, had a great dinner and took a walk around Ladybird Lake in Austin (aka Town Lake). It was around sunset, and a really nice night.

Heikki with the Austin skyline

 Me with the Austin Skyline

 

On my actual birthday we had a busy day. We got to sleep in, a rarity when you have 3 young children (they were at my mom's !). Then we picked up kids and had  a nice birthday brunch with them and the kids before heading off to Austin for a birthday for one of Suvi's friends. I just loved this shot of her in a tutu while bowling granny style! It was a fun girls only time, as Heikki had the boys with him at an RC car show.

 

 

We are finally through our spring birthdays and moving into summer. I am sure we will stay busy: we have Dance for Suvi (starting jazz this summer too) and lots of swimming. We will have a few trips as well. I wish I had a summer break from work to spend more fun times with the kids...

See dat?

Kai is a talking machine these days. Sometimes I understand him and other times I am at a loss! He is in speech to help him pronounce things a little better, but he is doing so well I am not certain he needs it. I guess he does this thing where he talks through his nose, and they are trying to help him talk through his mouth.  But, some of the really cute things he says are:

"See dat?" for "see that" of course. He gets so excited and wants to make sure you saw what he saw! He is usually screaming this and then giggling or exclaiming in awe.
" I miss you" He says this whenever he sees me after I have been away or first thing in the morning. I love it!
"Sorry mommy" He really says this! On his own without prompting!
"I go payground" He loves loves loves the playground!
"I go swimming" He loves loves loves to swim.
"Markku did it"  It speaks for itself, but he blames Markku for EVERYTHING. Even when Markku isn't even around.
"Corbin comin?" He says this when asking if Corbin will be here soon (his nanny). Usually when I tell him we cannot go to the playground or swimming, LOL!
"I go mummo house" or "I go Ukki house" Everyday he asks if he can go to his mummo-ukki's!
"bye-bye. see ya later allgator" He will say this whenever he is leaving a place or someone is leaving.

He always runs everywhere too. He has the cutest run ever. He runs and wiggles his little hips, his legs going as fast as they can, and he jumps over every crack in the sidewalk or line in the road. It is really cute.  Usually making car noises or screeching tire noises. What a cutie that boy is!

Last weekend we had a great adventure with my friend Wendy and her kids. We went to Zilker Botanical Gardens where they had a Fairy Architecture exhibit. There were little fairy houses hiding along the garden trails. Markku loved it, despite having fairy in the name!

Here we are in the parking lot checking out lily pads.

What a cute bunch

These are some fun benches they had in the gardens as well.

Look at the girls posing! Oh and I should mention that Suvi had picked out a beautiful Ariel princess dress to wear to the gardens, but it had long sleeves and was full length and it happened to be 95+ degrees outside. So, I told her she probably needed to change and just grab her wings. this is the outfit she picked out! She is stylish...

Boys

Girls

My beautiful caterpillars! Oops, one looks to have her wings, so I guess she is a butterfly.

Here is one of the cute fairy houses we could actually see up close.

They are looking at some fairy houses hidden in the gardens

This one was hiding in a hollow log

Trying for a family shot minus our pilot

my cute little fairy. So sweet.

Suvi and her friend Cassidy taking a break in the rose garden.

And later that night we decided to have a movie night! We rented a redbox DVD, got some munchies at the store and had a picnic dinner in the living room. It was so much fun. We saw the Rise of the Guardians, and it was a cool movie. I just loved the tooth fairy, and her hummingbird helpers! It fit right in to our day.

Markku's 7th Pokeman Birthday!

Last weekend, on May 12 Markku turned 7! We had a truly fantastic birthday party on Saturday-it was a combined party with one of Markku's friends, named Zane, who also was born on May12. It was held at Zane's house and both his parents and Heikki and I planned it all out! The friends are very creative people and so we had some personalized poke balls and we each had  a T-shirt with our own pokeman character! We invited half the world, so it was a rather large gathering of 6-8 yr olds...in other words-really chaotic but fun! 

 Here we are, minus Kai as he was napping, with our mascot, Pikachu piñata. There is a rather amusing story that goes along with this ridiculously large, irregular shaped Pikachu. Natalie and I spent hours looking all around Austin party stores for a Pokeman Pinata. We were sent store to store to no avail, until someone suggested a rather authentic piñata store on South Congress. It was all piñatas, all this gigantic size for $24! I had filled it with 6 pounds of candy and it barely filled him half way!

 This is another photo op spot with our personalized poke ball

 And here are the birthday boys!

 And their cakes-of course we had to have two!

 

 

There were several stations set up with games to keep everyone busy and having fun. We had Pokeball "Beer Pong without the beer" 

 And we had Hot pokeball (basically hot potato)

And another game where they had to flip chips into a disk and see who got closest to the center. And lastly there was a game where you had to guess the number of pokeman cards in a jar. 

 And here is a photo of the party guests!  Whew I am still exhausted from keeping these kids entertained and out of trouble for 3 hours!

 Cake time!

 Of course we had to have our piñata as well! I will miss my friend Pikachu, who spent a week living with us! It took the kids two rounds and then the adults to finally break him up!

 In case you were wondering, Kai did make it to the party once he woke up from his nap. He came just in time for cake and presents!

 Many, many thanks to Natalie and Darin! We could not have ever had such a fun, creative birthday without their help!

 

 

 Happy 7th birthday Markku!

Of course we then celebrated his true birthday on Sunday, at Mummo and Ukki's house. It was Mother's day as well. A full busy weekend for us all! Markku got twister for his birthday, and it was a huge hit. Suvi especially loved it! She was just about standing on her head in this shot!

Of course you can't have a birthday without cake. More cake! This time cake balls made by Mummo and Suvi!

 Markku got so many gifts this year since he had a huge party! One of my favorites is this Ukulele Aunt Jenn got him!

Of course one of his favorites is this bow and arrow set.

But the best gift of all time (according to Markku) is his new pet Spike the Crested Gecko.

 

Spike is well love by Suvi and Kai as well. Kai is just so excited to see him! It is funny because every morning and the minute we get home from school or wherever we may have been, Markku  rushes  up to get Spike out of his cage. He will play with him for hours. Allie cat is also very interested in our new friend. I am hoping she doesn't ever get the chance to get too close!

 



Catch up!

Look what happens when life gets busy...I stopped blogging! So I will try to catch everyone up on our last 3 weeks! So, just after her birthday, Suvi lost her first tooth! The tooth fairy came and brought her a gold $1 coin. She was so excited!  She is getting so big! We also enrolled her for kindergarten last week! Can you believe that?  She is so ready and so excited.

 

 

 

Kai and Markku love snuggling with Allie cat. It is hard to catch her with a camera when Kai is around, but she was itchin for some lovin this night! Markku has been asking for his own pet for about 6 months now, if not more. He is trying his best to help care for Allie and Tillie to earn his own pet! 

 

 He has been playing baseball this year. Here is a team picture:

 

And just when I thought he was all grown up, he finds his baby crib mobile and crib set and was pretending to be a baby again! We had a yard sale at the end of April and here he was reminiscing!

Also at the end of April, Markku successfully completed his requirements for his Tiger Cub badge in Cubscouts. We had a really nice ceremony at a local park to celebrate.

We also painted our house this month-well just the trim. I decided on a black door and am loving the small change!

 

As I mentioned before, Suvi is finishing preschool and about to start kinder. We had her preschool graduation last week! Here is our family photo from the night!

 

Suvi was singing in the picture below. I have yet to download my camera photos and can possibly add more pics later, but you never know what will come up!

The school gives each child a bible to commemorate the special day. We are bitter sweet about her moving on. It is an exciting time, but Kai is not yet starting school, so for the first time in 4 years I will not be going down to San Marcos to take a child to preschool!