So many new feats!

It has been a month since my last post...we have been busy or sick or tired or all three! Here is an synopsis of our past month:

Markku has started calling me "mommy" instead of momma. It sounds so cute coming from him! Suvi has started saying "ma ma" a lot. Markku and I both noticed it on 2/5/09. We were getting Suvi out of the bath and she said "ma ma". Markku then said "Baby do mama!". Kiri heard Markku say " I love you" but I have not heard that yet (hmmm...).

Suvi got her first tooth (the bottom right one) on 2/4/09 and her second on 2/12/09 (bottom left one). She is teething like crazy-getting up multiple times at night and taking sporadic naps. Of course I rushed her into the ear doctor convinced she had another ear infection but it was just teething! She claps all the time and still has one of the cutest laughs ever.

Suvi is also standing all by herself for 10-15 seconds at a time. This started on 2/6/09. She is furniture walking s well and she falls constantly! I feel so bad for her-we have really hard floors (stained concrete).

Suvi started swim lessons in January. She LOVES them. She is going under water for about 2 seconds or so now. She is a natural. If she is fussy at night, I just put her in the tub and she is happy as a clam. She has even "gone under"in the bathtub for a second and comes up smiling! Her swim teacher is amazed at how happy she is through it all. She even tries to dive in when seated on the side of the pool.

Markku is saying new words every day now. He has finally become a true talker! Sometimes it seems crazy that I was so worried about his late talking as now I can get so overwhelmed at the constant chatterbox he has become. Some cute words/phrases:

Water house (Emler swim school)

Book house (library)

Sha sha - well, it's how he says Isa (dad in Finnish) but he says it for bicycle as well!

Ruff ruff help belly out back gu- His first really long sentence I heard was in reference to a book on a delivery truck driver named Tom- Ruff ruff help belly out back gu translates into : the dog helped carry the berries out of the back of the truck!

He goes to bed with at least one book and reads it to himself at night and often I go in in the morning and he is reading it to himself again. Especially if they are colorful truck books! (And in case you are wondering, he still has 1 fire truck, 1 bear, 1 Tillie dog, 1 allie cat, 1 baby horse, 1 mouse (an Australian critter my parents brought home and I cannot remember the name of it right now), 1 Toby train, 1 police car, 1 pillow and 7 baby blankets (yes 7! He keeps insisting on bringing more and more into his crib), and at least 1 cup of water which must be "full way top" every night ("no ice").

On the bad side, he is also pushing his sister a lot and taking toys from her. He pushes her off furniture and off his booster seat if she pulls up on that. We have been re-instituting "time out" and are almost up to 3 minutes in time out. But he does say sorry after-when will he remember BEFORE?! It is tough as Suvi cries/whines really loud when he does anything-so then we have her screaming, mommy yelling at Markku and then Markku crying as we walk to time out! It must sound horrible to my neighbors!

Last week we had Mummo Laukkanen and her fiance Bill here visiting. Markku loves it when they are here. He loves to be real loud with Bill and his mummo gives him all sorts of sweets to eat. They had fun hiking with Heikki at Enchanted Rock State Park-even Suvi loved to touch the big rocks! They built sand castles that resembled the big rocks and Markku still talks about the "big rocks!".

Markku is helping cook now. He breaks the egg shells into a bowl and mixes them up and pours them into the pan for me. He helped mummo Laukkanen make cheesecake and stared in fascination at the mixer going round and round! Then he licked the beaters clean! He runs and gets his stool anytime he sees me start to cook so he can help! It is lots of fun-but way more messy and takes a lot longer now. We made sugar cookies for Valentines day-but he just licked the frosting off and handed back the cookie for more!

We have decided it is time for us to buy a house again! I can't believe it has been almost 3 years since we left Alaska. Austin is too expensive for us-especially if Heikki leaves for another airline or gets furloughed etc. We are trying to downsize our spending and increase our savings-we don't ever want to be one of those people in foreclosure or bankruptcy! We have started looking in a town about 20 minutes south of Austin called Kyle. Markku loves to go into all the homes. He looks for all the kids rooms and tries to play with their toys or on their swing sets. He doesn't like it when they are empty or just full of adult stuff! He asked to "go bye-bye momma's car see big house" the other day!

This picture is from our fun "Little Lounge Lizards" disco dance party at a hip wharehouse district dance club in Austin. They have a shark tank under their dance floor. Markku and Suvi were entranced! As Heikki said, it is the closest I have been to a hip Austin night spot ever!