March already?!

 

Remember back in February with our Pinewood Derby races for cubscouts? Well, this past week we got our medals! Here is Markku and his fellow Tiger scouts getting their medals. Markku won 2nd place. He was slightly disappointed because he wanted a trophy, but they were only for the overall winners. Guess we have to try a little harder next year! ;)

 

 

 

 We have a little square foot garden in our backyard. This is a photo of our garden, with the snow peas growing up tall, broccoli, carrots, spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard and strawberries. This is something we do like about Texas-we can grow our veggies even in the winter! The kids love going into the backyard and picking the snow peas and carrots. They eat them like they are candy. It is amazing how yummy fresh veggies can be!  We have some netting around it to keep out our cat and rabbits that frequent our yard.

The hardest part about the garden for me is that we do have some freezing temps occasionally. So trying to cover up our precious plants in the cold blowing wind can be challenging, but well worth it!

Here are the kids enjoying the fruits of their labor. Suvi picked the snow peas but they all enjoyed eating them!

Look at Kai's face! He loves his snow peas!

We had a fun school Reading night this week at the elementary school. They had each grade level pick an author and had crafts and activities to go along with it. So we had Dr. Seuss for 1st grade (Suvi was a cat) and they made Cat in the Hat hats.

 2nd grade had Fancy Nancy. This was Suvi's favorite! She spent forever at this table gluing sparkles onto paper. She was in Heaven!

 

Kai took an instant liking to Mr. Mika, Markku's first grade teacher. He really hasn't seen Mr.Mika a lot, since we tend to drop Markku off at the door to the school so we can bring Tillie with us. But you would never know that. Kai ran right up to him and sat in his lap playing cars for about 10 minutes. Amazing and so sweet.

 

The Kindergartners had Eric Carle and they had the kids cut out painted pictures to make animals or other stuff.  This was Markku's favorite.

 

Then at the end of the week, we had a School Fitness fair and 5k/1k Race. I ran the 5 K and the kids rand the 1K. Here are the kids getting their race numbers.  Kai was so cute pointing to his number and saying "Like Mama!".

 

 

I "ran" the 1K with Kai, so Heikki was in charge of the race photos. He got a cute one of Suvi crossing the finish.

 

He got one of Markku but there was another kid blocking him so not the best picture. Then he never got one of Kai because he thought we had given up! There was a bit of a delay from when Markku and Suvi crossed the finish and Kai did, but he ran EVERY bit of that race! He was so adorable and if they gave awards for the youngest runner and cutest runner, he would have won by far! So we mimicked the finish with him, and he was so enamored by everyone cheering for him and all the attention he got he did not want to stop running anyways! 

 

So I also ran the 5K and I woke up first and did my weight work-out and then headed out to the race. I was not trying to set records or anything, but did finish 1st in my age group! Woohoo! First place (and there was a second and third place finisher as well!)

 

We are doing lots of reading with the kids as usual, but tonight Kai wanted to read while Markku did his reading homework! He would point the to words and babble away! He would look at photos and say "dog" as well. I am proud with how he is doing as he has been very slow to begin talking. I am getting him evaluated later this month, but have been amazed at his attempts to talk in these past few weeks especially.  Tillie was also hanging out with us!

 

We did have some fun this weekend going to see Wreck It Ralph. We went to the dollar theatre and got all 5 of us in for....$6! OK, so not "dollar" exactly but when was the last time any ONE person got in to a movie for $6 let alone all  5 of us! The kids loved the movie and Kai was enthralled with watching the projector. It was lots of fun.

 

We are truly loving life with these kids and it is amazing to see how fast they grow. Suvi has become a big helper. She wants to help cook and she helped me take out the garbage and water plants tonight at well. She did get bored at one point, and started blowing bubbles. She kept asking me if she were a big help! Of course, who could water plants without bubbles blowing in the background? Not this mom, that is for sure!

Markku is pretty sweet as well. This weekend, when Heikki was home, he said "You're right mommy, like always". I was so proud. Heikki of course just snickered and called him a brown noser. I think I am  teaching that boy right! Some day his wife will be happy.