Baseball, campouts and monsters

 

Markku started baseball this week. We are going through the Y again. Considering he has never played, not even T-ball, he did fantastic! He hit the ball twice when pitched (they have the coaches pitch the ball in this league) and was catching balls thrown to him like a pro! The kids really do not seem to get or understand the game at this point, but they sure had fun. The rules are not clear to me either-they do not have outs, you try as many times as you need to in order to hit the ball, and you are never out. Of course they do not keep score, as what would be the point? Every kids gets to run in to home! What has this game come to when parents can't let there be rules? I guess for the older kids they do follow more traditional rules, but I would have thought that 6-7 yr olds could handle more rules as well. It was fun though.

 

Here he is, in the green, standing on third base.

 

 Suvi is continuing to love her soccer as well. She is in the grey shirt this time around, still wearing the pink shin guards of course!

Playing defense

 

 

Markku and Heikki had an adventure packed weekend on a Cub scout campout this week as well. It was just in Austin, at Camp Mabry ( our local army base) but they did sleep in a tent with sleeping bags. Markku said it was cool, but he was freezing. Thank goodness it was only down to 50 degrees...

These are photos I was sent via text or copied from Facebook, so the quality is not quite as good...  I guess they did all sorts of challenges like building a raft that a GI Joe doll had to float on, building a shelter, learning how to start a fire and even first aid. It sounded really awesome. Heikki was also exhausted as sleeping in a tent and running around all day with young boys is exhausting. He then had to get up super early and catch a flight to Chicago to work. 

 

This is Markku partaking in opening ceremony.

This is Markku in his team's hand built shelter.

Here  he was learning how to use a sling shot! They had an ex Army Ranger who taught them this, as well as all the safety rules.

 

Much to Kai's disappointment, he did not get to go with Heikki and Markku. He was very sad to see them leave, and told me all weekend that Markku was gone. Instead he got to hang out with me and Suvi at the soccer game, around the house and at the neighborhood park. It was weird only having two kids and I was amazed at how "easy" it seemed! He loves to play monster and dinosaur. He runs up to you roaring, and says "I dinosaur" or "I monster, roar!" The first time he did this, he ran right up to me, "I dinosaur, roar! Roar!" and proceeded to bite my leg! Wow did that hurt...I think my scream scared him enough and stopped him from biting anyone else. I hope so, as he was running up to everyone at the park yelling, " Roar! I monster!".  I don't think he bit anyone though.

 

Here is Kai painting. He was so happy to sit and paint.

 

 

Speaking of monsters, Suvi has been complaining of bad dreams. She came to my room last night upset and wanted to snuggle. Then tonight she did not want to go to sleep by herself in her room. She was hysterically crying and said that she has had the same bad dream for the past 3 nights! Even with a light on, she was just so upset. I have not experienced this with any of my kids, so I was not sure what to do. She is finally asleep, and after many Fancy Nancy books, leaving lights on, trying to get her to think about her birthday in 2 weeks. I sure hope this is not the start to something.

Suvi was really enjoying herself playing with some girls she met at the park. But Kai had a poopy diaper we had to go and change it. I promised we could go right back to the park and play, which we did, but the girls had left. She was so sad, saying she never has any play dates. Now that is true, we have only had a handful. But previously they have ended with tears and not playing with the invited guest and not wanting to share her toys. So, I admit I have not had too many more. But I promised we would try it again and did today. We had Suvi's friend Marli and her older brother Josh (2 yrs older than Markku) come over for a few hours. What good kids they were-it was such a great day! We managed no fights and the only tears came when we had to say good bye. Hopefully this is a start to more fun play dates.

This evening Markku and Suvi were playing some crazy game with the white board. I never really understood the rules but I thought they sure looked cute standing and drawing together though.