Firemen, chapter books and drawing...another week in the Laukkanen household

So it can be hard enough trying to get a picture of three moving kids, but add in the pets and it almost never works! But tonight I got lucky and snapped this one before bath of the kids with Tillie. Note the small stuffed animal Tillie in Markku's hands as well. We sure love our Tillie. She is the best dog ever. She is getting old these days, at 11.5 yrs old...I can barely remember the trouble she used to get into! She is great with the kids especially. But so often, she tends to sleep these days and stay off to the side when the kids get silly...so hence never in any photos! But we still love her! Allie is even harder to photograph, but she will be my next challenge.

 

 

Tonight Kai decided to play fireman. He has his firefighting uniform on and is holding the hose, spraying out a fire.

 

The hat is too big, so getting a photo without movement was hard...he kept trying to push hat back on his head. What a cutie. He does everything Markku does. He was even holding the imaginary hose and trying to hook it to a hydrant ( Markku was directing him and telling him what to do more than he was really doing it though).

 

Kai has another new obsession-play dough. He can spend over an hour playing by himself with the play dough. I can cook, clean up after dinner, etc. It is great-except major tantrums when I try to take the play dough away. Geez, you would think I was killing him instead of cleaning him up to eat dinner...

 

 

Markku is learning to read (well, that really started last year in kinder). He really wants to read chapter books, as that is the next level he will be on in school. So close! So, he told me that he was reading a chapter book, at night in his bed with a flashlight. Turns out, it was this book. He actually was reading a Finnish-English dictionary (see below) and was on page 24 (it did start on page 18 however)! I was pretty impressed, but will admit we went straight to the library and got a few chapter books for the poor kid! 

 

Also new this week, he scored a basket in his basketball game yesterday! First one of the season! He is usually more of a defensive player. But he took a shot and in it went!

 

 

Suvi on the other hand is an artist. She LOVES to draw. She spends hours drawing each day.Here is a sampling of her art work. If anyone would like to purchase any I have hundreds in stock. All over my house. I even have some that I am not supposed to look at until Mother's day! 

This is our family. Heikki, me, Markku, Suvi Kai, Allie and Tillie

Not a great photo, but this is Ariel and Rapunzel.

Another photo of our family and our house

And this is a sticker fish and then butterflies. I guess the house is on stilts, in case of hurricane.

 

 

This is only a small sample of her stuff. She is getting noticeably better each day, with more and more detail being added. This comes from Heikki's side of the family. Markku did not inherit the drawing gene. He likes it well enough, but does not do it often and is not quite as good.

 

Anyways, just a sampling of our week, and another blurry picture of kids and Tille. See what I mean?!. Hope everyone is enjoying this new year!

The first week of 2013

 This first week has been a little hectic. It was mostly filled with work for me, and squeezing in kids activities when possible! We had our longtime nanny, Kiri, come for a visit. She has graduated from college now and is working in another place now, so we miss her a lot. She has been with us since Markku was about 15 months old! So, it is still fun to get together with her whenever we can. She brought the kids some great Christmas gifts, so of course they loved that!

 

 

Note in the picture above we had an orange cast on Markku's arm. On Thursday we went to see the doctor and he reported Markku's arm is healed, and now we can use the brace for about 10 days and then we are all done! Markku was so happy to remove that cast and itch his arm. He was laughing so hard when they were using the saw to remove it.I guess it really tickled. So, now we can take a bath and sleep with nothing on that arm. The splint is only needed for play and exercise. Hooray!

Now that the cast is off, we get to go back to basketball! We had the first game in about a month-we were a little rusty. But Markku seemed to get the idea of defense a lot better. Look at how huge the player on the other team is. It is not a wonder that they were a lot better-I think they must be older!



 

Kai really wanted to be with Markku, so time out was his favorite! Here he is with his bestest buddy!

 



 

 

Suvi has had off from preschool now for 2.5 weeks as well. She is going a little stir crazy and keeps asking when she goes back to school. Markku on the other hand does not want vacation to end, because in his words, "they make me work too hard! All I do is work, work, work". I sure know what he means. Kind of  sad that there was this big change in school playtimes from kinder to first, especially since he will be working the rest of his life! Thank goodness for vacations. Suvi got a special gift from one of my co-workers as well. Look at these gorgeous barrettes. They are princesses made from ribbons. Can you see Rapunzel and Ariel? Thanks Chrissy, Suvi loves them. (I think she should sell these they are so awesome).

 

 

We ended winter break with a fun family movie night since Heikki was finally back in town. Then today, we all went on a family hike. We used to hike so much b.k. (before kids) and I really miss that. Partly because we now live in Texas, where you have to work a little harder to find good hiking places that aren't super crowded and partly because everything is so much harder to do when you have kids! But, I am going to try to enjoy as much of Texas as we can this winter-before it gets super hot again.





This was just a local hiking spot in San Marcos, just south of us in Kyle.

Kai was trying to walk the whole way. We only went about 2 miles, but it was too far for Kai. He was yelling at me, "Nooooo momma. Noooooo!" in the above picture when I was asking if he wanted me to carry him.. We finally convinced him to take a ride, but he was not happy about it. As it was, we finished at sunset.  Now we are all off to bed, getting ready for a new school week to start.

 



A New Year

Well, it has been almost 2 years since I last posted an update. I have made my New year's resolution to be to start blogging again. I love being able to go back and see what we had done, and am sad that I missed a lot over the past 2 years. (Well, Facebook kind of replaced the blog I suppose).

Anyways, we had a nice New Year's-just me and the kids. Heikki was once again scheduled to work. After a really dry fall and early part of winter, we finally got some rain in Kyle. The kids and I went for a walk in the rain. It was really refreshing and got some of their energy out! We did have a New Year's party at our old neighbor's house. It was fun to catch up with them again, and the kids had  a blast playing with other kids toys!  Today, on January 1st, the kids and I had a pajama day. All day in pajamas! It was another cool, rainy/cloudy day so it seemed perfect.

We watched some movies, played some board games, played princesses with Suvi and I cleaned the house! Not super exciting, but still good to spend it together. Here's to a Happy New Year, and a year where I hopefully keep the blog updated!

Kai Juhani Laukkanen

Kai Juhani Laukkanen

December 21, 2010

Baby Kai arrived on Dec 21, 2010. He was about 2 weeks early! I actually went into labor while at work. I was up at Lakeline Animal Care and it was my official last day of relief work scheduled. At 4 pm, my water broke. I was 45 miles from home, so had to make the drive in early rush hour traffic! My doctor's office was not too happy about that! I arrived home about 6 pm and finished packing my bags. Markku and Suvi were so excited! They dropped me off at the hospital while their nanny Tracy took them to McDonald's.

I had called Heikki from work, so he could try to get out of New Orleans before the last flights of the night. (He missed Suvi's birth, remember?) Luckily, he did make it (thanks Southwest!) and arrived about 10 pm. My mom had come up from Boerne to be with me before he arrived.

When I arrived at the hospital, I had to go through the ER. They were confused because no one was with me, I was so calm (no contractions yet, it was my third kid, and that is just how I am), and I guess someone had given birth in the bathrooms a week before. So the admittance nurse was way more freaked than me! The doctor on call (Dr. Rutter) wanted to start pitocin right away since I was not contracting, but I convinced her to wait until Heikki arrived, just in case! So about 9:30 pm when we got confirmation that Heikki's plane had landed with him on it, she started the pitocin.

Nothing much happened for awhile, but I did not want to wait to get too painful so I got the epidural when it was painful enough! Then they turned up the pitocin, but Kai did not like that...his heart rate dropped and they had to do all sorts of things and place monitors and all before it came back up. Then we decided we did not need pitocin at all and I still progressed. My doctor, Dr. Jennifer Goss, likes to deliver her own babies, so she was called in for the actual delivery. She made it there, but barely. Just like with Suvi and Markku, once I got ready, it all went real fast! It just takes awhile to get to that point!

It was an interesting night to be born...it was a full moon and there was a total eclipse as well. (We had clouds so even though we were up all night, no sights of the eclipse!) A very rare event! Kai was born at the fading end of the eclipse at 5:22 am. He weighed 7 pounds 11 ounces, right in between Markku (7 pounds 14 ounces) and Suvi (7 pounds 10 ounces) and 20.5 inches. He was perfect! He had a stork bite on his left upper eyelid, and an interesting capillary pattern in his right ear (you see an array of blood vessals inside his ear). He was real loud right from the start...he cried right away with all his lungs!

He was a great eater right from the start. We delivered at the new hospital here in Kyle, so it was a new place for us as well. The nurses pretty much left us alone since we had been through this twice before and were happy to release us on Dec 22, so we were home for Christmas!

We all agree, this was the best Christmas gift ever! Here is a link to a great E card my mother made:http://secure.smilebox.com/ecom/openTheBox?sendevent=4d6a45324d7a67314e544a384e5455354e6a63784e773d3d0d0a&sb=1

Finally an update...

Well, I am finally getting around to posting again. We have had lots of changes to report!

First off, Heikki has been called up for active duty in the Coast Guard for the past 4 months and will be for another 4 months. He is in New Orleans for the oil spill. He is very busy, dealing with financing the requests for aid. So it can be pretty high pressure, but with the spill finally contained and most of the accessible oil cleaned up, it is slowing down some. Now that things have settled down, he is able to come home for visits Tuesday and he leaves Wednesday. The kids really miss him a lot and often ask why the oil spill isn't stopped yet (although in theory it is, just the work is not yet down). His job at ExpressJet is waiting for him, but there are likely to be some changes when he returns as they have been bought by another company. It is unsure if this will be beneficial to us or hurt us in the long run. We are hoping he can upgrade back to captain soon, but it will likely be spring or later before that happens.

In bigger news, we are expecting our third baby! I am 21 weeks 4 days along which puts the due date as Jan 2. We are hoping for an earlier birth, as our insurance will expire when Heikki's job at the coast guard expires Dec 27! We can purchase some other insurance for the gap between his active duty coverage and his regular job, but if he/she comes earlier, we can get 100% of the birth covered! Come on Christmas baby!

Heikki decided we are going to wait to find out the sex...I wasn't so sure so now we have an envelope that was sealed by the ultrasonagrapher that has the sex written on a piece of paper inside! I was afraid i would not have enough willpower to not open the envelope, so I made Heikki take it to New Orleans with him!

This baby is very active. He/she moves so much, it is quite amusing sometimes. I am gaining an acceptable amount of weight but it is more than with either previous pregnancy, and I am way bigger this time around! I am trying to stay active but it is hard with this summer heat! I am mostly through the morning sickness at this point, but still have nausea sometimes and lots of headaches. I am really enjoying being pregnant again, probably more so as I know this will be our last child. It is quite bittersweet and makes the pain worth the gain!

Markku and Suvi are very excited about this new baby! They both want it to be a girl at this time, but at first Markku wanted a boy. They can not wait for this Christmas present!

Markku has started his second year of preschool, but he only goes part time again (2 days a week). He was so happy it just started again after taking a summer break. He loves school. He is singing lots of songs now-that is new. He always loved music but never really sang before. But too bad he is a really bad singer like his mom! He says really cute things like "that's my fater" meaning that's my favorite". and "truxins" for construction trucks. If he hurts me or makes me upset, he runs up to me and gives me a hug and say "I want to apologize". It is so cute! He is a fantastic swimmer and is currently been learning to swim freestyle. We may put him on swim team next summer-we will see how things go with the new baby! He loves to play with his cars, trucks, planes...anything with wheels as he puts it! He has a great imagination and makes up stories for me all the time. He has even started quoting movie lines! He was yelling " I hate it! I hate it!" one day and I told him to stop, that it was not nice. He told me he says it because Lightening McQueen says it in Cars! That is why-so it must be ok! He is also a great helper. He helps me clean, carry in groceries, help mummo plant flowers and pick up dog poop in the back yard! What a helper even though it often makes more work for me!

Suvi is a very bright, sweet 2 year old now! She is talking up a storm and loves to sing songs as well. She loves to do anything Markku does and for the most part he is a great teacher. She loves to play cars and trucks with Markku, but still loves her babies and stuffed animals as well. She took a dance class this summer and hopefully this fall as well. It was a tap, ballet, tumbling class and by far the cutest thing ever! It was full of 2-3 year olds. She is also an amazing swimmer and could spend all day in the pool if we would let her. She can swim about 15 feet or more under water! She is fearless in the water.

We had so many vacations this summer! We went to Port Aransas, Texas to spend 5 days at the coast with my mom and dad. The kids loved the beach and the aquarium. The kids and I also went to Buffalo NY to visit my side of the family. It had been 9 years since I was there! A long time. Heikki was supposed to come with us for a trip to Oregon/Washington, but after spending a day at 3 airports in Texas and taking a cab from airport to airport, we were unable to catch any flights to the West coast! We travel stand by and summer is a horrible time to travel, so we ended up taking a quick trip (driving) to Corpus Christi again. Heikki was able to get in some wind surfing, and we enjoyed the time with him as he has been gone for a long time this summer. I will be going to New Orleans for a veterinary conference in September and will get to spend 5 days with him as well, but the kids will stay with my parents.

Hopefully I will get better at posting again, and can update with some more photos soon!

Well, we have once again been super busy and I am apparantly not a good blogger! But, we did have a 3 week adventure to Finland (the kids and my first trip) and Denmark, and then in order to continue to survive financially after 3 weeks with no work, I have been working non-stop for the past month!

Updates:
Markku is really enjoying his pre-school he goes to twice a week. He is starting to get how to hold a pencil properly (a feat his pediactrician said he should have mastered a year ago, but his teachers say is perfectly normal for him not to get it until he is 5) and has made friends he tells me about! He really wants to ride his bike with "only 2 wheels", meaning no training wheels. We have this handle my mom got for us to hold on as he rides, and he will go for 10 seconds or so without Heikki hanging on. Probably the worst thing for us, well Heikki in particular, is that he has recently picked up a SOUTHERN ACCENT! It is really crazy-most people around here do not have accents as they have moved from other places. This is Texas, not the deep south. But, nonetheless, he has started to say "Ye-ah" and really has quite the drawl. Not sure if that will last, but it sure is there now.

Suvi is really talking now, although there are still many things I do not understand right away. She has been talking in sentences for about 2 weeks now. She still really loves animals-especially horses and a "baby sheep" she got for Easter. She has a few strange words, like for Markku she says "Se-ta" or something like that. She really doesn't say Isa yet, but when I think I hear her it sounds like sha sha like Markku used to say. She is my artist-she loves to draw and color and sing. She has been holding a pencil correctly for about a year now! The difference between boys and girls is amazing. She turns 2 this month, I can not believe that!

I will hopefully post an entry soon about our amazing trip to Finland, and figured this was a good start. At least I logged on!

Happy New Year 2010

Happy New Year 2010! We have been ultra-busy as usual. For New Year's we travelled to the Central Oregon Mountains and stayed with Heikki's family in Sisters. We went and did all sorts of crazy winter things that kids who live in Texas never get to do! After a loooooooooong flight and drive in (we arrived at 3:45 am which was 5:45 am Texas time!),a few hours sleep and off we went sledding with the kids. We had rented snow suits-whoever heard of such a thing?-and so the kids stayed pretty warm. They did love sledding (the first day Markku was hungry and tired so it took until the second day for him to LOVE it. Suvi really liked it right away.)

Luckily many relatives like Uncle John were there to help us with the kids:

Heikki's family rents a house in the Black Butte area (near Hoodoo ski resort and Sisters, Oregon) every year for New Year's. It is a beautiful area in the mountains with very tall gorgeous trees (except where the forest fires went through...that really bothered Markku to see that). This is a picture of just the Laukkanen family. There were probably at least twice as many total guests at one point or another. We got to see Mikko and Joanna and their 2 kids who came all the way from London, Kaisa and John who are about to have their own first child, Liisa and Johan who came from New York/San Francisco via Sweden I believe (lots of travelling there, never know who is where when), mummo and Bill, Jesse (John's brother) and then all the extended family and friends as well (who are not pictured here):

It was super hard to get everyone looking and there were 2 or 3 photographers so everyone was always looking the wrong way!

Heikki has been dying to go skiing since we left Alaska almost 4 years ago. This was his chance (and his Christmas present), but unfortunately he is not as young as he used to be and hurt his knee the very first day sledding. He was really bummed. Now he wants another Christmas present but I keep trying to tell him it doesn't work like that.
So on our very last day in the mountains we decided it was a good day to try Markku skiing. The age limit was 4 yrs old, and so I did what any parent would do-I lied and made up his birthday. sure enough everything fine....until they asked him how old he is! And he says "3" and shows 3 fingers! They said they were worried at first (I had already dropped him off) but he did really well and was able to learn to ski! We got great video that I am clueless as to how to download it (I have tried on You tube and it keeps saying there is an error after a forever long period of time) so you will have to look at still pictures until I can figure it out (or a loving relative who has a video of it can do it for me!-that would be you John!)

Markku and mummo just before the lesson

Markku ready to hit the slopes!

Suvi is too young to learn but she sure looks cute waiting in the lodge and sledding!

We had to leave and head back to Cathlamet, Washington to mummo and Bill's house after skiing. Here is Markku on Heikki's old bike!

We went on a day trip to the Oregon coast and went through a nature preserve. We were looking for deer and such, but only found this type of John DEERE heavy equipment, which made Markku oh so happy. He has a John Deere video he got for Christmas and sings the songs to me everyday "John Deere, make them nice and strong, John Deere".

Here is another picuture at the refuge showing the Columbia river and the low clouds against the mountains: It is so pretty there.

We then ventured on to the Seaside Aquarium-it was very small but still lots of fun. The kids are playing with the touching poo and pointing at the stingrays:

Needless to say we had a great trip. We loved seeing everyone again-including my sister Jenn who we surprised at 11:45 pm on New Year's eve as we were driving by her house on our way to the mountains! Happy New year Jenn! It was great to get back while Mikko was visiting with his family-they live so far away.

After we returned it was a rush getting back to work and preschool for Markku. One night, Markku decided he needed to help me clean. This is how he cleaned up our living room:

See, the floor is now clean! He said " I know you hate tripping on stuff, I clean up for you!"

More cute Markkuisms: 1. Mommy, Isa is making me cranky. He won't get me more Hee hee milk (soy milk).

2. He stepped on my foot and I said "Ow!". he said, "You ok. " So cute as whenever he gets hurt and has that shocked look on his face I say "You're ok, let me give it a kiss".

3. Marrku tells "funnies" now-he is trying to make jokes! He will say something random and then say "I tell a funny"

4. Not so cute things: he learned to say " I don't care." He says it a lot, like when I tell him to clean up, stop teasing his sister or go to bed. He also says "I hate it" now. I don't like that too much either. Then he says something that sounds like " Freakin Cumquat" when he gets frustrated. I do not know what that means or where he got it...any hints anyone?

Suvi also scratched me the other day and I said "Ow!" She was making these funny smooching noises and then said "Mama, mama" And when I looked down at her she kissed me. She was kissing my owie! It was very sweet.