New Years In Kanab

We went to visit my parents to ring in the new year. We had a great time. Brant and his family were there as well and Ria, Heath and Kaleb had a wonderful time together. This was the first time that Heath and Kaleb played really well together and I was glad. Every day the kids rode the stairs. As you can see from the pictures they had a GREAT time. When I was a kid, we used sleeping bags, this foam pad has got to be way more comfortable. The other pic of Heath and Kaleb I thought was funny. They got into some old clothes and found some Hawaii t-shirts and then decided to put on some boots and play in the snow. Isn't that ironic?

Ria loved to hold and entertain Kaija. We rung in the new year at Kristi's playing games and eating yummy snacks. I was introduced to Jicama sticks and I really liked them. It's going to be a good healthy snack in our home now.

Mikko and I got to go on two movie dates. We went to "New Moon" (Mikko says he looks just as good as the werewolves...haha) in Kanab, and for both of us it was a steal of a deal....

Admission for 2 + small popcorn + XL cherry sprite + skittles = $12.75

Then we went to Hurricane and saw Sherlock Holmes. Thanks family for watching our kids so that we could have some sane time.

Both kids got Pink Eye some how and that was my first experience with it and Jana told us about Colloidal Silver and it is working wonders. YEAH!!

Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas. We stayed at our home this year. It was Mikko's parents turn, but they went to Finland this year. We started off the celebration on Christmas Eve with a yummy dinner. We invited Uncle Pekka over and he was a culinary surprise. He brought Christmas tarts, orange rolls, cookies and drinks. Since the better half is from Finland, and they have a traditional Christmas dinner every year, I decided to be kind enough to cook their favorite Christmas Finnish dish. Mikko chose Carrot box and Pekka Potato box, they are casseroles. My first time making them and the men say they were good. I also provided my favorite Finnish dish, Karelian Pies. We all enjoyed the food and then enjoyed it two more times on Christmas day!

Finnish tradition is that Santa comes with gifts on Christmas Eve after dinner and you open all your gifts then. Since I am American I just can't let go of my tradition of opening gifts on Christmas day. I let the two kiddos open a gift each on the eve. They got some PJ's and we got the kiddos off to bed.

Pekka stayed over and the kids both woke up at around 7:50am. It was fun to watch Kaleb he had such a great time. The highlight for him was his IronMan action figure, he sang "I am Iron Man" all day for a few days. He was again spoiled by family and he has been enjoying all of his great new toys.

Mikko got lots of movies, Pekka got lots of books and my highlight was a new SLR camera. Now I need to learn how to use it. It takes some great pics.

Christmas night we went to a house in Murray that had lights set to music and that was a fun little ride. We had a great day and I am so thankful for a wonderful family and for a Savior who has made it possible that we can be a family forever.

Saturday we went down to Utah Valley and McKay and Lois were kind enough to watch the kids while Mikko took me to "Avatar". He wanted to take me so bad. After the movie we had a yummy pizza dinner at the Brown's they are such great cooks and we opened some gifts from them. They gave us matching Suomi shirts. I will post a pic of us showing they off as soon as I make some PJ bottoms to go with them.

Kaleb's 3rd Birthday

Kaleb turned 3 this year. Mikko wanted him to be able to open his presents in the morning because he said that is how he did it growing up, well we let him and he loved it except for the fact that everything I got him was crappy. He got a shirt from Aunt Kristi which was really cute but of course he was not that interested in it. The hotwheels launcher I got him stopped working after a couple of tries so I was really mad so I got a Dr. set gift out that I was going to save for Easter. Well that too was really lame because it was crappy quality and he couldn't even get the stethoscope to stay on his ears. I took back the Dr. set and let him pick out his gift which was a dragon and then of course later the launcher thing started to work again.

Back to the idea of having him open gifts in the morning, well all he could talk about was getting his cake since we had already starting the festivities. The small gathering that consisted of Uncle Pekka and Kaleb's good buddy, Chase and his parents did not start until 6 that night so he kept annoying me all day about his cake. He chose to have a rocket cake and it was fun to make. The thing that was funny was that after he blew out the candles we let him open a couple of gifts that he got from Pekka, Chase, and Kaylynn and Dave. Well he got a transformer and all he cared about after that was the transformer and he intently watched uncle Pekka try to transform it for a good 15 minutes and did not want the cake anymore. He also got an IronMan toy from Pekka and in two of the pics he is showing off what Iron man does. He is obsessed. The last picture is of what he got from Grandma and Grandpa a couple days later. He is one spoiled kid.

Logan/B-days

Since Mikko's parents went to Finland for the holidays we went to Logan for the weekend before they left to celebrate Mikko and Kaleb's birhtdays. A fun time was had by all. Mummi, Pappa, Mikko and Pekka took Kaleb to the Fun Park. I stayed back with Kaija while she napped. Kaleb enjoyed all the games they said he had such a great time and he enjoyed the prizes he got with the tickets he earned.

We then wen to dinner at Olive Garden for Mikko's birthday. Then Kaleb got to open presents from Mummi and Pappa for his birthday. He was pretty spoiled of course and he kept saying "oh this is my favorite" with every gift he opened. He got a cooking/eating set and he has really enjoyed making us dinner every day. After gifts we all had some yummy Christmas cookies and Pulla for desert to highlight the holidays

December

Forgot to add these photos. My neighbor Becky was kind enough to take Kaleb with her son and best buddy to the mall to see Santa. She said it was a good thing Kaleb went because Chase was not sure about sitting on Santa's lap but Kaleb was not shy at all. She said that Kaleb told Santa that he wanted Iron Man and Star Wars toy for Christmas. These boys are too cute.

So here is the first of of December. It has been a busy month of course. We have had a good time so far. I was going to get the Christmas decorations out the Monday after Thanksgiving but it didn't happen . I think it was a few days after that. Kaleb had a great time helping decorating and he really was such a great helper. I spent most of the December trying to fight off a cold from hitting me hard. I have been pretty successful so far. Kaleb got sick right after we got home from Thanksgiving and that last a good 7-10 days. Then Kaija got it and had a high fever of 103 and then was stuffy after that and had a hard time breathing. When Kaleb got better we had already had a really good snow. I bundled him up on afternoon and let he go outside for a bit. He just loves the snow. He really loves to eat it.

Kaija is now 7 months old and is sitting really well by herself and we have let her take a few baths with her brother and she loves it. We look forward to her being a little more stable so that she can play even more with Kaleb.

I was too lazy to make my own frosting and get stuff for a gingerbread house so I just bought a kit. What a mistake. The icing was such a pain but we got through it and Kaleb has enjoyed eating it ever since.

Forgot to take the typical month to month picture of Kaija but I took this one on the 7th month mark and I think it is cute enough.

Kaleb the photographer

Kaleb loves to take pictures whenever he can get his hands on the camera. Which I don't like him to do. Here are just a few of the latest that he has taken.

Mikko's B-day

I wanted to surprise Mikko this year for his birthday. We decided to take his car down to Kanab so wednesday I told him to trade cars so I could get the car all packed. I then took it to get the windows tinted. We had talked about doing it several times and I thought this would be a good surprise. As you can see he was surprised.

So then on his actual birthday I made him a him his traditional traditional Finnish birthday cake and it was really yummy. Pekka joined us for dinner at Red Robin then we came back to the house for the yummy cake.

Mikko says that he doesn't care if he get anything else on his birthday as long as he get this cake once a year. Happy Birthday Honey!