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!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We headed down to Kanab for thanksgiving and had a great time. We stayed with McKay's family at their condo. It was great to be where it was quieter. I am sure we missed out on most of the action at Grandma and Grand pa's and Mom even said that she hardly got a chance to hold Kaija. Sorry Mom. Anyway we had Thanksgiving dinner at the church because there was almost 60 of us there. The gym was freezing. It was warmer outside than in the gym. Dinner of course was abundant and delicious. We forgot to take any pictures of course but the shots above were that day. The Elementary is right by the church so Mikko took a few pics of Kaleb enjoying the swings.

The next day McKay planned a hike and Tom was our guide. I took Kaleb while Mikko took care of Kaija. The hike was to Water Canyon and it was a 2 mile up and 2 miles back. I was so shocked that Kaleb did so well. He enjoyed and we only had to hold him a few times. He was quite the hiker he even got stuck by a cactus but survived.

He loves being with his cousins That had a great time as you can see.

We made it to the end and there was fresh flowing water coming out of the rocks. We all filled our water bottles with fresh water and enjoyed some strawberries that cousin Lindsay brought.

Here is Kaleb walking with Tom he was having fun walking in front of him and not letting him pass. And the best part was the drive back as the kids were all exhausted and took naps!!

November

November came and went really fast. We were busy. Mikko keeps on working, and I keep on taking care of the kids which is a task. Kaija started teething at the end of the month and her sleeping habits are getting worse instead of better. I am hoping that I can get a good nights rest sometime soon. I hope that is not in years.

Kaija like to play with her feet and she will even suck on her toes.

Here she is holding her own bottle now. A couple days before Thanksgiving she decided she no longer wanted to nurse, so she is a full time bottle girl now. Above is also her 6 month picture she is getting so big. We went to the Doctor for her 6 month visit and she was off the charts for her height, 28.25 inches tall. She is in the 95+ for weight, 18.8 pounds.

These kids are a daily challenge for me but I love them dearly. Kaleb everyday wants to wear either his Spiderman or Ironman suit, so that is why there will be lots of pictures of him wearing them.

Halloween

We had a good Halloween, well at least I think we did. Kaleb got to decorate some fun cookies.

His favorite part was eating them. This same day Kaleb would not take a nap at about 4:45 he wanted to look out the window and watch for Daddy to come home. I kept telling him he would not be home for another 45minutes. He went down to the front room anyway and within in 10minutes I went to check on him and found him like this.

We had fun carving out pumpkins. Could not get Kaleb to help clean them out. He was willing to just watch us do all the yucky work. But he loved to look at them after we lit them up.

These next pics crack me up. Kaleb was planing on being Spiderman for Halloween and that was fine but I found an Iron suit and it was only $12 so I bought it too. But I did not want him to ruin the mask so we did not give it to him until Halloween day. He was really excited and had to wear it immediately. So as you can see in the next pics he was having a great time being IronMan. Mikko was willing to dress up and that was great of him. I just took pictures and video of our little clan.

Our first stop was at Kaleb's buddy, Chase, house. These two just love each other. Chase hurried and got ready and they went trick or treating together. They had a good time and Kaleb would keep holding onto some of the candy given to him and would not put it in his bucket. I guess he just had to have his hand on some.

Kaija was our cute little giraffe. She was a good sport and enjoyed going with us down the street. It was such a nice day the weather was great it was really cold the day before but Halloween was great. We did not even have to wear a jacket.

Rest of October

I have not updated in a while and I have take a few pictures and we have done a few things this month.

Kaleb always wants me to take his picture with Kaija so here again is another pic of the two. I could not get it to rotate.

Kaleb is on and off with his eating habits. Sometimes he is a good eater and will eat vegetables and protein but then sometimes I can't get him to eat anything. So I tried to be a little creative. With Halloween this month I tried a couple of tricks like these mashed potato ghost. Kaleb enjoyed biting off their heads. I also made some Halloweenies, which were sausages wrapped up in crescent dough strips and baked. I forgot to take a picture of those.



Kaija 5 MONTHS OLD. She really loves to smile and laugh. I also had to get a picture of her chunky legs. She is in the 95% for her weight and it shows. It is adorable, at least I know she is not starving.

We made a trip to Kanab for my nephew's farewell and Mikko was also out of town for work so it worked out good. The drive down was a bit of a challenge. Almost 3 year old + 5 month old + 5-6 hours in a car=not a brilliant idea!

Once we got there the weekend went great. Kaleb enjoyed being able to go the park. The weather was great and Grandma and Grandma took good care of us. McKay and Kanani were also down so they helped out with the kids and Kaleb's cousins, Morgan and Sydney were willing to play with Kaleb although they are a lot older than him. He loves to play with the older kids and I really appreciate them being willing to play with him since he does not have and cousins the same age as him.

Kaija enjoyed Grandma reading to here and I had to get a picture of Kaija in the Halloween outfit we had with Kaleb to see how similar they look. I compared and you can tell they are siblings but they do look different.

Grandma made some yummy banana cupcakes for Kaleb to decorate. He made a cute spider. Speaking of cupcake McKay made some YUMMY devil food cupcakes with some AWESOME butter cream frosting. You burn the butter......SO delicious. I brought down the chocolate that we had ordered through a co-op up here so we of course had to try and the high end cocoa and boy was it good.

Grandpa loves little Kaija and I am grateful that my parents love all of the 38 grand kids. You might think that after 38 of them you might not care but they put forth great effort to show that they love them. Thanks Mom and Dad.

I made these cute baby leg warmers for Kaija and they were pretty easy to do. Did it in 5 minutes or less. If you make them you have to make sure you use ladies knee highs or they wont fit. While I was in Kanab we tried some I guess they were crew socks and they only made it just past her knees.

Logan Weekend

We went to Logan this last weekend to visit Mikko's parents. We had a good time especially Kaleb he loves to visit Mummi and Pappa he has such a great time.

We went out for a picnic at 1st Dam it was a beautiful day. Fall foliage is so amazing in Logan I wish I would have taken more pictures of the wonderful fall colors.

Another grandma was there with her grandchild and she was nice enough to give Kaleb a piece of bread to feed the ducks. He would yell "here" and throw down the bread. Dad and KB had a good time feeding them.

Kaija was a good little girl for the picnic. She is enjoying grabbing for toys now.

We had some yummy sandwiches for our picnic. We could only get Kaleb to eat the cheese. Poor kids just don't know what they are missing

.

Hogle Zoo

For months now on Saturday's Mikko will want to go to the Zoo and the weather has not cooperated or it just doesn't happen. Well we finally went. I did not take too many pictures because I used the video camera more. Kaleb had a great time he always wanted to climb up to see the animals better and to just play on the fences. I was impressed with the size of the zoo I had not been there since I was little. We missed the playground which I hear is fun so we will have to do that next time.

Kaleb so badly wanted to ride the carousel so how could we say no. Mikko hates these pics of himself. But we all had a good time and Kaija was a good little sport as well. I am such a bad mom and did not take any pictures of her.