Mummi and Pappa's

We went to Logan for an overnighter at Mikko's parents. Mummi and Pappa is what you call grandparents in Finnish. Kaleb had a great time and I am glad we were able to go visit. Above Kaleb just got out of the sauna, see the red cheeks. Sauna is a very traditional thing. Almost every house and apartment in Finland will have their own sauna and they visit it weekly. So it is natural that Mikko's parents built a sauna in their home. When we visit we like to get in to relax and sweat, it is nice.

Mummi and Pappa have a huge tree in their front yard that deposits a ton of leaves every fall. Kaleb had a good time playing in the leaves. Mikko was photographer and he was trying to get some action shots and these dang digital cameras take to long to snap the picture so sorry they are a little fuzzy.

He had a great time as you can see.

Wish I knew what he was thinking right there looks like a cross of relaxing and fear. Thanks to Mummi and Pappa for letting us come visit and for all the good food they fed us while there and watching Kaleb for us so we could take a visit to the temple!

Self Portrait

This is Kaleb's first portrait he has taken of himself as well as the first pic he has taken at all. Back on Halloween he got a hold of the camera and took a bunch of pictures. Now when he gets the camera he just enjoys turning it on and off. I still think he is a cute boy even upside down.

Scary 80's

For my friend Lori's 30th birthday (Lori is to the left of me in the purple) she wanted to have an 80's Prom and her buddies pulled it off for her. This has got to be the scariest thing you have seen, besides my actual prom photos that truly happened in the 80's...1989!

This is my prom dress that I wore to my Jr. Prom back in 1989. My mom made it for me and it was a great dress for the time but now it is just scary. I must say that I enjoyed my date more this time than the one back in the 80's (Shane) not that I am knocking him it was just fun to dress up with my hubby and dance with him since he does not really like to do that dancing thing. The truly sad thing about this is that I can fit into my high school prom dress but I can't fit into my wedding dress! I need to loose 25-30 pounds. But I keep telling myself that I will do it when we are done having kids and since Mikko wants at least one more I keep telling myself that I have more time. It's sad I know.

Panu and Leah

November 8th Mikko's parents had a celebration engagement dinner for Panu and Leah. We went to Ruby River and had a great meal. Thanks Seija and Seppo. Panu is Mikko's youngest brother. He got engaged to Leah a few weeks earlier. Leah is from Australia and Panu met her down at BYU while doing his Masters. They are getting married in May in Australia then plan to stay there for a few years then decide what to do after that. I am jealous, I have always wanted to go to Australia and we are very excited for Panu to get married and to have this great adventure. Mikko's parents and brother Pekka will be going to the wedding. We wont be able to most likely at this time as Mikko is out of work, we just might not be able to afford that luxury. We will miss them but hope for the best for them.

Halloween

Kaleb joined his neighbor friend Macie at a Mom and Tot dance class. He really enjoys it and most of the time does his own thing, maybe someday I will actually join the class.

I put these up in the wrong order but oh well. Here is Kaleb enjoying some of his candy that he got trick or treating. He was not quite sure what was going on but he did not mind people giving him candy. After we got home he really got into giving kids candy when they came to our home. He stood by the door with candy bars in his hands, a worried look on his face and making some noise and wondering why no one was at the door at the time.

The back of Kaleb's cute lion outfit. I originally borrowed the lion costume from my neighbor but her sister decided she wanted it. I did not want to try and think of something else to dress him up as and he looked so dang cute in this one so I found one on Ebay and got it shipped to us on the 29th.

Lion Kaleb does a great roar he is just too cute.

Wednesday before Halloween we carved our pumpkins and Kaleb was really into the pumpkins once we lit them and put them out side. He is so cute and say punkeene.

Kaleb just kept staring and the flickering lights.

Tried to get Kaleb too match the expression on the pumpkin, we think he did pretty good.

He was not to thrilled about putting his hand inside the pumpkin to take out the "guts", but we made him try it out. We had a good time this year and I am sure it will be even more fun next year.

Hawaii

After 32 years Mikko has been able to cross this off his list... tropical vacation. Mikko received an extra dividend a few months ago so we were able to have a Hawaii vacation. The picture above is Waikiki beach in Honolulu. We chose Oahu since I had already been there and knew there were lots of thing to see and do on the Island. We stayed 5 days and that still was not enough. We decided if we go again it will be a minimum of a week.

Here is some countryside on our trip out to Laie to visit the PCC (Polynesian Cultural Center). We did not rent a car for the whole trip so we paid for a lot of shuttles. This one was nice the PCC provided it and we had a little tour guide that gave us some great insights.

This is my cousin Carol who lives in Laie and works at BYU Hawaii. Carol greeted us with leis and they smelled wonderful. She met us at the PCC and got us a screaming deal on tickets. We were so thankful for her since everything in Hawaii is so expensive. We tried to stop by in Laie on Sunday but we did not get an answer. We were sad to not be able to visit some more but that gives us more incentive to go again.

Our fist stop at the PCC was the Samoan village, this guy showed us how the coconut tree is the tree of life. Anciently they used every part of the tree from shelter to cooking utensils food. This guy climbed the coconut tree all the way to the top to get a coconut and he was barefoot. He was pretty buff and really funny.

They have a canoe pageant in the afternoon and they have a boat that represents 6 of the different villages. This one is Tahiti.

Mikko tried his luck at the Tongan spear toss, he did pretty good for a white guy.

Here they are taking out the pig for all of us to see before we started eating at the Luau.

Here we are waiting for our turn to go eat at the Luau. We had yummy pork and chicken and purple tarot rolls and a couple of other interesting Hawaiian things.

Mikko splurged on a fancy drink and he said it was well worth the $7 it cost.

Our battery was charging on our camera so this is a crappy still we took with our video camera of the Arizona memorial. We also stopped by at the aviation museum so Mikko could check out all the vintage planes.

Sunday we headed up to North Shore. We stopped off at the Dole pineapple plantation and enjoyed some pineapple sorbet and man that was some good stuff. We then stopped at the beach at the Turtle Bay resort. It was really nice and Mikko got to snorkel in the bay. He is the one in the middle with the yellow snorkel. You might want to click on the picture so you can see it bigger.

Then it was over to Laie once again we stopped by the beautiful temple and watched a film in the visitor center. Unfortunately we did not go to a session this trip cause both of our recommends have expired and we were not able to get in for interviews before we left. It's called poor planning on our part.

This is the view from our hotel room on Waikiki. We stayed at the Embassy Suites, it was really nice and the beach was just a block away. Thank goodness we had Hilton points so we could stay there.

Our last day in Hawaii and we head to Hanauma Bay so Mikko could do some more snorkeling. I have been snorkeling three times before, but the last time I went was here a few years ago and I started hyper ventilating. The things in the water just freak me out. So I don't snorkel anymore. I just chilled out on the beach. In the shade of course.

Shot of Hanauma Bay from the top of the ridge. So beautiful even the picture does not do it justice. The blues were much more vibrant in person. We would love to go back again. The weather was nice 85 for high and 72 for a low. Sure beats the 30's we are experiencing in SLC at nights now. But I do admit that it would at least be nice to have cooler weather for Christmas just seems weird to be able to go to the beach on Christmas Day.

Binki

The binki is finally gone. I was worried it might be hard to get Kaleb to sleep without a binki he only had it for naps and night time but about 5 days before we left for Hawaii I tried naps with out it as well as that night. I was so surprised that it went so well. He does still have "George" his sleeping buddy toy thing but hey at least that wont affect his teeth. So goodbye to pictures like this. Yeah!

Shoes

Kaleb loves to wear shoes especially his. He gets mad at me when I take them off. He also tries others shoes as well and a few weeks ago he put on some of Mommies shoes. He had a little bit of difficulty in the heels but hey I sometimes have a hard time with them. Hopefully he will not continue to wear high heels throughout his life!! :o)

Whats Happening When It's Quiet

The other day Kaleb wanted a cookie so I said OK you can have 1 cookie and that is it. So I give him a cookie and I left the box on the counter. Kaleb took the cookie and started running around. I then went downstairs to do something on the computer. It had been a good 10 minutes and it had been too quiet. I though to myself I wonder what that kid is up to, he is not making any noise. So I decided to go take a look upstairs. He was not in the Kitchen so I walk down to his room and this is what I found. He had grabbed the box of cookies crawled up on the rocking chair in his room and was munching down. Just made me laugh.

Official Mormon Mom

I believe that I have officially become a Mormon Mom! Last weekend and last night was my first attempts at canning and all my bottles sealed! It is such a proud moment for me. But I must give credit where it is due.....thanks to the Internet, McKay, who corrected my mistakes while doing my salsa, Mom was not home when I called but McKay was there to save the day. And most of all I want to thank my Mom, after canning I have even more respect for her and I am amazed that year after year for 60 years she has canned numerous bottles, of peaches, pears, tomatoes, beans, cherries, jams, and has froze peas and corn. The time my Mom put into that year after year is amazing. Canning is so time consuming and I did it when Kaleb was gone or in bed there is no way I could have done it while he was awake. But my Mom had nine children and still canned year after year. I now know why she does not sleep. For years she was up at night bottling everything so that her family could enjoy wonderful food year round. She spoiled us that is for sure, buying canned fruit and vegetable from the store can't even come close. THANK YOU MOM! You are the best. I love you for the great example you are to me.
I made salsa and stewed tomatoes the first weekend and the above peaches I did last night.

Kaleb loves Mommy

It really amazes me that day after day Kaleb still loves his Mommy or as most of the time he calls me Daddy. He is a little confused. Anyway as I was saying it amazes me how much love little kids have for their parents. Day after day I get after Kaleb telling him "no" and I even lose my cool and yell, but within 5 minutes he loves me again. I am grateful he has a short memory and I hope he does not remember everything from these early years. But I am really grateful that he is in our family and that I get to be his mom although it would be so much easier if I did not have a child and just had a job in the "work" world. Let me tell you a 8-5 job would be so much easier than being a MOM. 

At the end of the work day when Mikko gets home from work, I am waiting for Mikko to take over so I can get a break. Kaleb is excited to see Dad but then he is there hanging on my leg wanting to be with me. I have had enough and am exhausted but deep inside my heart smiles.

Puikkonen Reunion

We had a little time to play some badminton at the Puikkonen gathering. We have a small yard but just enough room to play but if you get a little crazy we have to go search for the birdies that fly over the fence. Here is Kaleb and Elina having a good time. Elina is Mikko's cousins daughter so I don't know what that makes them. 2nd cousins???
We had a little family gathering with Mikko's side of the family. There is only Mikko's Dad and his brother from the Puikkonen line and we are fortunate that they both live here in Utah. So on the Puikkonen side Mikko has one uncle and two cousins. So with Mikko's immediate family and extended we had 11 adults and 3 kids there. Kind of a little different than the Brown side but we had a good time. All were present except for Mikko's cousin Karina.
We got a little family shot in too. Kaleb was pretty funny that day. He sure does like to tell people what to do and sure was chatty. Just wish we knew what he was saying!

Kaleb loves to play t-ball. We hope he continues to enjoy athletics we are pretty sure he will have a build for sports.

Farm Vocab

Sunday I went out to check on our garden and when I came in I told Mikko. "you are going to be amazed by the bounty I have harvested". Mikko says "ooh big farmer words". I have enjoyed the fruits of our or should I say my labor this year. Between the east farms and our little garden we have at least one night a week where it is all veggie night. Mikko wonders what happened to the meat but it sure is yummy.

This is our little garden this year I tried, strawberries, green peppers, cucumbers, summer squash and tomatoes and we have a enjoyed some of all. The berries only produced 4 berries but they were yummy. We also got a shed last week you can see the back of it on the left. Mikko said as he was watching the guys we bought it from.."that was worth every penny not to have to put it together ourselves". I agree they had it done it two hours. If we would have bought a do it yourself kit it would still not be done! :o)