Camping

When I saw this picture of their tent and mentioned that the tent was probably not properly put up and needed some tightening of the ropes, DH's answer was:"That's exactly the reason why no mothers are allowed on this trip!" Hey, they had potato chips for breakfast....

But they did have fun. DH asked Tuomas whether or not he'd like to come back next year. "No! I don't have to come back since I'm not leaving!". They had good weather, a lot of fun and nutritionally questionable diet, but it was all worth it.

The boys in their "Sweden" t-shirts, Risto's inside out. Just incase they behave badly they're mistaken for Swedes :-) All three boys got these Sweden shirts from my sister who lives in Sweden.
Pirate ship, what else?!?!
The wind was pretty strong, but Risto wanted to swim on the rocky shore.

DH and Tuomas. All pictures of the camping trip except for this one which is taken by Risto are taken by DH.

The three things I did

The three things I did during Jaakko's nap were

e) paint the wall the second time. This is how it turned out. DH's first words:"Wait a moment. Now I know what you were up to while we were away!"

k) made green marshmallow fondant for DH's birthday cake. IMHO the fondant is too sweet, but otherwise it was delicious with chocolate cake (with chocolate chips) and strawberry puré, banana + whipped cream combined with rahka (sort of cream cheese I guess) between the layers. And no, it's not a typo, "fore" is a golf term.
n) re-organized the kitchen cabinets. A picture of the cabinets is so boring, before or after re-organizing. This is a close-up of the orchid in our bedroom. More beautiful!

At home for the day

Well, not exactly. We bicycled to Tapiola, the nearest shopping center, with Jaakko. Got DH his birthday present, tried to get to a hairdresser straight away, no vacancies :-( But I have an appointment for tomorrow morning. My own hairdresser is on vacation. I haven't been to another one for over 10 years. And now I'm going to do the unthinkable: let someone else do my hair. It's not that I wouldn't trust anyone elses skills, I just don't want my ears touched. And my hairdresser knows it, so I'm in safe hands with her. I know it's funny, I just hate if someone touches my ears!!! My hairdresser always laughs because whenever she gets nearer my ears with her scissors my head starts to move the other way. I just can't help it.

I had a couple of hours for myself during Jaakko's nap. I had a choice of

a) clean the kitchen
b) vacuum clean
c) do several loads of laundry
d) iron
e) paint the wall the second time
f) knit
g) crochet
h) cross stitch
i) sew
j) weed the flower beds
k) make marshmallow fondant for DH's birthday cake
l) take a nap in the hammock
m) read
n) re-organize the kitchen cabinets that Jaakko likes to "organize"
o) up-date my blog or surf

p) relax

q) stare at the wall

I chose three of the above. Guess which ones?!?!

My guess is that when DH comes back home tomorrow and notices the wall (and I hope he does, otherwise I'll be worried!) his first words will be:"Hey, wait a moment!!! What has happened here?!?!? LAURA!!!!!!". We'll see....

Jaakko a couple of days ago after his oatmeal (i.e. hair conditioner, facial scrub, body and hand lotion, universal detergent for table tops, floors and clothes + super glue). "This little piggy went up a nostril".

This is what he does when I ask him where his eyes are :-)

Camping

DH went camping with Risto and Tuomas today. My cousins husband invited DH to join him and his 7 friends who have taken their children camping on the island of Kaunissaari. This is the 11th time; 9 fathers and about 20 children. Obviously this trip needed a lot of preparation: a new tent, new sleeping bags, + all the food that had to be taken with them. The boys and DH practiced sleeping in the tent last Thursday. I gave Risto two 2€ coins and Tuomas a 1€ and 2€ coins (Tuomas said he was happy only to have one coin.... the concept of money isn't that clear yet) and told them that they could use it to buy some candy from the kiosk on the island. Risto called me later that day and he was on cloud 9:"Mom, I bought cookies and an ice cream. And I didn't have enough money, but the lady gave them to me anyway. And guess what? Guess what was the best part? Dad didn't get to decide what to buy!!!! I bought it myself!!! And I decided!!!!"

I spent the day in Porvoo with my cousin. It was so wonderful to walk the streets in the old town and to decide what to do, which shops to pop into. Well, Jaakko was along (they said that he's too young to go camping, needs to be without diapers... i.e. I have 12 months to get him potty trained!!!). Now I have Tuesday evening, Wednesday and Thursday morning to myself (and Jaakko). And guess what I'm going to do (well I started it already). I painted the wall in our bedroom!!! DH hasn't got a clue and I'm not sure how he'll react. The wall was an ugly gray, now it's a light beige. I'm quite proud of myself: we came home from our trip to Porvoo (via the paint shop) at around 7:30 PM, Jaakko was in bed after 8 and the wall was painted and everything cleared by 9:30 PM.

DH has the camera with him, so I can't get an "after" picture, yet. Here's the "before". It's DH's birthday on Thursday when they get back. I wonder if this is a good or a bad birthday surprise?!?

MIL over for a visit

We celebrated MIL's birthday when we got back home from our tour (BTW, we stayed one night at a spa on our way back. The boys enjoyed it so much, especially the water slide, that we're thinking about going back some time).
We had peppermint tea with the cake. Risto liked it very much. Especially drinking it from the finer china.

Tour de Finlande

You can only imagine how many fist fights you can get in 1000 km "don't you dare look out my window, I don't want to listen to this song"? We did a small tour, drove to Central Finland to visit friends (and for DH to play a round of golf). We stayed at a lovely cottage where we'd been twice before. The boys ran immediately to the lake when we got there. With a lovely shallow shore Jaakko was able to enjoy it, too. Risto swam a lot.

There was a small farm yard close by and the boys got a chance to see farm yard animals. Risto liked the sheep, but Jaakko was most interested in the pigs.

Risto with "baa-baa-black sheep".Jaakko and his new friend. There were two pigs in the pen. The other one jumped out just where Jaakko is standing in the picture above!!
"This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home...."

Later on that day we caught a fish (This is the short version of "Mommy buys the fishing gear from the petrol station while the testosterone quartet waits in the car, mommy sets up the gear, digs the worms, brutally kills the squirming worm by putting it on the hook, catches a perch, kills it, guts it, de-scales it"). Risto emphasized the "we"... he was actually watching TV when the first fish was caught. Tuomas was with me on the pier. Eventually DH put it on the barbeque so he got all the credit for preparing food for the family like men are supposed to do.

My father sees a lot of me in Tuomas. Well, he's the middle child like myself. The one left out when Risto has a friend of his own age to play with. My dad says that I looked like an angel with its wings cut off when I was unhappy. Tuomas can be like that, too. But most of the time he just screams when he's mad; that's why he has a hoarse voice. But when he's in a good mood, he's my little sunshine.

We went to a carpet shop there, too, and took our time looking at carpets. Just when we were leaving Risto came in (Risto and Tuomas were allowed to play outside) and said that Tuomas was in trouble. Indeed he was, since he was standing on the metal roof on top of the entrance to the shop about 3 m high. He had followed Risto there. Risto could climb back, he couldn't. No pictures....

Important things

Since Risto had named the things he found most important, I asked Tuomas what he felt was the most important thing. His answer warmed my heart:

"To obey!"

Oh dear.....