Oh No!

What have we done! We opened the Pandora's box! We've done so much skating now over the holidays that it's made Erno want to play ice hockey! Today we went skating and Erno saw a little girl dressed in the ice hockey gear. He asked me why she was dressed like that and I said that she probably plays ice hockey. Then Erno said: No she can't be a hockey player mum, she's not in school yet. I then said you don't need to be in school to start playing ice hockey (blimey, I should have bit my tongue and said that maybe the girl was just small for her age or something!). Then Erno starts beaming and says: Mum I wanna start playing ice-hockey too. I didn't say anything to that.

I told Teemu my conversation with Erno and he said that yeah, he would probably like the game since he was trying to kick another ice-skater lying on the ground earlier. All the more reason not to let him play hockey. He's enough violent as he is, I don't need him to learn any new ways to hurt other people. If there was ever a hobby I didn't want my kids to take it would be hockey.

You might wonder about my loathing of the game. I actually used to like it, but it was before the game got ruined by excessive violence and turned into free wrestling on ice skates. The most violent NHL players are the best paid ones as well and I think it's repulsive. The game used to be fun and if you started punching people in the face you would be banned to play! But not today, nooo! The olympic and the World Championship games luckily still have some of the old spirit left which is why the NHL players don't do so well in those games and cop penalties all the time. (Serves them right, althoug I think they should be banned from the whole game). Hopefully they won't go changing the rules more to the NHL way.

Well, I'm being hopeful that Erno will forget about his desire to play hockey. If he brings it up again I might show him some figure skating and say that there's other (and probably more challenging) things you can do involving skating than play hockey.

Our Christmas

We had a really, really, really nice Christmas. Or at least I did. And I got SOCKS for Christmas! So that just means that the presents aren't everything. In Finland the Christmas is mostly celebrated on the Christmas eve. Most finns start their Christmas celebrations with no other than going to sauna, of course! So did we. We don't have our own sauna in our unit, but there's one in the apartment building and you can use the common sauna free of charge on Christmas.

A little while after the sauna my dad and my stepmum came over and a while after them Teemu's dad joined us. Since none of them were in our ward's Christmas party where we did the traditional finnish version of the Christmas play called the "Star boys" There's a lot of songs in it and a lot of parts especially for the King Herod (played by Erno) that we thought it would be impossible for the kids to memorize it all so we did it as a play back. We used the music from the heavy metal version of the Star boys which I think is the best version ever (maybe after the one we did). We then recorded the speaking parts and Erno was just adorable. He's probably the best King Herod ever!



After our play it was time for the Christmas dinner. All made from scratch! Oh well...hmm...actually we did not raise and slaughter the pig ourselves as they used to back in the old days. In Finland we traditionally eat ham and not Turkey on the Christmas dinner. That's actually one of Teemu's Childhood memories of Christmas. They would sometimes go to his uncle's farm for Christmas and watch their uncle slaughter the pig. They would then eat the blood pancakes. I know how it sounds but they're actually not that bad at all! Even our kids like them!

Anyway, we ate the dinner with the ham we bought from the supermarket but cooked ourselves. Usually it's done in the oven, but this year we took a part of the ham to try out Nigella Lawson's recipe of ham in the coca-cola (or pepsi in our case, since we prefer that) and that turned out to be very good. We'll definitely will be eating cola ham in the future too!

After the dinner the boys were getting really really excited and started running from one window to another to see if Santa was coming already and were bugging me constantly with their "when is Santa coming" questions. They're waiting was rewarded and Santa did finally come with a big box full of presents. I think watching the kids' excitement is one the best parts of the Christmas! I remember when we moved to Australia that Adiel was really worried if Santa would find us there. I was actually a bit worried of that my self since I wasn't sure if the Santa visits the aussie homes or not. Well, obviously the Santa knows that the finns need him to visit them no matter where they are and he did pay us a visit even down under!


He looks a bit scary, doesn't he? Well, our kids were just too excited to be afraid. The kids were so excited of their presents. The rest of the evening they were playing with their new stuff and the grown ups were playing the Mexican train game that grandpa and grandma got from Santa. It's a great game. Erno had put himself to bed a some point but Adiel couldn't get enough of his new Wii Mariokart game and once our Mexican train was finnished Adiel was still playing and it was about 1 o'clock am! So we all decided to go to bed.

On the Christmas Day we all slept in and just had a nice and quiet day with playing Wii and eating. Later on we had a visit from Teemu's brother and his family. After they left it was time for me to head to work for the night duty. On the boxing day we went ice skating since Adiel had ice skates for Christmas and of course we had to try them out. I just loved going ice skating after a couple of year's break. For some reason we didn't do it last year at all. We were probably devastated by the weather and the fact that there wasn't a lot of snow or ice to go skating on and forgot all about the indoor skating.

Tomorrow we're heading for some more ice skating since we all liked it so much and on Tuesday we're going to the movies to see Wall-E since Santa also brought us some movie tickets. I'm just really really happy and I have enjoyed our Christmas this year a lot (not that it's been crap before, but this year I thought was extremely special).

Happy New Year everyone, since I probably won't be posting again this year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Our home and family is finally ready for Christmas. Today we went to the graveyard to light a candle on grandma Riitta's grave. It's a finnish Christmas tradition to remember those members of our family who are no longer with us. I thought the cemetery looked really really nice with lots and lots of candles lit all around. There's going to be even more tomorrow since most people visit the graveyard on Christmas eve.

Our bathroom is nearly finnished and we're really happy with it. I'll post some pictures after it's completely finnished. Last Saturday we brought the Christmas tree in. In my childhood we always celebrated Christmas at my grandma's and one of the highlights of the Christmas was goint with my grandpa and my uncle to their backyard to chop down the Christmas tree. Their backyard was full of spruces back then. There's really good plastic ones these days too, but I think there's nothing like the real tree. It smells so nice so who cares if it's a bit messy. That's what the vacuum cleaners are for, right? I remember my grandma even never ever used the electric candles. Always the real ones and I liked them too! Maybe I'll do that too when the boys grow up a bit.

Anyway, Christmas is such a lovely time of year wheather it's in the north or down under and wheather it's white or not. (looks like not this year). So Merry Christmas to all who hasn't received a post card or email card from me and to everyone who did! Hugs and kisses to all of you from our family!

Weariness

We've been renovating our bathroom for ages now and it's still not ready! I thought it would be by now. Hopefully before Christmas though. It's not so easy to prepare for Christmas with so much junk lying around that you just don't seem to get rid of.

I've probably never been happier to be able to work part time than now. I had the whole week off last week and now after two days I'm really worn out. The down side to working in ED is that if there's a big accident somewhere they will most likely to call you to work, because they'll need a lot of staff in ED. So last night there was a bus with 67 passengers that caught fire so I was called to work at 8:30 pm. Luckily most of the patients had only mild injuries if anything at all and I was allowed to leave at 11pm since I had to work in the morning. The funny thing is that not long before I was called to work I had told my husband that it feels like I'm doing a night shift today and I have to keep reminding myself that I 'm not. The gift of prophecy?

Here's something that I'm proud of:



It's a ginger bread cookie house resembling the moomin house. Unfortunately we I coulnd't find blue lollies to use on the wall so I used purple instead. I'm sure the moomins are delighted to have a different colour of paint for change. The house was rather difficult to assemble. Much more difficult than the ordinary ginger bread house, but I think I did a good job. The kids love it too! I think edible Christmas decoration is cool.

Happy Birthday Finland!

Today's the independece Day of Finland. There are a lot of holidays (too many, actually) during the year when the finns' alcohol consumption is out of control, but unlike in a lot of other countries this one isn't one of them. There's actually not that much celebration at all, which might strike some people as odd. The only traditions I recall that my family ever had on indepence Day was candles. We have special white and blue candles for indepence Day and you are supposed to light two of them at your window at 6pm. That I've pretty much tried to do every independence Day that I've spent in Finland. Taking a quick look around the neighborhood looks like only few people besides me are holding on to this tradition. I don't know, I just like candles no matter what the day, but the idea of having two candles at each window at the same time is kinda nice.

In Australia the anzac day kinda reminded me of our Indepence Day. This is a day to remember our veterans and remember the sacrifices that were made for us to be able to have a free country. I'm not a big fan of war or glorifying wars, but I am happy to be able to live in a free country. I'm sad that it had to take another war to get there, and I'm sad that a lot of people on both sides had to die for it and quite honestly I can't say how things would have turned out if weren't for the war or if I'd be miserable now or what, but I'm proud of my country for what it is today. I think Finland has come a long way and we have a lot to be proud of.

Other than candles I remember going to a concert and a movie (about the war) on indepence Day. A lot of times I've also worked, which I don't mind at all. Sunday penalty rates without working on a Sunday works great for me :-) Today I also worked, but had the evening off to light my candles and bake with the kids. Oh, another tradition wich I try to hold on to also is to listen to patriotic songs and that I've done today too! I've got a CD called "The songs of the Fatherland". That's exactly how they've translated it into english. I wonder if whoever translated it knew what the word "fatherland" usually refers to. In the CD there's also all the lyrics to the songs and the english translations. The translations are so funny. I would put one here, but can't find the cover now.

Anyway, happy 91st birthday Finland! You're a grand old Lady, not a maiden anymore! (We often call Finland "The maiden Finland" because of the shape of the country).

Christmas Parties

Tuesday was the RS Christmas Party in our ward. It was probably the best one ever! I had a really good time! There are some really fantastic and funny sisters in the Espoo 2nd ward (the party was for both wards). They put on a great show. They were dressed up as women from the 50's and they were hosting a radio show and giving us very good and useful ideas on how to be prepared when the hubby comes home from work. I've read that thing before, it's the real thing. It was picked up from some women's magazine in the 50's but it's soooo funny. I couldn't find it, otherwise I would have posted it for you all to read and learn.

Then we had a sister dressed up as an old lady and she read us Luke 2:1-20 in various finnish dialects and we were all laughing so hysterically. It was so, so funny! Of course there was singing too and most importantly eating! We had the traditional finnish Christmas feast. Oh and of course we all gave and received Christmas presents. I got a candle.

Then there's also been Erno's dance schools presentation for the parents. That was so cute! Look at Erno with all those pink ballerinas :-)






Then there was his music schools Christmas presentation for parents. That was very good too! All the kids sang and played really well.










Last Sunday was the primary program sunday. The kids were incredible. When they sang "Called to serve" I'm sure there was not a single person who couldn't hear them. On Sunday evening there was also an event at the temple by the Christmas stall (or whatever they're called in english). Of course that's nothing compared to the one in Sydney. Heck I couln't even fit the one in Sydney in one photo :-) But then again the weather conditions are also slightly different. We really should buy a better camera since our pictures haven't really turned out that great lately.

I thought this might be fun

1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, MP3 Player or whatever on shuffle.

2. For each question press the next button to get your answer.

3. You must write down the name of the song no matter how silly it sounds!

4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.

Start here:

If someone says "Is this okay?", you say:
Ahccai

How would you describe yourself?
You don't miss your water

What do you think about in the bathroom?
Papa was a rollin' stone

What do you like in a guy?
What if

How do you feel today?
Lust

What is your life's purpose?
Spring

What is your motto?
A Day in the Life

What do your friends think of you?
Laulu rakkaudelle
(a song for love)

What do you think of your parents?
Somewhere around Nothing

What do you think of very often?
It's OK to phone the island that is a mirage

What is 2+2?
Kun kuolen
(when I die)

What do you think of your best friend?
The Scythe

What do you think of the person you like?
Maailmanpyörä palaa
(The Ferris wheel is burning)

What is your life story?
Mercy street

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Ikävöi, ihminen
(Yearn, O man)

What do you think of when you see the person you like?
Andante ur Holbergsvit

What will you dance to at your wedding?
Kuuntele mua
(Listen to me)

What will they play at your funeral?
Tylsää, tylsää
(boring, boring)

What is your hobby/interest?
Brain damage

What is your biggest fear?
Satakunnan laulu
(The song of Satakunta)

What is your biggest secret?
The Runaway Cart

What do you think of your friends?
Kirjoituksia
(Writings)


What will you put as the subject of this post?
China