The Great Birthday Party

Happy, happy 67th Grandpa Kesti! Ten points scored with the grandkids sending birthday greetings! Grandpa hauled them to the picnic for all to read.....lots of fun to see. The first day, sixteen cards came. He said he stood at his mailbox reading: Grandpa Kesti, Grandpa Kesti.....Whatever...says he. Can you picture his face when he opened them in the house? All these cards and a dollar falling out of each one. Yesterday, we all met at the park to celebrate his birthday. Grant and Garret Kiviahde celebrated their birthdays at the same time. Loren spend hours assembling Grant's big wheel whose directions claimed SOME assembly required. On to other news, our upstairs foam is repaired! The sheet rock will go on when Brent feels the appropriate "warm fuzzies". I'm not sure what that means...Yesterday evening we had an unannounced nudist colony at our house. Brent and I were on our way to visit his sick uncle, when out of the woods came the nudists --- Nathan and Aaron. They were using the woods as an outhouse. Well....this morning Nathan was scratching and scratching his backside. Guess what? The boy has poison ivy on his bum. That'll teach him.

HOLES by Brent Huhta

I think there is a statement that goes like this: Finish one job before you start another. So we should abide by it. NOPE NOT US. Last summer we tried finishing most of our 3 stall garage. We had the roof sprayed with foam. The application was faulty. Over the winter cracks appeared in the foam as you see in the first photo. We called in the foam company. They stood behind their job and are redoing it...no cost to us. This mess begins tomorrow. The only way to access the upstairs is by going through the house. We didn't want that. So Brent punched a hole in the east wall that was once a bedroom and now is a walk way to the playroom and the future bedrooms above the "old" garage area. The hole opens up to the future bedrooms. The workers enter in the "old" garage, climb a ladder up to the future bedrooms and walk through this opening to the playroom. There they will tear down the ceiling, scrape the old foam off and apply new. Estimated work time? One week. One week of sardines sleeping in a can....

COME PLAY IN MY SANDBOX!!!!

A couple Saturdays ago, Brent cleared a cluster of trees between the sauna and the new garage. The land in that area sloped toward the garage and was too high near the sauna. He was concerned about moisture in the garage and the sauna siding rotting. With that said...the trees were literally pulled over by the skidloader . As you can see, there is quite the hole. The kids love to play in it. Let's just say they take a bath every evening.

POTTY TRAINING....I CAN'T STAND THE JOB!

On Monday this last week Jodie called. She reported Lydia was experimenting with underwear. Out came my soap box labeled "potty training." After the phone call, I mentioned to my almost 4-year old that Lydia was wearing underwear. She must be bigger than him....yada, yada. The following morning Nathan insisted on the underwear. For two days straight I mopped up pee puddles and changed disgusting underwear. On day three, Mom lost it. The boy with soiled drawers sat on my couch....aaagh. The diapers went back on faster than you could blink and the new nerf shooter did the disappearing act. Day four dawned. I was not saying anything about those dreaded underwear. My boy bounded out of bed and pulled on the underwear himself. By the afternoon, we had a soiled mound on my sidewalk. I trotted him out to the hose and cleaned him up and said we will repeat this until he uses the toilet. I have experienced potty training with seven other children and NEVER have I been so vexed. Now it is day seven and my boy is a successful toilet man.

Easter

Happy Easter...The kids from Troy down through Katie went to Grandma Huhta's from Thursday until Sunday. Brent and I had a vacation from 7 of the crew. A nice break for us, certainly, but I don't know what it was for Grandma....We decided at the last minute to take a day trip "up north". We stopped in to visit Mummi. She was doing well and in very good spirits. She had been "busy" the day before we came. As she tells it: she had received a lengthy letter from Heikki Petaisto in the morning and in the afternoon had a vase of flowers delivered from Jana W. which she loved. After Mummi's we went for a quick visit to Sue and Bob's. Michael Paul arrived at their home 2 weeks ago. What a cutie. I just had to take a picture of two proud big sisters. Sue is doing well. Barb is staying with them for 3 weeks. What a luxury for Sue to have Mom bustling about. Today we had a regular Easter feast at our home. Les and Jean, Hans and Jenny, Andy and Kelly, Ruth and Mark and Loren helped celebrate with us. The weather cooperated nicely. It was 40 degrees. Lucky us. It was a huge change from the past few days where the temp hovered at 15 degrees. Brrrr....let's hope spring will make a comeback.