the baby came .. on monday

the baby in tiina's belly decided to make an appearence! we got home from taavi's baptism around 7:30pm sunday night. my parent's had been nervous to leave town because tiina was due on the 30th and we were going to stay with eeli when the labor started. well, less than 2 hours after we returned, tiina informed us that her water had broken...about an hour later (after a nice brisk walk with my mom around the 4 square blocks in our neighborhood) tiina and teemu were at the hospital. my mom got up with eeli after he woke extra early monday morning (5:17am) which ironically was the start of tiina's 15 minutes of hard (drug-free) pushing! this little girl was born at 5:34am -- just 7 hours after the water broke. we were all so excited to meet her. she is very sweet and when we are all in the room you can see her listening to the noise as if she recognizes all of our voices. we are all pretty smitten. you can see more pictures of her here -- with her big brother eeli. her name is SILLA and i just can't get enough of her!

baptism of taavi

this weekend, we had a shower & baptism for my cousin, taavi. i got to play santa claus and bring chad and mimmu the presents to open next. in between my job, while the present was being opened, i would lean down and check on taavi and talk to him until they needed a new gift to open. after the presents (and the cake) my mom and dad, who are his american god parents, gave taavi a silver baby rattle as a baptism gift. taavi was a really good boy during the ceremony, listening with wide eyes and even smiling. it was my papa's job to throw the water from the ceremony into the air to symbolize taavi growing to be a big and healthy boy. now my mom and i just need to start practicing our finnish so that we can speak finnish with taavi as he grows older....

triking the parkway

sunday morning in duluth

chipped-buck-teeth, mcDonald's batman-toy and all.... (oops, spiderman toy)

free first saturday

this saturday i met the heydt-kids at the walker art center for the family free first saturday festivities. we had a lot of fun making story books! my mom helped me make a story about wallE (of course) and tenzin made a story about her and her purse and dora and a bunch of other fun stuff. we used pencils and crayons and scissors (my favorite!) and paper and a glue stick (my second favorite) to make the books. afterwards, me and tenzin watched a short "cross-stitch" movie while our parents chatted and waited to watch a 3D movie about the sun. we watched the movie in a small theater and the lights went out and the 'thins' were coming out at us! wow. we sure had a lot of fun together -i can't wait to have another play date with tenzin!

wallE

i love wallE....and robots in general. i build wallE and different versions of robots all day long - out of play-doh, legos, blocks, paper and i've even started DRAWING them (drawings to come soon!) and despite the fact that i like robots so much these days, i've also made the realization that i can like more than one thing at a time: "i like wallE and lightning mcQueen!" wow!

(my mom's having trouble embedding vimeos into this post... will try again later...)

my mom thinks i look old....

my mom's friend, john...

my mom's college friend, john, came with me and my parents on our recent trip to duluth. he sent us these pictures that he took of me in one of my favorite places at my grandma and grandpa's house. when he asked me what this little place in under the counter was called, i told him "it's my workshop"

taavi eric salmela

i have a new cousin - he was born on february 9th and weighed just shy of 9lbs. (that is about what i weighed when i was a month & a half!) -- he is a really sweet boy and i cannot wait for him to get older so that he can play cars and legos with me!
Taavi is a Finnish form of the name David, our grandfather's name -(the one who "set-up" taavi's parents.) his middle name, Eric, is also his father's middle name. and Salmela is a family name that can be connected to Finland back many generations and to many cousins who live there today. Taavi is the first child in his generation, in our Salmela lineage (decendents of Rikard who emigrated to the US) who will traditionally carry the Salmela name forward. what a BIG name this boy carries!! ... but, with his Finnish mother teaching him the language, he will be fluent in both english and finnish, and with his early appearance and personality, it appears he will do a fine job of "wearing" his name! ..... we're all pretty proud of the little guy!

now, we just need to convince his parents to start a blog for him so that we can follow him as he grows!

a visit from natalie and ezra

we finally got to meet baby ezra (almost 2 weeks ago already!) when they came over for dinner and for a visit. he sure is a happy little guy, full of smiles and even a little squeel when he first arrived. can't wait to see them again!!

89.3 the current's ROCK THE CRADLE

today we went to ROCK THE CRADLE - and event put-together by mpr's 89.3 the current radio station. there were so many fun events that we didn't have the time (energy) to do them all - but we sure did have fun! we started the morning with some yoga. eeli did a really good job - i did a good job when i listened to the instructions. we saw masa there, dressed-up in a cool mask and cape. (or course i want one now, too - imagine that!) meg and maeva also arrived during yoga time and i got to help feed her a bottle.

after that we headed up to the area where they were reading stories and people were playing music. we listened to Mark Wheat read The Gurafalo, watched/listened to Jeremy Messersmith play a bunch of songs, and read along with Barb Abney when she read (my mom's favorite book) Green Eggs and Ham.

theeeen, i got to try playing a bunch of instruments! the piano, the saxaphone, the cello and the trombone. the trombone was my favorite! my mom was so impressed that i could get such a good sound out of the wind instruments!

we arrived at 11am and left after 2:30pm. over 3 hours of exhausting fun made me fall asleep in the car! tiina and my parents were just as tired as i was, i think....

snowshoeing ...

i finally got to go outside and play the day my mom woke up and cheered because it was 20 degrees outside! i spent 2 hours in the back yard with my snow shoes on that day and the next morning, my mom and auntie phon came snow-shoeing with me in the big open field on the parkway. we played hide and go seek, painted on the snow with tree branches and i even claimed some trees as my house {complete with a shower!} i like being outside - when it's not too cold, that is.....

portraits of our cold cheeks {by mom&me}

rocket popsicle-makers {from maeva!}