Oh happy day

This little chickadee turned seven today!

She was pretty excited over new Winnie the Witch books, she also got a bunch of clothes for Bratz dolls.

Love this shot of her reading her card.

THE most exciting thing about today for her though was the new bus pass. We went downtown to get it yesterday. You should have seen that BIG GIRL pride showing it on the bus this morning :)
So stinkin' cute.

Oh and you know how I said the rest of us dodged the stomach flu bug?
In the end.. Mika got it.
Sucked to be him.
Me?
I slept on the couch... hehee...

I should probably tip you to the big sale and huge clearance section at AMLT.
I can tip you now since my box was already mailed.
*grin*
Good deals.
Great finds.
You have until Friday.
I had fun.

We are due some *S*N*O*W* tomorrow!
Major snow.
Snow that maybe won't melt away the next day.
You know... I'm actually looking forward to shoveling.
Really.

Then again... you might want to ask me about that tomorrow evening, ok?

chuckachucka upchucka

(not sure you want to read this Sharyn... mind you, I don't have any sound bites, heh)

I left school with one feverish 12 year old.
Once home, she hurled.
Just once.
Just didn't feel right in her tummy.
But she was fine after that.

I was in bed right after ten.
Then something woke me up at 11.
I couldn't quite figure it out.
Sounded like Niina.
And something odd.
Like splat.



And then I was up fast.
Sure enough, she hadn't quite made it to the bathroom, but had upchucked (or hurled) on the floor.
Grabbed the sick kid to the toiletbowl, shower and hugs, while Mika cleaned the floor...
How clever am I?
Ha.
Poor baby was sick regularly between 11 and 3.30am.
And I was up with her.
She was a trooper, no crying.
Just a few " I really hate throwing up" comments.
We slept in.

I had already sent a textmessage to the principal that I wouldn't be around today.
I got a message this afternoon that out of the 20 kids in Niina's class, a whopping 11 were home with the stomach flu. Plus one teacher and one assistant.

Wow.

Luckily the rest of us have missed the bullet.
It's been over 24 hours now, it would have been here and gone by now.
Phew.

Monday... I mean Tuesday

Personally I don't do Mondays.
Certainly not my favorite day of the week.

Yesterday however was certainly interesting, inspirational and quite exciting.

And...


And I have to leave you hanging...

Because I can't tell you more.
Not yet.
Once I can spill the beans, don't you worry, I'll let you know in BIG HONKING SCREAMING CAPITAL LETTERS.
Deal?

Yeah I know I know...
But trust me.
It is good.

So, let's turn our attention to Tuesday.
Today was a pretty ordinary run of the mill Tuesday.
Only my mind is still whirring and whizzing and working overtime due to Monday's events.
Which we aren't talking about.
zzzzzzipppppp..

Woke up 6.15.
Dropped Niina off at school at 7.56.
Was at work at 8.03.
Tea break at 9.42.
Lunch at 11.00. (1st grade schedule...)
12.15 I clock off at 1st grade and switch to Primary 1 time.
Walk into the copyroom at 12.20.
Walk out of the copyroom at 13.15, three and a half packs of paper later.
(can I just say UGH! If there ever was need for air-conditioning...)
At Primary 1 13.30.
Left work 15.00.
15.10 grocery shopping.
15.25 picked up Niina from daycare.
We were home about ten to four.

Then I stopped looking at the time :)

I'm so tired tonight.
Plus my muscles are giving me hell after lifting weights and working out.
I should sleep well.
Good night.

Sheesh, what a week...

A week ago I was wondering what on earth had posessed me to stay up to 1 or 2am every night the previous week. Because when you need to get up at 6.15am on a Monday morning, and you are still tossing around at said 1am... it is rather irritating. Then of course when you finally fall asleep, you wake up 3-4 times to check the time, just so you won't be late.

I did get to work.. bleary eyed and yawning. During English class the kids were thinking up adjectives and verbs and I tossed in "tired" and "yawning", heh.
From work I went to get my hair done and yippee skippee my hairdresser was back from maternity leave. She is sooo fun. Plus there's the advantage of 100% trust. I can just sit down and say "oh you know what I like... I give you free hands" And two hours later leave loving my hair.

Tuesday was better, I was in fact awake the entire day, and ended up substituting in the afternoon club. Then things started going south...

I spent the evening, night and morning enjoying a stomach bug. Very painful. But luckily over in 24 hours.

Luckily because I got to go to my first dollshouse club meeting :)
My collegue got me in and it is so cool to meet like-minded people. We made tiny cacti. Good times, good times.

Thursday was pleasantly uneventful.

And on Friday the kids at school were just plain monkeys. One of those "once I get home I'll break open the gin" Fridays. Plus there was a bake sale, so monkeying and sugar... yeah!

This weekend I've been making tiny minis again, just playing around, having fun.
And planning my scrapbooking work shops. Yes, that was the announcement in Finnish that wasn't translated. Didn't think too many of you international readers were hopping on a plane to come take a class. Now of course if you want to, I won't say no... ;)

Tomorrow is filled with meetings.. a really 007 secret kinda meeting I'll hopefully get to tell you more by summer and another camp school meeting. Boy that camp school is getting nearer and nearer... not too many months to May!

Now I'm hoping to have a good nights sleep... even if I was up to 2am last night... aaarrggghhhh... I just never learn do I?!

Pääkaupunkiseudun skräppääjat, HUOMIO!

Jonoon järjesty!
Eikun... ihan relana vaan...

Onko kiinnostusta tulla pitämilleni skräppäys-workshop tunneille?

Tarkoituksena on, että kerralla tehdään mini albumi tms kivaa. 20-25 eurolla saa sekä "tunnin" että tarvikepaketin.

Tarkoitus olisi pitää tunteja kerran kuussa, voisin aloittaa jo helmikuussa.

En tässä vaiheessa kerää vielä sitovia ilmoittaumisia (kun ei ole päivääkään tiedossa), lähinnä haluan tietää kuinka monta halukasta löytyy.
Eli, kerro kavereillekin, ja laita viesti tähän.
(tai meilaa susanna.tunturi miukumauku dlc.fi poista välit ja laita se oikea @ siihen paikallen)

Busy weekend

So I didn't get around to posting those Christmas tree photos, will do that later tonight.

I start work again this morning, ugh.
Waking early sucks.
After staying up late and sleeping in for two weeks, heh.

But I'll make it.
Because
it
is
finally

SNOWING!

The world is white again, aaahhh...

uummm.. excuse me?!

Put a teabag in my morning cuppa, poured in some steaming water and something looked off.
My white mug remained white.
What the...?
I picked up the teabag:

I think something went wrong at the teabag factory.
Gave me a chuckle though.

You know January starts the tulip season.

Mine were nestling the Christmas lights this morning.
We still have our tree and lights up. They are coming down on Sunday. I've been happy to keep the tree up as it hasn't shed any needles. I'm very impressed.
I'll make a post about what our tree looks like tomorrow I think. I have all the pictures ready and waiting.

I've been busy importing the 30+ cd's my bro dropped off to educate Saara in good music into iTunes.
Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, The Ramones, Blind Melon, Soundgarden, Weezer, Goo Goo Dolls and Neil Young. Lots of Pearl Jam. I'm liking.
I've also been listening to that Nickelback cd I bought Mika for Christmas. Liking that too.

Today I got out the sewing machine to make a couple quilts.
Didn't take too long as they were quite small :)

For Niina's dollhouse. More photos here.

And talking about dollhouses, Greenleaf has re-released an old design, The Brookwood. This is the one house I'd love to have. I'd make it sleek and modern. Sadly I don't think Mika would get me this for my birthday... apparently we have enough dollhouses here already.
I guess I'll settle for a new mobile phone.

Sigh.

The dollhouse would be cheaper, heh...

Cuteness overload

Soooo... with Hello Kitty in mind I spent some time surfing at Flickr last night.
A simple search with those two words brought me over 55 000 hits. You can so easily get lost in that place...

And boy did I find supercute ideas!
Aren't I lucky that the Japanese are seriously into cute.
Look at these craft ideas!

Purses!

Hair thingies!

Felt dolls!

Jewelry!

More felt dolls and bags!

The cutest bumblebee in the history of the planet!

Did I mention cute?
And most of these had the directions for them too...

I don't read Japanese, but I do understand pictures :)
I think I need to go rummage through the box with bits of felt.

Aaahh.. yes.. frosted cupcakes equal cake, alas.
I'm leaning towards cupcakes though, I'll just leave the birthday girl's cupcake unfrosted. Not so festive, but like I said, she'd not into frosting.
Don't know how that is possible though. What's not to love about frosting?

And to honor beautiful frosted cupcakes, here's a Flickr mosaic for your enjoyment:

1. Hello Kitty Giftbox, 2. So Pink!, 3. over the top, 4. cup-cake-tower, 5. more yumminess, 6. Birthday - Elvis, 7. Blue Swirls - After, 8. Ore Producing Cupcakes, 9. Butterfly Collection - Fuchsia, 10. enchanted castle in the clouds, 11. Glam Cupcakes, 12. Blossoms, 13. The Catan Cupcake Cities, 14. HELLO KITTY CUPCAKES, 15. Girly Cuppies - Violet & Pink, 16. Cupcake W/ Buttercream Frosting

Now I'm hungry....

Hello yetanotherbirthday...

Just organized Christmas.
Just organized a birthday/New Year's party.

And now I need to start organizing Niina's birthday party.
She turns seven on the 23rd.

Please close your eyes while I perform a hairpulling-headbanging-weepingindesperation-jumpingupanddowninfrustration circus act, OK?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh boingboingboingboing noooooooooooooooooooooo stopmstompstomp

And no, I don't feel any better really... heh.

Niina wants this:

It's all about Hello Kitty.

Cute, simple, girly, no sweat right?

I even have the plates, cups and tablecloth already bought.

Basically all I have to do is to think of something to replace a cake (she does not do cakes, that girl of mine) and think of a couple activities.

Still waiting for the punchline on this prettiest in pink parties?

Two boys invited.

See, I can't just put some pretty glittery hairpins on them and call it a day, can I?

Or can I?

Happy 2008!

Ha.

Right after saying I'd pull off this photo-a-day mission through the entire month... I failed.

I missed three days.

But I did manage to take this one yesterday.

My last photo in 2007.

That's Saara holding a bucket of fireworks. The small extremely noisy kind.

But, before we get to that, let's rewind.

My husband turned 40 on Saturday.

And I didn't even bake him a cake.

He did get a really nice gift though, a dress shirt and tie.

But no cake.

Why?

Because we went to a christening.

My cousin's baby boy got named Onni (=happiness). It's an old Finnish name, I really like it.

And they had cake... three in fact. LOL!

Are you starting to see my reasoning?

Only thing I forgot was my camera.

Hey, at least I failed with a bang, eh?

On Sunday I planned.

And did the last bit of shopping.

Because for New Year's Eve we had invited some friends over to celebrate Mika's birthday.

Lots of good food, laughter, champagne and fireworks.

And again.. I took no photos.

I just wanted to sit and enjoy, you know what I mean?

It was just above freezing... no snow. A little slush fell to the ground. The sports field where we went to send off our fireworks was m.u.d.d.y. Great fireworks. Cool enough so the champagne kept chilled in the glasses, but no frozen noses. But our shoes.. oy.

We made some cheese fondue after that, broke out some more red wine and stayed up.

Niina wasn't in bed until 1.30am!

I was impressed.

Most of our visitors left around 2.30am, but my bro and SIL couldn't get a taxi until 4.30am. It was another 40 minutes before I was in bed. I can't remember the last time I was up so late... or early...

I woke up at noon.. and now, just 4 hours later it's pitch dark again.

Where'd the day go?

A new year.

Wow.

This past one was eventful for sure.

Ups and downs.

More like downs and ups, though.

Glad it was that way around.

I'm sure 2008 has lots in store.

Ups I hope.