A new arrival in the QC household!

Today we all drove down to Southampton to collect our new kitten. He is a little Bengal kitten. We don't have a name for him yet, but I keep on calling him Tiger. Bengal cats are like mini leopards; they are spotty and like to swim. He is very playful and really likes being around people.

Here are some pictures and a little video of 'Tiger'.







The translation: He wants to eat it. He has gone underneath the table. He ran very fast. Tiger, Tiger, Tiger! This one has got a spotty tummy (repeat)

Recent photos and video

Having been off-line for a while now, here are a few pictures from the last month.

Here I am at the Science Museum. This is a photo of our luggage at check in at Helsinki airport.

Here I am doing a huge puzzle. I met some of the other children from my birth club, here I am just watching them.

Here is a bear I painted on my own, the lines at the top are the multi-coloured sky, the grass is also multi-coloured.

Here is a video of me just playing. Mummy has translated it, though I do think I am getting clearer.

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I want Aiti to come in my house with me, I want Aiti to come in my new house with me. You are going in my new house. Aiti and the monkey, aiti and the monkey are going in the new house. This house.

AITI! We are all outside. I am bouncing along!

I'm playing with the horse. Now I'm shaking them to make them cool...yes, they are nice and cool.

What happened? Where is he? He is rolling in the great big fluffy grass. He is in the great big fluffly grass. He is hiding. I'm throwing some sticks on him. He is hard to find. Look at my lion, he kicked a stick. He kicked a stick, I'll put him in.

Oh, there's something underneath there. I cant go in there. What are those? I'm just looking at them.

I'm just getting some more leaves. I'm taking them over to my house.

Back in the UK

We finally made it back to the UK along with all our furniture. We left Finland last Thursday and after a very delayed flight we landed at Heathrow. We then stayed with my Granny Val for over a week. Our furniture was a few days late but this was ok as it gave daddy a chance to re-paint some of the house as it was in a terrible state (it had been rented out). We eventually moved in this weekend.

Life in the UK is very different to life in Finland. I have to be extra extra careful now near when walking anywhere as the pavements and roads here are very different. There is so much choice of food stuffs in the supermarkets so I have tried quite a few new foods. I have joined the library and in my first visit I took out 13 books. I have also spent many hours in the bookshops which has been so much fun. I got to meet Maisy mouse in one shop but she was a bit big for my liking. I went to an animal farm with 5 other children from my birth club board- I was so overwhelmed with all the people, the noise and everyone wanting to talk to me that I didn't join in anything. I just stood and watched. I went to another farm with Granny Val and I loved it. I also went to a playgroup today, I was very shy and just sat in the book corner and read books. I am enjoying my new house though even though it is much smaller than my old one.

Some good news- I have been dry at night time now for a few weeks though mummy still makes me where my sleeping pants 'just in case'. I am loving being able to read everything around me. I am reading more and more new words each day, I just love read new books. I'm still loving my addition and subtraction and try and get mummy to help me with my sums everyday...unless she hides my books!

I'll post some pictures when the computer has been unpacked.

Goodbye Finland

Our life in Finland is coming to an end. Tonight is the last night we will spend in our house, tomorrow we will move into a hotel whilst the removal men pack up our house. On Thursday we fly out of Finland on a one way ticket. We'll spend a few days in the UK with Granny Val whilst we wait for our furniture to arrive at mummy and daddy's old house.

I was born in Finland just over 2 years ago. Since my birth day I have done rather a lot. I have experienced temperatures ranging from -28.5 degs to +28.5 degs. I have been to several summer cottages (some with electricity and running water, some without either). I have been on many boats, been to many islands, visited many towns and done lots of sight seeing. I have eaten deer, elk, wild boar and fresh fish caught in the sea. I have eaten and drunk in many wonderful bars, cafes and restaurants. I have slept outside in temperatures of minus 10. I have built numerous snowcats and snow daddys. I have picked my own Christmas tree in a forest and watched daddy cut it down. I have had many saunas, swam in the sea, lakes and swimming pools. I have looked for bears in the forest and camped in a tent in the snow. I have been bitten by numerous bear sized mosquitos. I have watched the World Athletics Championships in the Olympic Stadium and been to a rock festival. I have also learnt a bit of Finnish and still call my mummy, Äiti! I have made many good friends, both Finnish and International. I have become quite well known with the 'oh, so you are Sophie' remarks!
I have also travelled outside of Finland and have visited 13 different countries, including many trips to Tallinn in Estonia.

We never made it up to the Arctic Circle though to visit Father Christmas, but that will be a trip to do in a few years time.

I will miss Finland a lot, we love the fact we can travel free on the bus, trains and trams. We love the quietness, the countryside, our forest, the lack of people and traffic, the 'no-sunday' opening hours, the snow, the sun and the laid back relaxed lifestyle.

So Kiitos Suomi, it has been a fantastic experience with no regrets at all. A great country to visit and to spend my first 2 years. Nakemiin!

My Great Grandmother

Last week Äiti and I flew to the UK as my Great Granny had recently died.

I found out quite a bit about my Aiti's äiti's aiti. She was a very intelligent woman, her IQ was well over 160, she could work out big sums in her head, she could do The Times (UK) cryptic crossword everyday in under 15 minutes, she was a walking encyclopedia that could tell you information about anything. Her party trick was to write German and French at the same time with both hands! She was also a jigsaw lover. She had taught herself to read when she was little but at the age of 13 had to leave school and go to work so never realised her potential. My Granny also taught herself to read at the age of 3 when she was in hospital with polio. I seem to be following in their footsteps.

After the funeral we had a small party where I stripped naked- I was quite relaxed!

It was a busy, hectic trip which saw both Äiti and I being very tired. We flew home on Friday, but our flight out of London was late so we missed our connecting flight in Amsterdam. KLM (our airline) put us up in a posh hotel, provided dinner, drinks and breakfast and some toiletries. Äiti and I had a long bath, ate posh food, ordered from the bar (I had apple juice in a bottle with a straw) and watched Dutch TV! The next morning before our flight home we met Opa (Äiti's daddy) and Saskia for a quick coffee as they live in Amsterdam, it was great to see them both. We finally got home on Saturday afternoon.

Fishy Tales

The Rainbow Fish Bath Book (with translation)

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Rainbow Fish (RF) was the most beautiful fish in the sea. One day a little blue fish asked for just one of his beautiful shining scales."never" said RF. After that, the other fish swam away from him. RF was all alone. He went to the octopus for help. The octopus said "give away your shining scales, you wont be as beautiful but you will be happy". "I cant do that" said the RF. Suddenly the little blue fish was back. "please" he said, "could I have a scale" well thought RF, maybe just one tiny little scale. The little blue fish was so happy, it made RF feel happy. So RF gave each of the fish a shining scale, until he only had one left. But now he had friends, and as he swam off to play with them he was the happiest fish in the sea.

Fun runs in the sun..and other bits

The other day my mummy took part in a 5km (3.1 miles) fun run. The run was for women only and there were 2000 of them. Mummy has done 5 training runs since her marathon LAST June...those 5 runs were back in January. She and daddy had a bet as to her predicted time, the winner got a bottle of wine. Well.... mummy surprised everyone by finishing in the top 50 places and in a time that was about 12 minutes faster than daddy predicted! She was however, about 7 minutes off her best time! Mummy is looking forward to her bottle of wine! I helped mummy run the last 50 metres and I got a medal, a banana and a balloon! We then all went for pizza and I went to bed very late.

I did a bit of writing the other day on the old laptop that I was making mummy use. I wanted to use the PC to surf, http://www.storyplace.org/ is my current favourite site to visit. Mummy had to make do with a laptop that growled and behaved like a dinosaur. Here is my writing, it says "Daddy did not get a fish". He was trying to fish at the weekend and didn't catch anything. I then typed all the numbers, mummy was impressed with how I wrote 10, I didn't just put a 0 which is the next button after 9!

I went to a party today, we had so much fun playing outside in the water fountain. I, as usual, ate everything I could get my hands on. Mummy wonders if my friends think that she doesn't feed me! I counted my hotdogs (5) and then told everyone that if I ate one, I'd only have 4 left..I then ate it and re-counted, proving my point that there were only 4 left!

Here is a tiger I painted recently. The purple lines are 5 hotdogs that the tiger wants to eat.

Our typical Finnish weekend

We spent the weekend at our friend's summer cottage. We drove 1½ hours west of Helsinki and then went in a boat to their island. There are 3 houses on the island all belonging to Kata's family. In true Finnish style we ate makarra (sausages) cooked on the grilli, paddled in the sea, had sauna, slept a bit, ate a lot and had a great time. There is no mains water and no electricity on the island, but seeing as there is 20 hours of daylight at the moment, that is not a problem!

I had a lovely weekend, I even played with Linnea who is 3. Linnea has a little dog called Papu. She kept trying to eat my food and I didn't want to share it. When we got back to our house, we went to see some more friends for another grilli session. I played lots with Merette and had even more fun. It was a very tiring weekend for everyone.

Here are some more photos from the weekend:

I'm reading Äiti's old books

When my mummy was a little girl, her mummy used to read her some books called 'Little Bear' by Else Minarik and 'Frog and Toad' by Arnold Lobel. I now have my own copies of these books which I love to read to mummy. Here I am reading some pages of 'Frog and Toad'. I have a lot of snot at the moment so I am even less understandable than normal. I will put a translation of my utterings! We read a page each or sometimes I read a few lines, sometimes I like to read several pages on my own...it depends on my mood!

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Then Toad fell asleep. Frog came into Toads house. He came in quietly. Frog found the hat and took it to his house.

Frog and Toad went for a walk. Toad did not trip over a rock. He did not bump into a tree. He did not fall in a hole.

Toad look through the windows. He looked in the garden. he did not see Frog.

Maybe you are right said Toad. Maybe Frog does not want to see me. Maybe he does not want me to be his friend anymore. Yes maybe said the turtle as he swam to the island.

Toad ran home. he planted the flower seeds. now seeds said Toad, start growing. Toad walked up and down a few times. The seeds did not start to grow.

Here is a picture that I painted. There are 4 flowers (with stalks), the sun and the blue sky.

Last week

Last week was a busy one. On Monday we went to the library so I could get new books, we also took Mog for his 'big sleep', on Tuesday we went to HopLop, on Wednesday we went shopping, on Thursday I went into Helsinki and on Friday it was my last ever gymnastics class. We all went for coffee afterwards. I had a party on Saturday and then on Sunday we went to the beach.
Here is a little video of me climbing the play equipment at the beach.

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I am missing Mog a bit, I know he is up is up in the sky and happy.I have played on my computer lots this week, I have a cd-rom called 'Learning Ladder', it is excellent. I also played on some of my favourite websites. I have also discovered HAMA beads, you make the beads into a shape and then iron them (mummy did this bit) so that all the beads stick together. This is what I made... (it is a monkey btw). Here I am playing hide and seek at the beach.

Some recent art

I am so proud of this project that I've been working on for 2 day. I started talking about birds and feathers, so mummy printed out some pictures and I used paper and feathers to make a collage. I then decided the birds needed a tree to sit in. After we went to the shops where I chose the card I wanted and paid, we went for a walk in the forest to gather our materials of barks, twigs and leaves. Mummy cut out the tree shapes and I glued all the bits on.

The weather here has been tropical (18/65 degs) so I've spent loads of time outside. I made a mud, sand and gravel pie today, that was lots of fun! I've also played lots with my model animals. I have used a tray of water to let them play, I also painted the house and patio with water today. I found it very funny that all my water paint disappeared so mummy explained about evaporation- I had already read about the water cycle in my encyclopedia. After dinner I played on my bike, then I pretended to be a monkey and kept hiding in the trees and climbing the monkey bars. I had a banana for my supper as I was still being a monkey and that is what monkeys like to eat!

Goodbye Mog

Today was a very sad day as my cat Mog died. He had got very thin and poorly, mummy said he had something called cancer of the liver, stomach and gall bladder. He was 12. I helped mummy write him a little letter today and then I read it to him....

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I also read my letter to him as he went to sleep, I know that he is now up in the sky.
I also drew a picture of Mog and Rosie. I got really cross that I couldn't draw two circles so mummy helped me, I did the rest including the ears and their tails.

Mog came to live with mummy and daddy 7 years ago, he was a stray cat. At his heaviest he was 7.6kg (17lbs). He was a great friend to me and I loved him very much.
Here are some more photos of us together:

Having fun at gymnastics

I go to Gymnastics every week and I love it. I let mummy take some videos of me there today. I just have lots of fun there though I don't understand very much as it is all in Finnish.

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Making the most of the good weather

Today we had a public holiday (it is Ascension day) so we spent most of the day in the garden. It felt quite tropical at 16 degrees (60F). I had loads of fun playing outside. Here is a video of me just having fun (nothing wowey)....mummy will include a translation of what I am saying as I am still very unclear in my speech.

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Translation of video!
They are all waiting for fish..yes, they are all waiting for some fish, shall we count? 12345678910, I have got my other animals……Eating the fish, what’s that, is it…. What could that be for? It should be for the panda…….An airplane, like that one, that one is in the sky… this is going to fly up into the sky like the other one is flying in the sky…..A flower, it’s yellow, and more there and more there and more there… what’s that? I’ve got to put it in. 12345678910 Now where could he be… is he here? I’m making a picnic for daddy… It’s a lady bird..a lady bird, I’m going to sit on the bear chair, where did he go? I want him to fall off, I want him to fly away.

Here are some photos that I was tricked into being taken of me!

Granny and Papa came to visit

For the past few days my granny and Papa have been visiting. They are my daddy's äiti and daddy. We took them to a place called Hauho where we'd hired a summer cottage. We had sauna that I wasn't keen on as "it was very comfy, it was too hot for me". We also had grilli (BBQ) and lots of walks in the forest. Papa is a very keen bird watcher so he spotted lots of new Finnish birds. I helped him feed the sea gulls. We also went to the zoo where I showed them all the animals. On Monday night we went out for a very good dinner. I ate Linguine Puttanesca and some of daddy's pizza, it was very yummy. I sat very nicely for the whole meal. On Tuesday I showed them the indoor play center, I showed Papa how to go down the very big slide. I had a great time with them. I showed them how I could read, how I could play Uno and Memo, I played on the computer and did lots of pretend play.

I refused to say Granny or Papa though. The more they asked me to, the more I refused. I called them 'the others', 'this one', 'that one' and 'thing'. I said at one point 'I want to read a book to Thing'!. I'm not a fan of saying any ones name. Mummy thinks it is a Finnish thing!

Here are some photos of our long weekend with Granny and Papa....Papa will send me some more soon. The first photo is taken from a big tower we climbed up in Aulanko Park, the other photo is of me eating olives in a bar whilst the others had a pre-dinner drink.

Like äiti, like daughter

I was looking at some of my mummy's old baby photos the other day, I found it all a little confusing as I thought the photos were of me...

This is what I might look like if I get a brother or a sister...I don't want a brother or sister yet though.

This is my mummy holding her brand new baby brother...my Uncle Ben. He was rather a large (11lbs 14oz) baby when he was born, he is now very tall and very skinny. He lives in New Zealand so I don't see him very often except on the computer where I call him Uncle Gay.

I've gone a bit maths mad!

In the last few weeks I have gone a bit maths mad. I learnt to count to 10 a few months ago by rote, I could also count 3 objects then. Mow I can count up to 10 objects correctly. I didn't know that numbers went above 10 as mummy never told me- she thought I didn't really need to know. Now though, I am very interested in numbers above 10.

In this picture you can see my moomins lined up. Daddy and mummy overheard my conversation with them, it went like this.."I have 4 moomins on the step, if one falls off (moomin falls off step) I will have 1 2 3 three moomins, if one falls off (another moomin falls) I will have 1 2, two moomins left. If one more moomin falls off I will have one moomin left. If that moomin falls then there will be none"

I love to do easy take away sums, I play on a website that lets me do take aways and adding.

I also spent tonight weighing things. I started off by using my toy scales that came with my play kitchen, when those didn't work properly daddy got the kitchen scales for me and I weighed all my toys! My Animal book was the heaviest at 3.5kg! Here I am weighing some of my toys...

I think I must take after daddy as mummy hasn't got an ounce (or should that be gram) of mathematical knowledge in her!

A reading video where you can understand me (I hope)!

My pronunciation is still not very clear, but for once, you might be able to understand me properly. Mummy and I wrote some stories together and I read them. These were my first read throughs.

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Today is the day for videos and photos

As you may well know, I have a phobia about cameras, but today I had a change of heart and let mummy take some photos and videos of me! It was a shame though that I had lots of snot puring out my nose and chesty cough, but......a photo is a photo! As usual I am incomprehensible to everyone else!

Video 1- Mog and Me
Here I am with Mog. I am very bunged up with snot at the moment as you'll hear. There is nothing special about this video, it is just Mog and I. Mummy made it as today we found out that Mog is very ill and there is nothing the Vets can do to help him.

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Video 2- Reading 'Hiccups' in 'Father Bear Comes Home' book

This is one of my favourite chapters in the book as Little Bear has the hiccups! Excuse me snorting in the middle!

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Video 3- Playing with PlayDoh and Äiti Moomin

Just having fun!

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Here is a photo of me as well...mummy is still in shock!