Mia's Surprise Album

These are the photos that I put in Mia's little surprise album. She will find it tucked away in her suitcase when she gets to Szolnok (where her class is going on a 2 night field trip). For more details read my below post which I wrote earlier this morning.

I also drew her some pictures and tucked them into the pages. One of my pictures was of her and I holding hands with flowers all around us. We are standing next to a tree with an owl sitting on one of the branches (like the owl living in our birch tree in our backyard). I drew her this kind of picture as she's always drawing these kinds of pictures for me. Her specialty is of her and I holding hands. She always writes MamaMia on them.

Bon Voyage to Emilia

Booooo hooooo ....

Mia left this morning on a 2 night sleep over school trip. The school is taking her 2 Kindgergarten grades (Grand Section) to Szolnok to join the 1st grade (C.P.) classes who have already been there for 2 nights. It was an emotional morning (mostly for me) saying good-bye. Terence and Curt came with me to wish her a bon voyage along with many of the other parents and siblings of the other voyagers. Ali left for her nursery school the same time as we left for school to meet the bus as I thought it would be hard for her to see Mia leaving. On top of losing Mia for 2 nights, she's also losing me and Curt as we are leaving for my relocation conference in Vienna in a couple of hours.

Mia in the car with her suitcase - all ready to go.


Holding hands with her great friend, Emma (who is moving to Bourdeux on Friday evening!) Emma and Mia will be in the same room with their other two great friends, Olivia and Rebeka.

There she is in the 2nd to last row window. I had my shades on so the tears were less obvious. Mia didn't cry but about 5 of the 50 (give or take a few) children cried.

BYE MIA - we'll miss you!!!

PS I put together a little photo album and tucked it in her suitcase for her to discover when she unpacks. I'll post the photos that I included in a 2nd post...

T's Teeth

Terence is now 8 years old and has about 8 adult teeth that are already grown in (+ his 4 adult back molars) . His top teeth, luckily, are growing in quite nicely. However, his bottom teeth are sort of looking like the mouth of a shark with rows of teeth. He especially has one tooth that is growing inwards as it has no room to go anywhere else. Fortunately, we took action early enough. With the help of a great English speaking dentist, he referred us to his colleague (in the same location), Dr. Dora who is an orthodontist. After viewing his teeth she gave us the solution of an inner wire on his bottom teeth that are attached by fitting around his back 2 adult molars. The wire will then be tightened once every month or so until his teeth fit in properly. This will also help his future adult teeth and hopefully prevent the need for any major braces, but who knows... One step at a time.

For those of you that are absolutely curious about how this went.... well, you are in luck. I took videos!!! The orthodontist speaks perfect English but speaks to T in Hungarian as he speaks Hungarian perfectly so it works out. She then, however, speaks English to me (even though I understand a lot of the Hungarian too).

Showing off his new wire (above) and trying to get used to speaking with the new piece of metal inside his mouth. PS He has his bank card in his hand (he's such a big boy!)

Thanks Siza

Thanks Debbie for the beautiful birthday flowers that arrived last week. This is how beautiful they look (4 days after their arrival). It was sweet of you to send them... xx, Erika

they are on our dining room table.

My Baby is Growing Up!

This is Ali just this morning waiting by the door for her nursery school bus to pull up to the front door. What a service! Marcsi, the owner of the school, drives the bus and Ali is the first to get picked up around 8am. Marcsi is always full of energy and so happy when she arrives. She loves Ali and considers her family as Ali often spends the night over at Marcsi's with Marcsi's 22 year old daughter, Brigi. Brigi has been helping me with Ali since Ali was just 2 months old. Brigi has been Ali's teacher at nursery school for 2 straight years and they have both grown very close to each other.

I had to snap this photo this morning when I looked down and didn't see my baby girl anymore. What a big girl!!!


Yet, times like yesterday when I took her out of the bath and put her on my bed to dry off, reminded me that she still has her baby-like moments. She was so tired that she dozed off right away before I could even put on her pajamas...

Great Weekend Outdoors

We had a great family weekend. In the past, Curt and I have always been overwhelmed with activities (ie Friday and / or Saturday nights out, bbqs, dinners, etc) but this weekend we had a quiet family weekend which was just what the doctor ordered!

After the kids finished their Saturday morning dance and soccer (and a b-day party for Mia), Curt spent the afternoon with them in the field flying a kite. It was a great day with great wind but the wind direction kept changing making it a bit of a challenge to keep the kite up in the air. Regardless, they all took part and had lots of fun.

Even the dogs joined in on the fun...

Mia's in control

Ali working on blowing up a balloon. Ever since Mia learned, Ali's been trying constantly with no success...

Our Bernese Mountain dogs, Greta and Kiraly, are far less active (and much older) than Blue, our Border Collie (in the first photo).

Not sure what this is but he found it fun.

We also had lots of Dune Buggy fun!! See photos below:

Heading out to the top of the hill across the street for more kite flying fun.

Mia's Accomplishments

Mia's had a busy week figuring out how to do many new things. When Mia wants to learn something, she puts her mind to it and practices, practices, practices until she gets it. These are her most recent accomplishments (literally just this past week):

1. blow up a balloon
2. blow a bubble in her chewing gum
3. make a paper airplane
4. do a cartwheel
5. whistle (she's been working on this one for about 2 months)

She's also become great at swinging a baseball bat and hitting the pitched baseball. Also, she still hasn't lost any teeth but her two bottom ones are super wiggly! I think they maybe coming out together very, very soon. She's going on a two night field trip with school next week and I have a funny feeling that they may come out while she's away...

Stay tuned for pictures and videos of her doing the above 5 tasks...

A Great Easter Weekend

Last Saturday was a fab day for us as a family. Since it was Easter weekend the kids had no activities (no soccer for T and no dance for Mia). We woke and had a lazy morning with home made cinnamon rolls which the kids loved and remembered from Nana, Papa and Aunt Lisa's visit during Christmas...

After we went downtown to pick up our lamb legs for Easter dinner from a great Turkish butcher who I think has the best beef and lamb in town. From there we went for a drink and light lunch at one of our favorite cafes at Szabadsag ter. All the kids got yummy milk shakes. Love the girls' similar faces in this photo below...

At 3:30pm we attended the live Mamma Mia production at the Laszlo Papp sportarena. We kept it a surprise from the kids and they were so anxious to find out what it was that we were doing. We entered the arena and they missed all the Mamma Mia signs, t-shirt stands, etc. There weren't many but still it amazed me that they missed all the clues. I think their eyes were just taking in all the people and the huge space... We sat in our fantastic seats and the announcer came on in English welcoming us to the Mamma Mia production (it was a UK group that came to Budapest so it was completely in English). Terence sort of let out a whimper as he's grown very sick of the Mamma Mia movie which has been playing in our home about 3-5 times per week since X-mas. Actually it's probably faded to about 3 - 5 times per month but around X-mas time (the DVD was a present from Santa) the girls were watching it every day!!

The girls were in disbelief. The show was really good. Not the best but very good. Curt and I were spoiled and saw a fantastic production of Mamma Mia in London when I was pregnant with Terence about 8 1/2 years ago and it was incredible! I have a feeling the traveling group isn't as fantastic as the real deal... But, the kids loved it. T even enjoyed it though he was pretending not to. The last 3 ABBA songs the entire audience stood, danced and sang along which the girls LOVED!

We were home by about 7pm and had a nice quiet Saturday evening in preparation for the Easter bunny's visit followed by a housefill of guests (we entertained 8 adults and about 11 kids) in the beautiful sunshine!

T's Flying Cap

I don't know what it is about Terence's NY Yankees baseball cap but he never seems to be able to hold on to it for long periods of time. In April 2006, it flew off his head while on a roller coaster with Papa in Legoland Windsor. We were never able to reclaim it but we were lucky enough to have another NY friend get him one shortly after. This time he was leaning out the car window and it flew off his head while we were driving. We all whipped our heads around to see it bouncing in the middle of the road while cars wizzed over it... Curt pulled over and the 2 of them ran back to retrieve it. Fortunately, he got it back in perfect condition! And, I took advantage of having my camera in my handbag and captured the moment!

Blossoms

I'm not 100% sure what kind of tree this is in our front yard but we love it at this time of year. It's covered with pink blossoms that smell like heaven! Due to our sudden warm weather (we sort of skipped spring and went straight into summer) it started blossoming about 2 - 3 weeks earlier than usual.

Hanging from our tree is this sweet flower basket that was given to me by Erika, our nanny. Last year's was stolen by someone. In this country, anything outside of your property's fence / gate is sort of up for grabs! If we want to get rid of old bushes or furniture, we just lay it on the corner and watch. They usually get picked up within an hour! One guy picked up some old bushes (with roots in tact) by driving by, opening his door, leaning over, grabbing and pulling into his car without ever coming to a stop! We have to be careful and always tell the kids to bring in their bikes, scooters, etc or they'll get picked up...

Last year Erika (nanny) wrote a note on one of our potted plants under this tree saying in Hungarian, "Please do not take. If you need flowers, ring door bell and we can give you some change to go buy for yourself." No one stole it nor did they ring the bell asking for change!

Crazy Dancing Ali

This girl keeps us all entertained. Alexandra is now 3 years and 3 months old and she is absolutely a bundle of joy... Okay - she's not always a bundle of joy as she is definitely going through the terrible 3s (think they are harder than the 2s) stage where she will break down and have a horrible temper tantrum. She's testing the waters and trying to say 'no' when it's dinnertime or bedtime or something she may not be in the mood to do... Been there, done that - I know I will win these little battles but it's still exhausting when she tries it. Regardless, she is usually funny and full of love AND she loves to dance - and entertain. While I am fixing dinner in the evenings I love to play music. We all end up dancing... Even T, who is sort of a closet dancer like Curt, joins in on our fun. Ali likes her songs fast (like the one she's dancing to in the video below). If I try to play slower songs, she shouts "Louder!" and "I want to rock!" It's pretty funny.

Captured her in this short video clip a couple of nights ago. It brings tears to my eyes every time I see it. She is so funny. Check out her last move!!! Classic! Have no idea where she got this from... Definitely not from a family member... haha.

FYI - song is Glamorous by Fergie

Happy Easter

We have had an incredibly fun Easter weekend here in Budapest. Instead of Good Friday being a public holiday here, we get the Monday after Easter (today) off. It makes Easter a bigger event as we all get to sleep in and use Monday for resting.

As usual, the Easter bunny came while the kids were still sleeping and hid plastic filled eggs and their baskets all over the garden. Mia was the first to wake up on Easter morning be she wasn't allowed to go hunting until T and Ali also woke up. T was the next to wake up and came running down the stairs with excitement. Not being able to wait any longer, they both went and woke little Ali up (she's still only half awake in this video of them starting out the door on their hunt). PS Excuse my pj, coffee-sipping appearance. I had just woken up...

Even Curt enjoyed the egg hunt....

Checking out all their loot!