Hello there! Just wanted to let you know our family will be featured on the next episode of Hoarders. We've got piles of anything and everything accumulating around here. First, I'm trying to figure out whether to give away all Claudia's baby clothes and stuff to some friends that are having girls here. Russell says I'm letting nostalgia over tiny, beautiful baby girl clothes cloud out the conversation wherein we decided that two is a really good number for kids. So, the baby girl stuff is just strewn out and about all over the house. In neat, pretty pink piles.
Next, and the more important issue... effective January 1, 2012, our Hungarian garbage collectors now refuse to pick up our trash. Last week, Russell had a 6 am conversation with our Hungarian garbage man (mostly acted out in a series of charades in the bitter, freezing darkness), wherein we learned that we need to give him extra money ("money" being the only English word in trash man's vocab) and position our can just so, or they wouldn't be taking anything away. Apparently, we've done nothing to his liking, as he has picked up our trash maybe two times this month. And our trash can is roughly the same size and dimensions of an over-sized Coke can. And so the refuse continues to pile up. Ideal conditions for bringing home a newborn!
On that note, we are just 9 days away from Paddy's due date!! I haven't taken many pictures this week, but I do have some bits to share:
Claudia's valentine for this year. I love doing personalized Valentines... it makes me happy and I think it will be fun to show her all her Valentines when she is older. As soon as Paddy's born I'll have to whip one up for him too!
Speaking of whipping things up... this week I finally did something with the silhouette I did of Claudia one year ago. It's hanging in her room.
Doesn't she look a little like this guy? I took a picture of Russell's boyhood silhouette from his house in Mer Rouge to compare with Claudia's. I'm certain she has his nose and facial structure. And my pointy little chin!
And this is how the weekend went ... poor Bop came down with a nasty cold. With Russell working all weekend, Claudia and I pretty much spent the entire weekend in pajamas, sleeping on the couch, watching the same two episodes of Little Bear in a continuous loop.
By Sunday evening, she summoned the strength to play dress up (her new favorite game, wherein I am usually the evil step-mother or some evil ogre-type character), but mostly she just kind of limped around the house.
Earlier in the week there was pony riding at school. They still ride the ponies, even in the snow. They assured me the ponies really like it.
And here's a funny I never shared from this summer. We stopped doing Claudia's riding lessons once school picked back up in the fall - since they do pony riding there - but here is her little get-up from the summer lessons. She definitely was a little bobble-head wearing that helmet. And the funny part is that she has already outgrown this and her previous helmet. That brain is a-growin'!
And speaking of a-growin'... at my ultrasound two weeks ago, Paddy was already bigger than Claudia was when she was born. Maybe he will make an appearance here in the next few days. So, if this blog goes cold, that's where we'll be!!
When I see this picture, I recall my favorite line from Dirty Dancing... "I carried a watermelon." It's out of focus, but you get the drift. Four days and counting until the due date.
Before Claudia was born, Russell and I both wrote letters to her, sealed them up and put them in her baby book. It wasn't our idea. The baby book we used suggested it would be nice for your child to read your letters when they are all grown up. So we are doing the same for Paddy and CC got in on it too.
So here's the gospel according to Claudia. FYI, Claudia likes to send letters and I do all her dictation - the sentiment is 100% hers. The PS part reads "When you wake up, brush your teeth and go downstairs & eat." I finally realized it's a line from the book "George Shrinks" by Bill Joyce. If you haven't read this book (or any Bill Joyce books), let me recommend them now. They're really good. And, yes, she has her own stationery. She has since she was born. I'm a weirdo who believes that thank yous and other notes should be handwritten and you're never too young to start. 
I did suggest it might make a nice touch if she gave her note a little kiss before we sealed it up. In true Claudia fashion, she began to eat the letter. That was the end of that. 
Last night we went to a birthday party at the Budapest Zoo Playhouse. It's a little playhouse connected to the zoo. They let the children get up close with one of the elephants, a sweet old girl from the Netherlands.
Here's Claudia refusing to feed the elephant. She went all rigid and said "I don't want to feed that elephant, Dad." Russell took care of business, but that was as close as she would get. I'm pretty sure this kind of thing would never fly in the Houston Zoo... or any other zoo in the US for that matter. Just another perk of living in Budapest. =)
So Claudia is not in this picture, but I had to share. This is birthday boy Carsten with some of his guests. They all watched in amazement as Carsten (dressed as Wolverine?) plucked Spiderman from the cake, inserted Spidey into his mouth and then said "Dad, this is plastic." 
It was a fun party and a nice way to wrap up this weekend. 
