Greetings from the Land of Caves, Mermaids & Giant Slugs

This post is what I like to call a "hodge podge." Its a bunch of random moments strung together. Luckily, my snappy title seamlessly pulls it all together! This is Claudia saying... not really, but go with it Mom!You may notice that Claudia has some war paint on.

She got it at her first big girl party!

She got to go to Chelsea's birthday party this weekend.
For the following reasons, this was a big deal for Bop:
(1) She is obsessed with all things Chelsea;
(2) It was a big girl (age 5) party and big girls are her favorite thing;
(3) She got to dress up like a mermaid AND a fairy.

Mermaid getup.

She may have been the smallest mermaid,

but she had some big fun.

Observe the treasure hunt for mermaid jewelry. See Claudia?
Much like Easter egg hunts, this was right up her alley.

Moving on to the fairy part.

Here is where the fairies all went to sleep. That's Bop, smack dab in the middle.
Note, under normal circumstances, she fiercely refuses to nap on command.
This is not an issue when she is dressed in fairy garb.
I think this is what they call a breakthrough.

Claudia also had a hot date with Carsten, her little boyfriend.
They toured a cave together.

Halfway through the date, I noticed Claudia's skirt was tucked into her tights.

Halfway through the date, the children were kicked out of the cave for being too loud.
We went home and played, vowing to return to the cave another day.

Carsten mowed our lawn. Daddy Boy approved.
We returned to the cave with Daddy Boy.
If you find caves interesting, you'd like Budapest.

Hungary is covered with hills and mountains. They build all sorts of crazy stuff in caves here, e.g., a secret hospital used during WWII, a church, an underground network tunnels underneath downtown Budapest - which is now a giant antique store! The list could go on, but it won't.

The cave we toured is right by our house.

People go here to explore and also for asthma treatments!
The air and the temperature in the cave are apparently perfect for asthmatics.
Some people think caves are creepy.
I don't.

I think giant slugs are creepy. They can also be found all over Budapest.
We found tons of these gross dudes sliming their way around our yard.

As you can see, Bop isn't to crazy about the snails either.

Love to Mom

It's almost here! Here are some of my favorite mothers and mom moments.

This is the day we brought Claudia home from the hospital.
She was so little I could practically hold her with one hand.
I didn't. But I could have. Tiny.

Now, here's a tender moment with my mom.
The best, best, best mom ever.
Ever. I love you, Mom.

Now, according to writing on the back of this photo, this is the day Russell came home from the hospital. I never had the honor of meeting Russell's beautiful mom, Linda, but it is evident from family members' stories and pictures that she loved little Russell to the moon. I have no doubt she is smiling down on little Claudia right now.

Here is Claudia snuggling with Gram last year.
This is one of my favorite pictures.

Here's Claudia with Mama Kate when she was nine weeks old.

... and another when Claudia was a few hours old!

This is my beautiful Memaw! She says this is her favorite photo of herself. She had just had her tonsils out and felt, as she says, "sooooo thin!" That story always makes me laugh.

Here's sweet Memaw holding Claudia when she was a few days old.

Russell's sweet grandmothers gave him a whole lot of attention growing up. Russell's grandmother, Irene, has repeatedly told me, as she did on our wedding night... "If one day you decide you don't want him, just send him to me!" That story also gives me and Russell a good chuckle.

Here's Russell's grandmother Virginia. I never met Virginia, but I know what she means to Russell. If I could tell her one thing, it would be "thank you. You helped raise an amazing man!" Look at those knee socks and saddle shoes. It's true. Russell has always been a snazzy little dresser.

And here's a little cross stitch I made for all you moms. Teasing. I never learned to cross stitch. I found this in a box of keepsakes when I was unpacking the other day. Yes, I've been here 8+ months and I'm still unpacking. =) Happy Mother's Day!

Also, in case you don't follow Pioneer Woman, she is doing a great contest (ending Friday!) to provide relief to the tornado victims. She is even making donations based on how many people leave a comment. Check it out! http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2011/05/quarters/

Pedal On

Seems like there has been a lot going on in the world this week. I was absolutely sick seeing the pictures of the destruction and devastation in Alabama and Mississippi. I smiled to see a pretty new Princess in London. I was relieved and overjoyed to learn that Osama bin Laden was taken out in Pakistan. It gave me great joy to teach my Bop to ride a tricycle in Budapest. We had a few adventures this weekend, so more to come, but for now, here's some tricycle pics. We are sending prayers and love to all those affected by the tornadoes and hoping that relief comes quickly.

We might have to take that stick off.

There's not much incentive to pedal when Mommy's pushing.

Either way, I think she's happy just to be on her big girl bike.

Visegrad Trip: Castles, Kings & Vampires

If you like castle/mountain/river - scapes, this is just the post for you! This post is lousy with castles! If you don't like castles, you might not be real into this post. But I did mention vampires... that seems to interest lots of folks these days. If that sounds like something that might interest you... read on!

The day before Easter, we ventured off to Visegrad. It's about 45 minutes outside of Budapest. Visegrad is an old little village and it boasts the remains of two castles: Fellegvar (the citadel) & Kiraly Palota (King Matthias Corvinus' royal palace). The shot above is from the royal palace. It had some beautiful windows.

We started with the citadel (Fellegvar). King Bela IV built this around 1240 AD, after the Mongol invasion of Hungary. It was built for the purpose of watching the Danube for approaching invaders. Nice view of the Danube, huh?! Claudia was more concerned with her squashed banana.

She pretty much ran around looking for Princess Aurora the whole time.
Man, we need to get to Disney World!

But even Claudia was taken aback by the beautiful view.

Here's one of the three towers of the citadel...
and three invading Mongols storming the castle!
Teasing.The citadel is fortified with some winding stone ramparts.

Daddy and Bop could have cared less about the castles,
but they had a great time playing around.

... and walking around.

After the citadel, they had had enough.
They found a super playground in Visegrad and left me to my castles.
This is the royal palace and it's situated below the citadel, by the river.

It was built by King Matthias Corvinus around 1477.
It was actually completely covered by a mudslide for about a century.
It was discovered and unearthed around 1934.
Surprise! We found a castle!

Now here's the part about the vampires! One of the palace towers is called Solomon's Tower. Between 1462 and 1467, Vlad the Impaler, a Transylvanian nobleman was imprisoned here by King Matthias Corvinus. I didn't know this myself, but Transylvania was once part of Hungary. Several centuries later, Bram Stoker wrote up a little book based on Vlad... you may have heard of it... Dracula! Creepy, huh? The real life Dracula lived here!

Here's something more light hearted for you. This fountain is on the fourth floor courtyard of the palace. Under Matthias, it ran with red wine. Wine would spout of the lions' mouths. The story goes that Matthias would bring visiting dignitaries to the fountain for discussions. After he got them good and drunk, they'd pretty much agree to what he wanted. Maybe they should install one of these at the White House!

Here's one of the lions from which the red wine would spout.
Maybe that can be my next home renovation project: installation of red wine fountain.

And that's all from Visegrad.
Maybe I'll tour Solomon's Tower next Halloween!
dun, dun, duuuunnn!

Our First Easter in Budapest

It's our first Easter in Budapest and I was happy to celebrate this special day, but a little sad because we are away from our families. It has been a McLendon family tradition (for the last 50 years!) to spend Easter weekend together at Lake Bruin in Louisiana. Claudia loved her first Lake Bruin trip last year. Since we are here, doing something new, we decided to try some new traditions...

We started by leaving carrots out for the Easter Bunny.
Bop got very excited about this and spent half an hour picking
out the perfect spot to leave his carrots.

She also insisted that an extra carrot be brought to her bedside bunnies.

She woke up to find that the Easter Bunny had come to Budapest!

She carefully collected every egg and stuffed them in her basket.

Here she is, ceremoniously hoisting her first piece of chocolate in the air.

A good amount of focus was devoted to candy unwrapping.

Bop's basket had a bug theme.
Here she is going through her ladybug loot.

Loaded up on candy, she danced and stomped around the yard.

The eggs!

Happy girl. =)

We also started another tradition.
Bop likes to bake, so we made some special cookies.
Look how serious she is!

We made these little lambs and watched them rise in the oven.
I explained the meaning of Easter to Bop and told her
how our lamb cookies symbolized Jesus, the Lamb of God.
We watched them rise up in the oven and talked about
how Jesus rose from the dead.
I think the cookies kept her focused and interested. =)

This isn't the greatest picture, but I wanted to record it for posterity.
I made this outfit! It took forever! I'm really proud of myself!
Shortly after I took this picture, we went to a BBQ at some friends' house
and the outfit got covered in lots of mystery stains.
But, at least she enjoyed herself!

Happy Easter!

Best (and Cheapest!) Gift for a Toddler

Thank you Euro Walmart.

For stocking your shelves with an at-home ball pit.

My daughter wakes up at 7 a.m.,

jammies still on, and launches herself in.

This continues until 8 p.m.

Claudia loves ball pits, but the germ freak in me can't help but question the hygiene of those things. So, when I saw this at Tesco (Euro Walmart), and the price tag (cheap!), I couldn't get it in the buggy fast enough. Take out the balls & it doubles as a swimming pool. It has provided hours & hours of fun. Russell & I burst into uncontrollable laughing fits when she gets going, hurling her little body into the pit. Plus, it is just the ticket to induce bedtime exhaustion. =)