A Real Wiz in the Kitchens

Claudia is a real wiz in the kitchen.

She's always willing to pitch in on kitchen duty.

Today she rearranged all our koozies.

Here she is rummaging through the fridge.

Check out our fridge. Did you get a flashback to your college mini-fridge?

Ah ha!
Caught red handed.
Her favorite thing to drag out:
the cappuccino attachment to our coffee maker.
It's filled with milk.
She likes to suck the milk out of the attachment through the little tube.
Real sanitary.
Real good.
Who needs sippy cups?
Here she is laying waste to her own little kicthen.
Daddy built it for her for Christmas.
That pile in front of her is her "food! food!"
She cooks for Daddy.

They cook together.

Right now we're trying our best to teach Claudia that messes are not a good thing. Her favorite thing to do is to pull all the food out of her toy kitchen and throw it around the room. That would be fine, if she would help clean it up. But now she has started pulling all the stuff out of our real refrigerator and throwing it around the room. Not good. Bad. To her credit, our real refrigerator does look like a toy refrigerator. Nevertheless, we are working really hard on teaching her to not make messes and to pick up her toys. Its going.... its just going.

If anyone has any suggestions or tricks to getting their child to pick up their toys, please share. Please.

Rachie's Getting Married!

My dear, tall friend Rachie is getting married.

So we kicked off 2011 by heading to Vegas to celebrate Rachie's upcoming wedding.

Andrah (Andrea), Rachie (Rachel), Logie (Logan) & I

have been buds since before we had drivers' licenses.

They are so precious to me!

We had a real hoot of a time.
Now it's time for the wedding!!

I typically call it a night at about 10 pm. I have no shame about that. However, for Rachie's bachelorette weekend, I made an exception and stayed up real late! Both nights! I obviously can't tell you about any of the details of our Vegas weekend, because of that little old saying of which I'm sure you are familiar. All I can say is that I am so thrilled for Rachel and Ryan and that they make a beautiful pair. I had the best time celebrating in Vegas and I can't wait to be reunited with my fun friends in New Orleans for the R+r nuptials.

PS: Thank you G&G for taking care of Claudia so I could enjoy the getaway & thank you Rachie for sharing your pics. Sadly, I dropped & broke my camera early on & had no pics from the weekend. Total bummer!

PPS: Did you find the 90210 reference in the post? =)

Nagycirkusz! Nagycirkusz! (Circus! Circus!)

Daddy and I took Bop to the Budapest Circus (Nagycirkusz!)
Once seated, Daddy told Bop "[y]ou're in for a treat!"
Claudia exclaimed "[r]eady! Ready! Come on!"
Then the parade of performers rolled out...
We loved them all.. the jugglers, acrobats, trapeze artists and horseback ballerinas...
But Claudia wanted to see something big...
... and something big she did see.
Harvey, as I call him, entered the arena with grace.
A gentle giant.
I thought, ok, well that's impressive.
But surely they're not going to make Harvey stand on that cylinder thingy.

... and if he is going to stand on that cylinder thingy,

surely that little girl, who can't be more than 6, isn't going to dangle from his tusks.

Or, maybe he is going to balance on that cylinder thingy...

And maybe that child is going to dangle from his tusks...

Doing the splits no less.

Eventually, Havey decided he had had enough.

He ate every last one of them.

I managed to catch that lady's leg just before her gobbled her up.

Serves her right, poking poor Harvey with that stiletto healed boot of hers.

... and we all smiled.

The end.

This past weekend we took Claudia to the Budapest circus in City Park. It's a permanent circus that has been operating in Budapest since the end of the eighteenth century. What it lacks in size, it makes up for suspected animal abuse and blatant child labor violations. I tease, I tease. It was all very humane, from what I saw. Most importantly, Claudia enjoyed all the acrobats, jugglers and animals. We didn't have the greatest seats, but because the arena is fairly small, you are very close to the performers. Claudia was getting a little fussy at intermission (or "half time", as I kept calling it), so we called it a day. She really enjoyed the show, so I suspect we may go back for the second act soon.

Sledding. In our Yard. In a Radio Flyer.

After much dilly-dallying on the patio, I got Claudia onto the sled.
I have to point out that this entire outfit came from Old Navy.
They make the cutest winter clothes for toddlers.
She liked the sled for about five seconds.

We've gotten more use of the Radio Flyer in the snow than on the pavement.

Her mood was lifted once Daddy started dragging her around the yard.

I think he was exhausted by the end of our snow day,

but he never complained. Look... thumbs up!

Mom, thanks for my boots. They are perfect!

Someone is ready for more snow.

We returned to find Budapest exactly how we left it: covered in snow and below freezing... the ideal conditions for sledding...or "sledging" as they say here. We thought about going to Normafa, the big skiing and sledding hills on the outskirts of Buda, but opted for the hills in our front yard. It eventually warmed up and the snow started to melt, but we still have a nice coating. Claudia thoroughly enjoyed sledding in her wagon. We'll see if we can get her to cozy up to her sled.

Aloha! Szia!

My cousin Michele and her boyfriend Matt have moved to Hawaii.

We officially live on the other side of the world from each other.

I wonder how long that flight would be.

Aunt Debbie had a going-away luau.

Claudia liked (wearing) the decorations.

While in Texas... Claudia's hair turns into tight little ringlets.

Since returning to Budapest, it lays as close to flat as it can.

It's still pretty fluffy. We call it "wild & wispy."

Claudia and her party favor - a necklace she swiped from Aunt Debbie.

I tried to get a pic of CC with Staci,

but Claudia was more interested with Staci's cupcake tray.

The thing Claudia & I missed most about home (besides Russell),

sleeping in our own beds!

Can you spot Claudia in this pic?

There she is!

Fun fact... "aloha" and "szia" mean "hello" and "goodbye" in Hawaiian and Hungarian, respectively. After we celebrated Michele leaving for Hawaii, Claudia and I finally returned to Budapest! In one piece! With all our luggage! And sanity intact! You may have gathered from the previous posts that I was feeling very nervous about flying overseas with just me and Claudia. In the BC period (before Claudia), I loved airports because I could people watch, read magazines and relax on the plane. These days I'm lucky if Claudia is the only one crying at the airport. The Frankfurt airport is my own personal hell: my baby has been patted down & searched here and one really special day I had to remove Winston from his cat carrier while they scanned and patted him down as well. But THIS trip went GREAT! Claudia didn't fuss, didn't cry. Not a single tear was shed. She was amazing. Guardian angels followed us the whole way. We are so glad to be home! We had a fun weekend & I'm about to post some pictures of some of our adventures. But for now... Szia from Hungary!!

Visiting Memaw & Hugging Fire Hydrants

Claudia on plane watching duty in the street.

Caught one.

I only hope she's this excited next week when she gets on a plane for 11+ hours.

My plane anxiety is kicking in already.

I miss Russell so badly & I can't wait to get back home...

but I am bad scared about flying overseas with just me and Bop.

Real scared.

Gram helping Claudia position all her bath toys on her car.

The bath toys go everywhere these days.

There's about a dozen little boys who play on G&G's street.

Claudia desparately wants to play too.

She'll tear off into the street screaming "boys! booooys!"

They don't know what to think.  

Here she is about to sneak over to where they're playing. 

She stole their baseball.

We made her give it back.

She had no choice but to befriend the neighborhood fire hydrant.

We've got to get this girl back to her Budapest buddies.

We made a trip to Shreveport to spend some more time with Memaw.

Claudia and Memaw at the piano.

Memaw encouraged me to play the piano as a kid,

and I'm so glad she does the same with Bop.

Claudia  is committed to the music.

... the music... and the toy donut on her finger.

While in Shreveport we had a great visit with Avery and Molly.

I don't think there is a child more photogenic than Molly.  

She looks just like her beautiful mama.

Molly and Claudia had a great time playing... until it was time to go.

Claudia had a pretty nasty meltdown after I took this pic.

I think we in the terrible two death spiral.

I was so excited to finally meet sweet Boston Grace while in Shreveport.

Baby Boston is 4 months old... and could not be sweeter.

Boston will soon be a Houstonian... can't wait to see him sporting some boots!

This post is just a little hodge podge of pictures from this week.  We are wrapping up our ChrisThis post is just a little hodge podge of pictures from this week.  We are wrapping up our Christmas trip and are getting all set to return to Budapest.   Claudia and I will definitely miss everyone when we leave, but we are ready to get home and sleep in our own beds.  And we desparately miss Russell.  I just hope the flight goes smoothly.  My palms go all clammy just thinking about it!