Monday, June 25, 2007

Not My Fault

I just want to say clearly and for the record, that this is not my fault.

After breakfast this morning, the kids were watching TV while I was in the computer room catching up on the day's news (OK, I was reading my daily comic strips..."Boondocks" is just too funny). After a while the kids come in and I noticed that VJ has something around his lips. Assuming it's just juice or something, I take him to the kitchen to wipe it off.

It doesn't come off.

So I try again, this time with soap and an actual wash cloth. Washing his face with soap ranks up there with Applying Sunscreen and Getting his Haircut. A few screams of "No Soap! No Soap!" later and all clean, right?

Nope, it's still there.

I finally ask him what he did to his face but he's still mad about getting his face washed so he's not giving anything up. Luckily he has an older sister who has no problem ratting him out. Long story short, he took a (small) lid to a container and put it against his mouth and sucked in, creating a vacuum so it would stick to his face. Cool trick but unfortunately if you keep it there long enough it leaves a nice bruise mark (or whatever) on your face.

Clearly I can not be blamed for this.

Bubble Fun

For Sunday breakfast Anna made waffles. A breakfast of waffles is a long drawn out affair at our home since we can only make one waffle at a time. Typically by the time Anna sits down to her first waffle, the kids are done and I am about to finish as well.

VJ is always the first to be served since he takes FOREVER to eat. Actually if it was up to him he would be done in 5 minutes. It's just that our yelling at him to eat more that takes so long. So anyways, he was actually finished and we were making him wait until Katie was done before he could be excused from the table (yes, we are those kind of parents). After a few minutes I realized that he had been sitting quietly and therefore wondered "what was he up to" so I looked over. He was trying to form a spit bubble. While I give him points for amusing himself quietly while the rest of us finished our meal, it's not really appropriate at the table.

Me: "VJ, don't do that. That's not nice to do at the table."
VJ: "Can I do it in the living room?"
The question caught me off guard and I actually paused to think about it.
Me: "No, not anywhere in the house."
VJ: "Then can I do it outside?"
I open my mouth to say "Yes" but Anna, seeing where this is going, quickly intervenes.
Anna: "No VJ, we don't do that anywhere. That's not polite to do. We'll play with real bubbles this afternoon."
She can be such a girl sometimes. All boys know that spit bubbles are cool, but only when appropriate.


More pics at our Kodak Gallery.

The Almost House Guest

We almost had our first house guest. This weekend was the weekend that Lisa Marie was supposed to come visit us. Her company was sending her to France and she was going to swing by our place for the weekend before going home.

Unfortunately they decided to change the location of her meeting (or whatever she needed to do) to Beijing. Plus Air France stuck her with her flight to Budapest so we hate Air France now.

In honor of her almost visit, here is a link to one of my all time favorite Lisa Marie stories: The McDonald's Drive Thru Incident

Swarm

You may have heard me say this a few times, but one of the things I love about Budapest is the weather. Saturday was one of those almost perfect days: Highs in the low 80's and windy (I say almost perfect because it was too sunny. For a day to be really perfect it should also be overcast without actually raining, but I digress). Perfect weather to open all the windows in the house and just enjoy the coolness. Only one problem: No Screens. I have not seen a screen window or screen door since we moved to Europe. Saturday evening was spent killing all the bugs (mostly Big-Ass mosquitoes) that had flew in the house. Anna and I must have killed at least 20 of them, no exaggeration, in the living room alone.

I did some research and from what I can tell the reason there are no screens in Hungary is a sad one. Apparently when the Soviets took over one of the first things they did was to take all of the screens and send them back to Moscow. Throughout the years of Communist rule, the populace tried many alternatives to keeping out the bugs, the most famous failure, the "Iron Curtain Experiment", you may have heard of. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the country had lost all of it's screen making technology and remain to proud to ask for foreign aid.

True Story.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Return to the Budapest Zoo

So the kids and I visited the Budapest Zoo again today. Knowing where I was going helped and we didn't get lost at all. I also knew enough about the parking situation to get there EARLY so all was good.

The Zoo opens at 9:00am and we got there at 9:20 hoping to beat the heat (again, nothing compared to Houston heat but still). Before we left the car I put sunscreen on the kids. The only thing worse than getting VJ's haircut is putting sunscreen on him. You would think that the main ingredient was acid the way he carries on sad. After he was done it was Katie's turn. She asked why he got to stay in his car seat but she had to get out of the car to which I responded that it was easier to get the sunscreen on him while he was strapped down in.

We had these conversations at the zoo:

VJ: "I'm hungry. I want a hot dog."
Me: "It's too early for lunch, VJ. It's not even 10 o'clock yet."
Katie: "Ya, VJ. 'Berenstein Bears' are not even on yet."

A sign that they watch too much TV? I mean it's OK to tell what day it is by what's on that night (for example: Hey, I'm watching 'NCIS' tonight so it must be Tuesday) but telling time by the TV schedule, half-hour by half-hour, is a bit much.

*******

As we pass a playground in the zoo.
VJ: "Can we play at the playground?"
Katie: "We came to the zoo to see the animals, not to play at the playground. Right Daddy?"
(I actually said this the last time we were here. Good memory.)
*******

VJ makes some pitiful-feel-sorry-for-me noise.
Me: "What wrong VJ?"
VJ: "My legs are tired."
Katie: "There's going to be a lot of walking at Disney World and if you cry and carry on we'll have to go home."

It's funny to hear my words coming out of Katie's mouth. At least it shows she's paying attention.

Some pictures. You can see then all at our Kodak Gallery site.

We went into the petting zoo area and Katie promptly got nervous of anything with horns after seeing two goats butting heads. I got her to go near the cows and pet them but was able to catch this picture as the cow decided to quickly turn 180 degrees getting a scream out of Katie.
Me: "VJ, pet the baby goat."
VJ: (distrustful soul that he is) "No, you first Daddy."


1:20pm...do you know where your kids are?

I think these pictures show that we had a pretty good morning.

VJ at the Playground / Artists at Work

I took these pictures of VJ at the playground last week but hadn't gotten around to posting them. VJ and I went to the playground almost every morning after dropping Katie off at school.

More Playground pictures on our Kodak Gallery homepage.

Now that school is out Katie can have some fun too. On Monday Katie & VJ painted pictures out on our patio. I love that Budapest is not as blazing hot as Houston so that we can actually go outside between dawn and dusk without passing out from the heat.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Katie

So, I'm glad I showed you her school picture first because wait until you see this one.
Katie went to a friend's birthday party directly after school today and VJ & I went to pick her up at 6:00pm. The party was held at a neighborhood park (not near our neighborhood of course but whatever). Out of all the kids there, Katie was the only one whose face was this filthy:
Me: "Katie, how did your face get so dirty?"
Katie: "I ate some ice cream."
Me: "What about dirt? Did you eat any dirt?"
I can't really type out the noise she made, basically dismissing my sarcasm as beneath her notice.

I chose not to take a picture of the huge scratch Clutzy McGraceless got on her knee.

***********************

Conversation we had this evening after showers:
Katie: "Why does VJ keep bugging me?" (They are constantly arguing over toys, etc.)
Me: "He's your little brother. That's what little brothers do." (Hi Frankie)
Katie: "When will he stop bugging me?"
Me: "Eventually you will go away to college."

***********************

Did I mention that I love Katie's school? The last day of school is this Friday so stuff has been coming home (art projects, papers, etc.). Today they sent home a "Memory Book" filled with various papers and projects that Katie had completed throughout the (half-a-)year as well as a class picture that everyone signed.
She also got a CD of all the songs that they sang in music as well as a CD of all the pictures that she had taken of her at school. You can check them out at our Kodak Gallery site.

Katie's Kindergarten Picture

We just received Katie's Kindergarten picture. Pretty cool, huh?

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Ballet Recital

Today was Katie's Ballet Recital. She was a little nervous but did a great job. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

More pictures at our Kodak Gallery.