Dialogue at lunch...

First off, to start lunch,...wait.  Backing up...

We started the first round of lunch around 11:00 when the one bowl of daddy rice he had for breadkfast no longer nourished my growing 14 year old.  Jack-pot in the fridge: Leftover mushroom soup burgers and potatoes from last night. The little girls and Avot joined in and the three hour, relay-lunch began.  

We had a prayer somewhere in the middle of the eating-spree, covering our bases, along with a mixed-up, shortened version of Hava's latest favorite song, "I love daddy, he loves me, we love mommy, yes; sir-ree!..." and so on through EVERYONE. (It takes a while, but you should see the way Hava lights up when we get to her name :).)

Chugger-dude was in charge of lunch so he offered to go to the market with Liliputian to buy a loaf of bread.  He grabbed his forints and he was off!  (Q-dawg did run and check on them about half-way through, just to make sure, but they did well!)

Chugger-dude came back just as the little girls were finishing up round two of lunch, and started cutting.

2 cuts into the sausage, first blood.  Nice.  

Chugger-dude takes a break with a washcloth pressed onto his wound and Pipalicious and Hava offering loving sympathy, while I take over the slicing.

While I cut, this is a sampling of what I hear:

Hava: Mom. You are like a lump. You are like the lumps in porridge

Mom: But you don't like the lumps in porridge! You hate them! I ask, amusingly aghast

Hava: I know. I don't like you. (Nothing like the brutal honesty of a moody four-year-old.)

Lek: Mom!!! Avot's being weird. Make her stop!

Lek: Mom...will you take my science test for me tomorrow and get an A?

Mom: (announcing) Lunch in five minutes!

Hava: Five minutes?! But that is a long time! ...pause...but I am a little kid so I get cheese right now (helping herself to another slice)

Lek: I thought I liked science until this stuff. (talking about friction) You have to fight against every molecule, and you need to calculate the resistance of each molecule. Huge sigh. Life is hard for me...

Lek wanders over to where I am cutting:Mom, can I eat something? (Food solves everything. Crisis averted.)

Onto round four.

What if?

The boys started it at breakfast this morning with: "What would happen if all the atoms became solid?!"

They discussed that for a minute or two, when Hava decided she wanted to join the conversation: "Guys!  I know!  What would happen if all the atoms had spoons?!"

Yeah,...what if. :)

Liliputian's birthday, visit to friends' house, and Hungarian

Last night, a few of us got off the bus early after Farsang to pick up some groceries: the Goob, Chugger-dude, Liliputian, Spooner and Q-dawg and I. Liliputian wanted to have mushroom soup burgers and paprikas csirke on her birthday. It was dark and misty, and walking over the bridge with all the mud was a bit of a challenge (with no light and no moon), but it was calm and cool after the heat of the Farsang party.

Liliputian turned 10 this week! What a happy day! We had yummy food to celebrate: omelettes for breakfast, mushroom soup and pogac (puffy cheese rolls...kind of), and paprikas csirke for dinner (paprika chicken over home-made noodles). She thinks "it was fun and beautiful." We watched movies, ate food, she opened some presents, and didn't have to do any work. (I think that was almost her favorite part of the whole day :)...) She received some stuffed animals (her favorite!), a book of fairy tales in Hungarian, a new purse with some things to go in it, chocolate and gummy bears. I think she had a great time, and I am soooooooooooooo glad she is in our family! We had a wonderful walk and talk last night on the way home from the store. She is so special!

Goober through Hava got to go to Disneyland this week! Well, it was almost as good as Disneyland...the Disneyland of Hungary in their eyes, probably :): they went to a friend's house! For five wonderful hours they were able to play Wii-Fit and all sorts of other games with their friends Aiden and Ryan, who live in Budapest. Their awesome mom is a good friend of mine now, who takes me shopping to bigger stores, and helps fill a little of my cup of conversation :). She is also from America, but speaks Hungarian pretty well, and helps me learn a few more words in addition to the great adult talk I so enjoy.  The kids had an incredible time.  The Goob especially thought it was cool that my friend, Rachel, likes "Queen" like his dad. :)  If Rachel gives the okay, I'll get some pictures posted later...and here they are :)! 

Spooner is such a wonderful snuggler still. I have enjoyed him so much, as so has the rest of the family. He makes cute little squeaky cries, and smiles so much. We love him so much! It is nice that he is feeling better and doesn't have the scary cough anymore.

The kids and I have been doing better with our Hungarian. Today at church and on the way, I noticed they were more excited about recognizing words. I think it is so overwhelming it is hard to know where to start or even if it is worth trying, but I hope they will feel good about the progress they are making with the language and adjusting. This whole experience has definitely not been easy. They miss friends. They miss knowing what is being said at church and around them. Yet, they are making a good go of it, and I am proud of all these awesome kids of mine!

I especially love hearing Hava insist on substituting Hungarian words in songs like "Popcorn, Popping on the Apricot Fa" and things like that. Pipalicious often surprises me with cute little expressions in Hungarian. Chugger-dude has excellent pronunciation when we read the Mormon Konyve every night (he especially loves the "game" where Q-dawg tells them certain words to look for in the verese). Liliputian has a little Hungarian journal where she writes down words. The Goob likes latching onto words like "Took-jo" ("awesome" or literally, "pumpkin-good", if you broke down the word into its parts :)...). Lek has had a great time conjugating verbs and keeps asking for new verbs to conjugate. Avot spends a good deal of time translating, memorizing, and practicing and even said her first prayer mostly in Hungarian today in Young Women's! Woohoo! Papaya says, "Oh-pa!" a lot, which is what Hungarians say in places of "oops!" and that is sweet. She also loves the words for baby, dog, and cat (baba, kutya, és macska). Our sweet Hungarian teacher, Noémi, keeps printing up cards with pictures and words on them and the kids are getting faster at identifying them. It's definitely hard work, but they are good sports for the most part :)!

Farsang

Here in Hungary, they celebrate a holiday called Farsang, where they dress up, have parades, and celebrate the end of winter.



 
We went to a Farsang party at our branch last night and had a great time :)!

Waiting at the bus stop on the way to Farsang...we actually had a 20 minutes window for this transfer.  Heaven!  Papaya was asleep, so Q-dawg told Lek he should carry her as part of his football training.  Lek responded that he would do that when he had a football team of his own: hire a bunch of two-year-olds that would need to be carried and would cry whenever they were put down.  That Lek,...always thinking :)!

Q-dawg is not afraid to dress-up!  Here he is sporting Liliputian's "Indian" shawl as a "doo-rag"

Pipalicious with a beard and a bear

Our little fam at the party. Avot is dressed up as a dressed-up person in disguise.  I am dressed up as the mom of lots of kids, and the kids are my costume (at least that is what I told Pipalicious)

Here we are with so many wonderful people from our Branch!  The lady with the plant on her head organized most of it and had a lot of fun games, like drop the pencil in the jar, make a basket with a ball, carry the ping pong ball on a wooden spoon, and eat a treat off a string (which we big-mouth-Singing Bees excelled at).

The favorite game for the kids was probably LIMBO!!

They dubbed the Goob: "Limbo Kiraly" (Limbo King)  I will try and post a video of it below, although the video was of a time where the Goob did the crab walk instead...but you get the idea.

Chugger-dude takes on a new responsibility

Chugger-dude decided two weeks ago that he wanted to be in charge of buying the milk twice a week from the milk man who comes to our street to deliver milk.  Here he is!

The milk man didn't want to pose for the picture, so this one is a  little zoomed out to include him with Chugger-dude, and his truck :)  Chugger-dude likes this particular milk man because he speaks a little English

There he is, with our 14 bottles that we get each Thursday

So, Chugger-dude helps me get the bottles ready in the morning (which includes finding the right lids).  I am in charge of cleaning them carefully to prevent contamination or bacterial build-up :).  Then, he gathers and counts the bottles, gets the money from Q-dawg, has the keys on hand for the gate, and then waits for the tell-tale "milk man music" (he would put any ice cream man to shame) to dash out with his empty jugs to be filled.

Yeah, Chugger-dude!

Lek's Spiritual Spree!

Lek just did four days of Seminary and is now doing his Friday live session.  Right before doing the session, he leaned back on his chair, sighed contentedly and said, "I am just on a spiritual spree!"

He sure is!  For instance, for Young Men's this week, his class (aka he and his Dad) decided to tackle their home teaching assignment...16 households.  The families are spread out in quite the range, too, so the two of them have been planning for a couple of weeks, including a foray by Q-dawg last Saturday to get a map of the area so they could mark down where they need to go.

To add some extra excitement, on Monday or Tuesday they got a call from the missionaries.  Apparently, the missionaries accidentally scheduled two English classes at the same time in two different locations, and wanted two people to cover their class in Erd.  Cool!  Lek was not so sure, and sooooo nervous, but he was willing.  There was no class plan, but he still faced it and went.  I am continually amazed at the strength I see in this maturing young man while we are here.  He really steps up to the challenges!

Q-dawg and Lek left around 1:30 pm on Wednesday.  The game plan was to meet the missionaries after they got off the bus in Erd, find out more about the class, and then borrow the missionaries' bikes to bike to their furthest house and then make their way back.  Here are a couple pics of the path...you just can't see how steep the path is behind Lek in the first one.  Apparently, Q-dawg rode his brakes and the slid down half way, even with the brakes on.  Whew!

The first stop took so long to get there, and took so long, they ended up having to come right back after that one visit.

One down, 15 to go! :)

Upside, the man they visited makes his own sausages, and gave us some.  They smell pretty strong and now everything in our fridge has the hint of sausage flavor, but at least it is a yummy flavor :).  Oh, and they are not blood sausages or csipos (hot), thankfully :).

Lek ended up playing 20 questions with the advanced English class as a way to practice their English, and Q-dawg taught the beginning class.  Gonda Elnok (President Gonda) gave them a ride home that evening, so they made it home by a little after 9 pm, and not after 10 pm, which is when the bus would have had them back.

Cool experience:  On the way there, the bus Q-dawg and Lek were on was running late...7 minutes, to be exact, which is just how much time they have between the scheduled drop-off of that bus and the pick up of the next one on the other side of the freeway.  As the bus they were on pulled up on one side of the freeway, Lek was praying feverishly that they would make it on time to the next bus, and, therefore, on time to meet the missionaries.   He was thinking about how Nephi in the book of Helaman in the Book of Mormon prayed with faith, doubting nothing, and was able to move mountains.  Lek kept trying to convince himself to not have a doubt...that it would happen and they wouldn't miss the bus.

When they pulled up to the curb, they looked across the freeway and could see their bus already at the other stop.  Q-dawg turned to Lek and asked, "Do we run for it?"  Lek thought about that "faith, nothing doubting" and answered, "Yes!"  

They dashed over the sky-bridge, and came up to the bus that was still there, trying to find a break in the busy rush of traffic so it could pull away.  Q-dawg rapped on the door, and they made it!

Faith to move mountains, son!  Faith to move mountains.

(Lek has just identified that the snow that has been falling for the past 24 hours is perfect.  Time for a new snowman?)

Papaya indicators

Papaya just came up to me, happily grinning with mud all over her face.

"Yucky," she cheerfully said.

I looked behind her at the shoes she had left in the hall,...the source of the mud.

Apparently she doesn't have enough minerals in her diet.

I love to listen to her.  Some of my favorite phrases are:

"La, la, luuuu" = "sing and snuggle with me"
"big huge" = "something hard to write on," "bigger pillow," "mommy"  This one is a little more flexible in meaning :)
"C'mere" with a cute little hand beckoning = "follow me!...NOW"
"Daddy rice?!  Waffles?!"="I'm hungry"

She had fun rinsing the dishes with me after the other kids went to play with their friends in Budapest, letting the water run over her little pudgy hands and filling up any container she could.  She then tackled the stove top with me, squishing her little scrub pad out to get more water onto the surface, and then methodically swishing it around.

She loves to help!  I can tell when she needs more attention:

The computers get turned on and off.
The de-humidifier gets turned on and off.
Anything that is even slightly edible on the countertops is sampled and left all over.
Siblings' pens and markers end up disappearing.
Doors get banged shut.
The load in the washer gets another rotation.
Spooner gets a lot of extra attention.
Binkis disappear or get used by a big sister.
Dad's wallet gets carefully emptied out all over his desk.
The coins in the drawer of Dad's desk get carefully stacked into neat piles (at least it's careful!)
Books get torn.
Beds get dismantled.
Daddy's phone gets played with.
And, her personal favorite, all her clothes and diaper come off and she streaks through the house yelling, "No, mom!  No, mom!"

She knows all these things are naughty.  Sometimes she will even take me to where she has done something naughty to show me!  Nice.

It doesn't help that she is off her sleeping schedule, as she is transitioning to no naps.  If she gets a nap, she is often up until 10 or 11 pm, if we don't wake her up from them after about an hour of sleeping.  I would rather deal with craziness during the day than at night, most days, but sometimes I give up and she gets a 2 or 3 pm nap.  Then I just sic Lek on her that night.

They're buddies :).

Her look before mommy stands up to get her...

...and then she runs!

Patience?

I got this quote in an email from my mom.  I put it in this blog instead of my other one where I usually put my quotes because it fits in our family...

"Dad just read me a quote from aunt Alice.  'Patience... What parents have when witnesses are present.'  Love it!"

Sad, but true!   While I have become more patient over the years, I must confess that there are still moments when my actions are governed by thinking who might be watching.  However, as I thought more about this quote, I remembered a story from the Book of Virtues that my children love.  A man takes his daughter to steal a little wheat from several surrounding fields.  "They won't miss a little," he reasons.  He tells his daughter to tell him if someone is watching.  At each field, right as he reaches for the wheat, his daughter cries out, "Father!  Somebody is watching!" He would then look around, see nobody, but hurry on to the next field.

After this happens four times, the father, frustrated, turns to his daughter, and exclaims, "Where?  I don't see anyone!"  To this, his daughter replies, "God sees."

We always have witnesses, igen? :)

FHE notes :)

Tonight was the Goob's turn to teach the lesson for Family Home Evening.  Lately he has been very into a new physics game/experiment program called Algodoo my brother Dave recommended.  We downloaded the free version then fleshed it out to the full one for a whoppin' $4 (sale...woohoo!)  So, for FHE tonight, the Goob thought, "hmmmm...how can I tie in Algodoo?" Wonder boy created a demonstration on Algodoo that looked like a little car going down the strait and narrow with all sorts of side paths it needed to avoid to make it safely to the end.

Lesson?  Be obedient and stay on the strait and narrow and you'll end up alright.

My condition?  He has to spend at least as much time on preparing his lesson as he spends on Algodoo making his "strait and narrow."

Pipalicious had a great summary of his lesson that reminds me of my own dear Sister Rausch (or Golden Kimball, for those who don't have the privilege of knowing my friend :)...):
 "If you don't obey, you'll go to hell and have to work and eat bad food!"

(Imagine all that, coming from a petite six year old, all cute in her jammies and with earnest brown eyes...her emphasis, not mine, and spoken in complete seriousness.  It was all I could do to not laugh out loud.)

Gotta love FHE!

The Basics dash

We have something called "The Basics" at our house:
-brush teeth
-say prayers
-make bed
-get dressed
--clean room
-read scriptures
-write in journal
-comb hair (for those who have it)
-my favorite: ask mom if there is anything they can do to help me that morning

Pretty much, these have to be done by 9 am (give or take a few minutes, based upon what I am doing at the time), and then I check them to see if they are done.  If they are not, they get to help me with some other job of my choosing.  Lucky, eh? :)  They also have to do their area of stewardship for the week, so the house is relatively clean before we start "school" for the day.

Seeking inspiration for our latest Authors in the Attic, I turned to this daily ritual and came up with the following poem :)...the kids loved it. (The child in the following poem has "breakfast clean-up" for their job.)

Brush, brush
Make them shine!
Hurry, hurry!
Almost nine!

Clean the room
Make the bed
Hair is combed
And prayers are said.

Go to mom--
"What to do?"
Oh no! Chagrin!
It's nine o'two.

Mom is busy
Feeding... (Spooner);
No extra jobs
If I can fly!

Garbage out...
What a mess!
Take a breath,
No time to rest...

Lining in,
Now I'll zoom!
Down the hall,
To the Girl's room.

Shake the rugs
Put them back
Clean the counters...
Ant attack! (yes...we have an ant problem in January)

Smash the bugs
And sweep the floor 
Quickly now!
It's nine o' four!

"Time to start!"
I hear mom say.
Whew! No
Extra jobs today.

Every morn work
Like a flash!!
That's what we call
The Basics Dash!

Chugger-dude had fun dragging Papaya around the house in this little upside down stool.  He loves his little sisters and brother!

"Daddy pok!" and Sunday at the Singing Bees

Today, after a crazy day at church, we came home to the whirlwind disaster we had left with our dramatic exit (always).

We settled around our table on the floor, enjoying our left-over Sunday morning cinnamon rolls (courtesy of Avot who got up at 5 am to make them...whew!).  Some of the plates had a mere two-bites worth left, but each bite is precious so they all disappeared.  As we did, Papaya started exclaiming, "Pok!  Pok!"...the hungarian word for "spider."  Sure enough!  There, crawling on our new "manners" poster on the wall was a tiny spider.  The kids watched the spider's antics for a while, and then Papaya called out, "Daddy pok!"

"No, Papaya," the kids said.  "It's just a baby pok!"

Then we looked higher.

Sure enough.   Daddy pok.  Where is Aunt Niesha R. when you need her :)?

Side note on our Sunday...the latest busz adventure: Our first bus on the way to church accidentally made an extra stop that added seven minutes to our trip.  So much for our excitement that it was on time when we got on it! :)  The next bus had already left before we even got off our first bus.  Half an hour to wait.

We made some phone calls, and let them know we would be late.   We arrived at 9:10 am, where, we learned later, the first counselor in the branch presidency had been stalling until we got there.  I had a few sweet offers to help with Spooner, but, since he was still a bit sick (lingering cough) I declined and kept him to myself and one handed the sacrament hymn.  Let me tell you, even playing that much is a blessing in our branch!

Now we are all enjoying a leisurely Sunday afternoon: Q-dawg is napping, Lek hopefully is too (he stayed up late skyping), the Goob and Liliputian are playing chess in the other room (while Liliputian puts Spooner to sleep like a pro), Hava is locking Pipalicious out of the house, and Papaya is trying to climb onto Avot's shoulders to be a "shoulder angel."  Avot is blogging on one of her latest and newest blogs, "Joyous Praising" and I am here blogging as well, obviously :). (This is Avot's fourth blog.  That girl loves to write!  I love her poems.)

One of Pipalicious's pictures on her photography spree...lovely, eh?

Chugger-dude comes in every few minutes to see if "it is done with quiet time."  I finally told him I would say "no" every time he came in, so I haven't seen him for about 10 minutes.  Whew!

I love the sabbath!

Sick kids all week

This week was a little different.   Starting a week ago Wednesday, the kids took turns coming down with this nasty chest cough.  We sent the well ones to our friends, Adrian and Yvonne, on Monday before they left for Germany.  They made palacsintak (crepes) for Q-dawg and the kids, which they all loved.  However, we forgot to bring back a memory book Adrian had given us to sign, so Q-dawg was a little stressed about getting it back to him the next morning (Budapest) and getting all his work done.

"Send Lek," I suggested with a smile.

After a moments hesitation, our amazing son took on the challenge.  Budapest and back, delivered the goods...all in a morning.  What a guy!

Avot had a similar experience on Saturday, visiting the other young woman in our ward in Erd.  Q-dawg took her to her bus stop and then left her to get a map of Budapest and Erd (he has 16 families to home teach with Lek, so he wanted to get a map that would accurately show where they all lived).   Oh!  And a saw.  After looking at our $300 gaz bill last month, we thought we would try getting the firewood we were considering at the beginning fo the year.  We have a bunch of old wood in the back yard we are going to burn, and need a saw.

And it's not like you just go down the street to the nearest Walmart ;).

Anyway, Avot got a little lost, but fortunately had our cell phone and could call her friend to arrange it.  They played UNO and her friend knows a lot of English, so it was a great chance for them to bond.

This sickness really hit the little ones hard, especially Spooner.  There were times that his coughing was scary with all the phlegm he was coughing up and choking on!  However, the weather was perfect for his croup-ish type coughing: cool and damp.  Tender mercy!  I went outside several times to let him just breathe it in...one time at 4:30 am.  Poor guy.  Fortunately, Q-dawg had given him a blessing one day into it, assuring us that Heavenly Father promised that his body would be strong enough to fight it.  Whew!  It was fun to be extra-tender with our little baby.  He is definitely everyone's favorite.  The hardest part was trying to keep Papaya away from him when she was sick and he wasn't yet...which probably helped him get sick :).  She just loves her little brother!

I love it when the sickness includes lots of sleeping (rather than other, worse things :)!)

"Preschool" with noodles.   We bought these wide noodles on accident ("we" meaning "I" I guess)...but they work great for making the alphabet ala noodle :)

Hava had fun after everyone else was gone...

...and Pipalicious was a very willing photographer.  (You should have seen the 50 pictures I deleted...)

Pipalicious did get some cute ones of Hava, though!

My focused daughter.  So unlike some of her siblings

As I was saying...this is one of her "less-focused" siblings :)

Hava!  You have something growing on your ear!  It's invasion of the body snatchers or one of those worms from that nasty Star Trek film from my childhood...number 2 was it?

The bunny slippers that Papaya never wants to wear, but are still around to play with :)

Oh no!  The noodle got her and left her for lion bait!

Hava is serious about her noodles

Worn out...where is she sleeping?

Yep!  At the table!  She's like her Aunt Heidi...can sleep anywhere :)

As I was saying, anywhere...and this is a different day, too :)

Nice daddy covered her up

Liliputian in one of her favorite positions--snuggling with Spooner!

And Papaya finally crashed.  She has been on a "no sleep" this week, driving everyone bonkers.

We had to cancel a gathering with the Mensaros csalad (family) on Valentines Day, as well as our Hungarian lesson with Noémi.  Everyone has been sleeping in a little later, dragging a bit, and using up toilet paper and tissue like never before.  However, it is the first time really being sick since we came to Hungary, so I can't complain :). Nothing like not being in that nasty Utah inversion to keep us healthy...that, and not socializing much outside of our own family :).

Valentine decor!  These are hearts the girls colored, cut, and hung for the backdrop of our Valentine choir performance still to be published on youtube for grandparents.  When we tried to post it, it took almost a day and a half, and, when we got to the end of the time allotted, it said it didn't work.  Nice. :)

So, grandparents, just visualize the kids in front of the curtain, singing their hearts out, and you'll get the real thing soon!