Marry Christmus!!

Oh my heavens. Our card situation has been such a mess, but we finally got them, for half off and misspelled, but they are here and we are still sending them. :) My cute and awesome cousin did them for me, but according to Winkflash I did them too late. A month before is too late??? You can't get them to me in a month?! Needless to say we got them half off, then when we finished stuffing them into the envelopes I looked closer at the card and (ahem) noticed Budapest was misspelled. oops. I thought I proofread it carefully, but alas, I am going to blame it on my eyes. I am actually legally blind in two states. True story. sigh.

Funny thing is that this is like the 5th draft and I had it on my background desktop for weeks, so from parties to playgroups, to dinners to family, NO ONE NOTICED!! And dang it. Maybe most of you wouldn't have noticed either, but the cat is out of the bag and all you who would have noticed now won't have to feel bad telling me.

Just disregard the HAVE a merry Christmas and just replace it with HAD and then replace Bud-pest with Budapest. ug. Next year I said we would start in October, but maybe I am leaning toward a wimpy blog Christmas card.
(no offense to those who did. I love them and I think they are a fantastic idea.)

Actually, our card isn't LATE it is just really really really REALLY early for next year, so that means I won't have to send one next year, right? :)

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and that you know we are thinking and praying for you all.

(And you know me better than that! I am so doing a Christmas card next year too. I will start in October though. Just remind me in August please. Thanks. And no I am not changing my blog background until all my cards are sent. It's still the Christmas season by golly.)

I have another SISTER!!

Stefany 1 week old. Look how beautiful she is!

Stefany 8 hours old at my dad's home! Look how alert she is.

What a great present right? For a day filled with thoughts of family, I can tell you that this one makes me the saddest to be away from. I will spare you the details of how, but I am already in love with her and I haven't even met her. She is MY SISTER!!! After 29 years of saying that I have 4 brothers and sisters, it is really hard to think that I have 5. This Christmas day I couldn't keep my mind off of her. Fighting back the tears I think about my life and how much I was given growing up and think, "Will she even have CLOSE to what I had?" I was able to play any sport imaginable, forced to have piano lessons, after school activities galore, family trips all the time . . . my heart aches for her.

She lives in Tulum, Mexico with her mother and I am dying to meet her and be apart of her life. It seems to tear me apart sometimes that I can't even see her and watch her grow up, but I will try my hardest to be in her life. She was born on December 3rd (I was hoping to share my birthday with her since her due date was November 22nd) and she is gorgeous. She weighed 7 lbs and was 21 inches long. Just like me. The mother had a cesarean and was out of the hospital 8 hours later . . . walking and showing up at my dad's doorstep surprising him with baby Stefany! I guess the chances for infection go up the more you stay in the hospital there. Still crazy. Dear sweet little baby Stefany.

She is with a loving mother who already has two beautiful daughters, so I want to think that she will grow up happy, healthy, and strong, but that hope is so hard to hold on to when I compare my life to hers. It's just doesn't seem fair some times. She can have such a wonderful life, just different. I have to keep reminding myself that.

We had a wonderful Christmas and it even was a white one! It started snowing at 10pm on Christmas eve. We had fun together all day today and I can't believe how blessed I am to have such an amazing family. Hope you felt the love of the Savior this special day.

Merry Christmas!

We've been busy...

We celebrated the Hungarian way...

St. Micolas comes on the 6th of December for all Saint's Day and you put your shoes by the window so that he can fill your shoes with goodies. Haley and Maleia lined them up for us.

Then Haley wrote who's shoes were whose just in case Micolas couldn't tell. They read: Brandon's - shoes - Monique's - shoes - etc. :)


He did NOT dissappoint. He arrived in the night and brought Hungarian candy, cookies, and some Hungarian toys to play with.


Haley was concerned that St. Micolas would forget our friend, Dan, who was staying with us while his family went back home to CA, so she made a note and filled his shoes with treats of her own and even wrapped a Hungarian trinket for him. All by herself. If that's not the true meaning of Christmas, then I don't know what is.
P.S. Micolas did NOT forget our dear friend Dan who is now reunited with his family.

Okay, so on to the OTHER things we have been busy with:

1. Decorating the home to look like Christmas


2. Going caroling and delivering our baked goodies
3. Visiting the Christmas market in Budapest

This is an advent calendar that they put in the square in downtown Budapest.

And this is the yummy deliciousness that I will be craving forever now. It's vanilla-sugar bread cooked over hot coals and then dipped in either cinnamon sugar, coconut, or walnuts. Yes, I would consider making a special trip to Hungary JUST for this. To. Die. For.

It's quite the operation. The lady on the right is the one who rolls out the dough and wraps the bread around the long stick thingy, then she passes it to the guy who dips it in the vanilla-sugar who passes it to the baker who watches the bread cook then dips it in the toppings (if you so desire), who passes it to the cashier to waves it back and forth in the air to cool then bangs it against the ground to loosen it enough to give it to you packaged in cellophane. I want one right NOW!

4. Taking pictures with Santa at the Embassy party

Dylan is thinking if he likes Santa...

Nope. Take the picture quick!

5. Emailing our peeps and a little blogging here and there


6. Opening our packages and making messes aka: "Swimming" in the packaging peanuts. I've ALWAYS wanted to do it myself, so I said, "Hey, why not?"

we don't need presents, we just need packing peanuts.

Do you even KNOW how hard this stuff is to clean up?
Let alone the millions of gasses that we just let into the air to damage the ozone?

... courtesy of those who shall not be named ...*cough* Harpers *cough* :)

7. Scrapbooking!! Yes, I've been REALLY busy.


8. Planning on attending Brandon's office party tomorrow (who all happen to be good friends), getting ready to go to Disney on Ice on Christmas Eve day, then that night having friends over to do the Nativity and dinner at our home, then Christmas day chillaxin with the fam, then traveling to Aviano, Italy the 26th for four days!! Cross your fingers that we can actually go this time...

Real vs. Unreal

I was THIS close to writing "choice spirit" with a permanent marker on the foreheads of these kids of mine last week just to remind me how precious these little ones are. Believe me, I needed the reminder. (Stories to come later. I haven't stopped twitching yet from last week...People really have more than three kids?)

update: On Sunday while Brandon was on the stand, they were pretty good. Monday= good. Tuesday= good. Today... could be better, but kind of good. I started behavior charts this week and I think they have helped.

All in all these kids are unreal!! In a good way.
They really are good kids.

I love that these three are becoming better and better friends. They play all together now and you can tell the energy level boosted now that Haley is out of school for Christmas break.

Why do we say cheese for a picture?
Dylan loves to yell it at the camera.

Maleia: Close your eyes daddy? B closes his eyes.
Tada!!!! Here you go daddy!
B: looks at the nothingness that Maleia gave to him.
What have we here?
Maleia: It's your favorites.
You like BYU and Guitars Hero. Doncha?
B: Of course.
Maleia: Sorry I couldn't give you mommy. She was real.

Haley: She just came over to the computer and asked what I was doing. So you are writing about Maleia? Can you write about me?
Mom: Sure, but I can't think of any stories about you right now. Do you remember any?
Haley: I don't remember any stories about me, Mom. I'll think of one and get to you about it.

(a few seconds later... long enough to write the dialogue above. She "got to me about it." :) I am writing as she is talking.)

Haley: Okay mom, here's a story: Once upon a time. There were two ladybugs.

Mom: Is this a story about you?
Haley: No.

Mom: Can you tell me a story about you?
Haley: ug! Okay. Once upon a time, I saw two ladybugs. They tried to talk to me.
Mom: Is this a real story?
Haley: No, it's a pretend story, but it's about me. Anyway, they tried to talk to me, but they couldn't. And so I let one crawl up my hand. It tickled me. So I got a jar and I put my ladybugs in it. Then I went inside. The ladybugs were sad. So I put them in my room instead. And I went to sleep and they were happy and they went to sleep too. The End.
(Her friend Abby just sent her a story that she wrote about ladybugs, so ladybugs were fresh on her mind.)
Mom: That was great! Do you know any true stories about you?
Haley: Well, I'll just make sure I do this in the summer, okay? That will make it real.

Dylan:
1. Walks around with the numerous magic wands we have and whacks everyone and everything with it and yells, "BOO!"
(Like Bibbity-bobbity-BOO!)

2. Throws things on the ground from his highchair or over the baby gate or out of his crib or out the window of our car!! and says, "Uh-oh that?" While pointing and looking at it. (I still have no idea what he threw out our car when Maleia rolled down the window on the way to the store.)

3. Calls me dada. still. But he is such a momma's boy. ???
I don't get it?

4. If he sees ANYTHING remotely edible, he'll say, "Mmmmm mmmm mmmm" until you give some to him.

5. If he has something in his mouth that he is not supposed to have I will say "Spit that out. That's yucky, Dylan" and he will respond with "ckkkkkkk that ckkkkk."

6. He soooo wants to play with the hanging balls on our Christmas tree. He will go right up to it, squat and yell, "WOW!!! Ball? Oooooo! Ball?" and point at all the "balls" on the tree. Poor guy. There are nothing but round things on the tree this year. ***Tonight at FHE when we were cutting snowflakes and he was left to wander, he broke three hanging balls and ate two hanging chocolate balls from our tree. (Chocolate balls are a Hungarian tradition BTW.) He was sooo good at not touching!! eh, he's one.

7. If he sees or hears a telephone, he will yell, "Hey-woah? HEY-WOAH!? HEY-WOAH!!!!" Until it is given to him or you distract him with something else.

8. His dance is hilarious! He does these deep squats and then just "twirls" aka: walks in a circle while waddling. All the while singing "wa wa wa wa." (la la la la)

9. Does all the "normal" Chapman tricks. Touchdown, waves and yells bye-bye, peek a boo by himself, high 5s, clap, tackles anyone already laying on the ground, hugs and kisses to everyone, (including strangers. Maybe this is why Haley thinks kissing her friends is okay? oops) opening every cupboard that we have, dumping every toy bin that we have, and unrolling every TP roll that we have. He also does this funny "gasp thing" that sounds more like someone being strangled or gasping for breath whenever he sees something he likes or wants. Which is every few seconds.

10. If he sees a camera he yells, "cheese!"

11. When it is time to pray he is the first to "fold" his arms and when we are done he yells, "Uh ma!" (Amen)

Dylan's words:
up, all done, that, dada, duck, wow, woah, no, yeth, uh-oh, bye-bye, bottle, hi, num-num, hello, bath, cheese, nigh-night, and of course, ball!

says "nana" - for banana
says "boo" - for book
says "bo-woah" - for doggie
(Hungarian dogs apparently say bow wow)
says "neigh thhhhhh" (slobbery thhhh)- for a horse (thanks B for teaching him this. When he sees one he slobbers all over you.)
says " baaaa" (complete with the bleating sound) - for a sheep
says "mow" (sounding like now) in a high pitched voice - for a cat
says "moooooow" (like you are 'mow'ing a yard) - for a cow
says "waoh" - for a lion or dinosoar
(any other moving creature either makes a kitty noise or a sheep noise.)

When he sees a car, truck, motorcycle, tram, etc., he pierces his lips together, vibrates them, and makes a car sound. Even when he plays with anything that has wheels he does this.
I LOVE THIS ONE!!!

And the Quote of the Day goes to Maleia:
Noticing the Red Robin seasoning on the table before dinner: "Rebember Daddy? We went to Rib Robin Lasterday?" (yes, in question form.)

Dylan says: "I just looove this pose that the girls think is so cute and I think it's great that they want to do this every time all three of us are in a picture. Seriously guys. This is getting old."

Sent $800 order!!!

THANK YOU

As I went through the Scholastic order one last time, I had mixed emotions. I was tearing up at the generosity of those who I didn't know and laughing at the book choices of my friends and thinking, that is something I can totally see her reading as a kid (or even now.) Then, I was also surprised at some orders thinking, "Hey! Why didn't I think of getting a class set of those?" or "I don't remember seeing that in the book order? Wow!" and "A reading game? That is so fun! They will love that." Then I was thinking, "Am I going to fit all these books in my car?" :)

My kids had a blast going through and picking their own books to give away and just seeing them dump out their entire wallet and piggy bank to pay for them was a little overwhelming. I have great kids. Maybe it was easy to give because they found most of that money lying around, but some of it came from birthday money and chores. In any case, it was theirs, and they gave.

Just so you know, I put in an eight hundred dollar order to Scholastic books today because of you all. $800 dollars and 3000 points for free books!!! This was incredible and I am soooo excited to get the books and give them away. I'm not sure after this that the embassy will let me use their postal service for charity again (I had to get permission) because I'm not sure they knew how many people would donate, but I am grateful for their willingness to let me do this in any case.

I am going to leave the order information up on the right side of my blog if anyone is still interested in donating books to this Orphanage. I have 5 DIFFERENT order forms you can peruse and purchase from. I love this feeling that I have right now of contributing in this way and I know many of you donate to many different charities, churches, and organizations . . . even anonymously, and however you give to whomever you give, know that you will receive MUCH more in the long run. Thank you so much for donating to this great cause.

Monday

And you thought this was a new post on a new subject! :) Right now I feel like this Charity is more important. Next week. Stay tuned... pictures and funny stories will come back! Promise.

In the meantime, Monday is the last day to order books this time around. I wanted to get the order in as soon as possible (today), but when I went to place the order, I couldn't even enter the order in because the international ordering offices are closed on weekends, soooo that means you have TWO EXTRA DAYS! (Phew.)

"Lucky!!!" Napoleon Dynomite

Here's the info again on how to order:
(just in case you can't scroll down that far. Hey it happens.)
__________________________________________________________________

1. go to http://www.scholastic.com/clubsordering

2. You will see "Book clubs online." Right under that you will see 5 tabs
Click on the "Place an Order" tab. (There is a computer mouse with a red circle around it next to it.)

3. You will see Teacher Sign in. Right under that you will see a green rectangle. Click on that green rectangle that says "Place your child's order"

4. You will see a Parent sign in on the right. The user name is: Monique and the password is: Charity (it is not case sensitive)

5. Then all you do is click on the order form that you would like to donate from. (You can look at them all if you want.) When you click on the order form, there will be 4 tabs again.

6. The easiest ways to order are either to "Shop by Flier Page" or to "Shop by Order Form"

Thanks again. You are so great!!!

BRO: Charity Give-away

So an update on our Scholastic book orders is this: we have about 200 books going to the orphanage right now. woo-hoo!! (Which includes the mini "sight words books" that I ordered with the points from the orders.) We are sooo excited, but if you could spread the word and let people know about this, that would be wonderful. Maybe you overheard someone asking what charity they should donate to this year. You never know. It could come up in conversation. They just found out that this Romanian Orphanage are going to have an ENGLISH teacher come (who is really a missionary from some foundation) and teach English to the children full time!! So now they need books books BOOKS!!

I also think I should do a Charity Give-away!! There is a really cute children's cookbook called Kid's Fun and Healthy Cookbook that I will buy and give to someone who has placed an order. There is over 100 recipes and 42 pages long. Just comment here and I will use that random selection ... thing ... on the web to choose the winner. Also, I will throw in an added bonus ... a special Hungarian treat! Those who have already ordered will be included for sure. If you don't re-comment from the last post, I'll put a comment on for you if you don't see this in time.

*****Deadline for this: is Saturday when I place the order. *****

Operation: BRO

Operation: Books to the Romanian Orphanage

Thanks for those who are lending their support for this cause. (see below post for more details.) I am really excited for this and hope it works out without a hitch. I just got off the phone with Scholastic Books and set up an account for people who wish to donate books to the Romanian Orphanage online. This is a great!! Thanks so much.

1. go to http://www.scholastic.com/clubsordering

2. You will see "Book clubs online." Right under that you will see 5 tabs
Click on the "Place an Order" tab. (There is a computer mouse with a red circle around it next to it.)

3. You will see Teacher Sign in. Right under that you will see a green rectangle. Click on that green rectangle that says "Place your child's order"

4. You will see a Parent sign in on the right. The user name is: Monique and the password is: Charity (it is not case sensitive)

5. Then all you do is click on the order form that you would like to donate from. (You can look at them all if you want.) When you click on the order form, there will be 4 tabs again.

6. The easiest ways to order are either to "Shop by Flier Page" or to "Shop by Order Form"

It may not let you pay with a credit card since I am overseas, so you can just email me your order and I will send you my address for you to send a check. There is no shipping or tax on these. If you just want to donate a sum of money and let my kids pick the books (with my help), that is fine, too.

If you have any issues, please comment here and I will try to help out. If I can't answer right away, I will call them to figure it out. I can't wait to update you on how many books were ordered and will be given to the Orphanage!!!! Won't that be a fun post? Maybe I'm a little too excited about this. But it is ALL going to charity, so I feel good about that. Sometimes you don't know where your money will be going. No compensation for gas to get to the orphanage, no compensation of time spent on organizing, ordering, etc. No Almond chocolate bar that I will buy if I get lost on the way to the Orphanage. Promise! I will post pictures and updates when this all happens. We are planning to personally give them to these kids, so I will try to put a video of it as well.

I just got an update from a friend that just came back from the orphanage yesterday to help with a little party she helped with. She was with the people who were helping to get toys and clothes to them.

"Dear Monique,

"I am still processing what I saw this weekend...terrible poverty, so much need, but so much good work being done by the orphanage foundation.

"It is really more of a children's shelter - some of these kids actually have parent(s) who are simply too poor or otherwise incapable of caring for them. Many don't know their parents and neither does the orphanage. The orphanage is an immense step UP in their quality of life, which is not how I would have imagined life in an orphanage...

"It is a real treat and something you won't forget. The kids, despite overcrowding and not much food, are happy and eager for attention. Little ones just jumped into my arms when I walked in, others would take my hand when they could, all wanted a piece of anyone who would show them affection. I fought back tears many times.

Thanks,
Sharon"

This gets me every time I read it and helps me realize that what I am doing can not only bring a smile to their faces, but could help them increase their quality of life by just learning English.
Hope your Holiday Season is not too crazy and that you are truly enjoying it.

Making a life better than you know...

Our Chapman Christmas charity (service project) this year is donating books to a Romanian orphanage using scholastic book orders. Anyone want to donate to an orphanage that has one toy for each child and they (the Hungarians) are TRYING to teach them English without any books to reinforce their learning? Toys would be great, but another organization has that covered. I am concentrating on the English books part. Thankfully there are three US families (yes, only three families) that fund this orphanage, so they are fed and get clothes through donations as well. Are they state funded? no. They are completely charity funded. You wouldn't believe how many orphanages there are here. Then when they get older, they are put in programs to try to learn a trade, but we hear many many girls go into prostitution. Human trafficking is HUGE here. Sad. Hence, they want these children to learn English to give them more opportunities than the bottom of the barrel. If you are interested, please let me know. I have scholastic book orders where ALL books and points from those books are going to this orphanage. Yes, there are $1 books and even great phonics and pre-reading sets that are great for learning English. The only books they have are their primers. Text books. Fun, huh? Brandi hit my charity pet peeve button today. My family always got flack from everyone when we would try to get donations for a Mexican orphanage that we would go to every year. Why would you want to help them out where there are so many poor people here in America? sigh. We like to help ALL people. Go check out Brandi's blog too.