Family Photo Shoot

Cute smiles, except mine. Haley's hands?

You would have never guessed that Dylan was sad.
This one is my favorite of the day.

Love everyone else except me... dumb hair.

Cute pose, but my leg is poking out.

Clingy boy!

Awww. Can you see the resemblance?

He was sooo tired!

love.

love.

love.

hate my hair. love that boy.

Poor Maleia's hair was curled, but it was so humid that it flattened by the time we got there.

We were able to find a friend who does photography, which is really rare here. We decided on shooting on Margit Island a week before her due date. Come to find out, she was having contractions the morning of our photo shoot. She was IN labor taking our shots around 5pm. We told her that we can reschedule, and she said that this would keep her mind off of it, so we went through with it... the tough girl that she is. She was lugging this huge camera around and having contractions every 5-10 min and ended up having her baby that night. What a gal! She would say, "Just a min." (breathe through the contraction) "Okay, smile! Cheeese!! Look right here!" I'm amazed she got any shots at all of our family. We couldn't get any pictures of just Dylan and B bc Dylan was being difficult and uber clingy and my hair was driving me nuts, but oh well. My hair issue reminds me of The Little Mermaid's hair issue that totally bugs me every time I watch that movie. Her bangs!! They just drive me crazy.

Oh another thing... I am very much against my boys wearing pink and when I bought B's and Dylan's polos online, from 2 different stores, they looked like they had white lines. Come to find out, they were both pink. bleh. We went with it. Look at me being flexible!

Psst! Kelli is my hero...

I like the funny things you do... most of the time.

So Dylan has been saying some inappropriate things lately... on accident. I hope.

For straw = he says "bra"
For button = he says "butt"
For class and grass = he says "a#$"

and, drum roll please, the worst one yet...

For sit = he says "s!@#$"

This was more than slightly embarrassing during church yesterday. Right after we sustained B as the Branch President of the Branch (our congregation at Church), Dylan yells what is supposed to be, "I want to sit" with both hands up, but comes out like this:

Member of the Stake Presidency: "Any opposed?"
Dylan: (with two hands up) "Ohhhhhhh S!@#!"

It's always the Branch President's son. . .

Sponges

1. Maleia put her thumbs up to me while we were eating dinner. I gave her a thumbs up too. She then announced, "That was 'awesome' in Sign Language."

2. Then, tonight in the tub while playing with the alphabet sponges, she put a "T" "M" "N" and an "Y" on the bath tub wall and said, "there! I spelled Testimony!"

3. And THEN, when we were putting Dylan to bed, she asked him if he wanted a drink of water. He said no, but then she responded, "Dylan. Our bodies are mostly water, so we need to fill up every once in a while."

Kids soak everything in and are learning ALL THE TIME. Whether we know it or not.
Little sponges.

Adios Abuelo! (sniff.) We miss you already!

**The next 6 posts are brand new... so kick up your feet and relax for a while... or speed skim the pics! :) I finally found a way to upload from Snapfish which takes minimal time. Thank goodness! Enjoy!


My dad & me in our back yard.

Margit Island and the singing fountain.

Backyard with wiggly kids who just want to play ball.

Danube river cruise with the Castle.

They LOVE their Abuelo! Thanks for coming to Haley's birthday party and blowing up all those stinkin balloons and helping with the crazy cake...

Bridge.

Hungarian Festival. The nice lady that took our picture had her finger in the shot too. :)

Us two at the zoo.

Going to the Children's Train.

Our monkey at the zoo.

Cuddling with Abuelo.

My dad got here the last Thursday in May. I was even extra careful and went to the airport a day early just in case... sigh. Note to self: Self, read the itinerary 20 times before writing it down in your planner and just because it says a date, it might not be that date.

He just left this morning and I am already mourning our loss. We had some good talks and great one-on-one time which I don't usually get when we are at big family gatherings, so that is a bonus for living farther away... but not a HUGE bonus. I still miss living closer.

Highlights:

We rode a hop-on-hop off bus, took a Danube River ride, toured around Budapest together, took him to our favorite Palacsinta restaurant, walked a sight-seeing hike, devoured Kurtoskolacs, experienced the Terror House, mingled around Margit Island, took the Children's train, rode all the modes of transportation, swam (but did not sit) in Aquaworld, strolled the Zoo, loved the festivals, watched movies, played games, ate the most delicious pastries ever, dragged him to the stores and school meetings, celebrated Father's Day, taught how to blog, went to the little town of Vac to hunt for an antique hope chest with me, ate some homemade Hungarian food and the best Mexican food in Hungary, endured Birthday parties, saw a Preschool Presentation, liked Prague, re-visited Paris, and just chilled together as a family.

phew!

Together is a wonderful place to be...

And I am pretty beat. How about you Dad? Dad??

Prague Power!

Dad with the castle in the background.

The Prague Castle up close.

My favorite picture of the weekend. Appropriate for father's day. And Dylan with his "choo-choo" again. :)

So happy together! So how is the weather?
Can you tell I'm tired of writing captions?

We are family.
Yet another song to get stuck in your head.

4 1/2 hours away ( 2 1/2 movies later) we were in Prague. We left Sat. am and got home Sunday night in time for bed. All the big cities in Europe seem to all have a river running through it (I assume due to commerce and travel) and castles. They all have unique statues and monistaries. And especially some spectacular views. Prague is not an exception.

They have a mini-Eiffel tower that B and the girls went up to catch a killer view while Dylan and I played with rocks and ate Ice Cream with Abuelo.

The best part for the kids was that they got to ride a horse around the famous gardens there. They loved the ride, I loved the gardens. It was win-win.

Dylan REALLY loved the horsie! Heeeeere horsie horsie!
He kept saying, "Yeee Haw!"

Just 6 days after getting home from Paris, we were off to Prague. Two months ago it was Mexico. Last month was Vienna and Venice... this month was Paris and Prague. I can't complain. (And when you put the letters of the cities/countries together you get MVP! <--- Random thought of no consequence.)

We drove this time (just over 4 hours away) and just stayed overnight one night. I really could have packed a little better -What? I packed for an hour the night before and I'm shocked that I forgot a few things??- but all in all it was a great family road trip. Dylan is getting to be a little tougher to travel with now that he has an opinion on what he wants to watch. How do people do it with boys and girls?? Sorry Haley, Dylan does not want to watch another Barbie movie... how about Blues Clues or Cars?

Prague is a beautiful city with the largest castle in Europe and the best ice cream Haley ever had. She even said, "Mommy, when can we come back here? The next time we come, I want more of that 'most delicious in the world' ice cream. Can we bring my friends here next week?" That is my kind of girl who goes out of her way to get some good ice cream. It was apricot gelato. And it originally was mine until it got highjacked by my 6 year old after a little taste. I ate her strawberry which was a close second and actually a pretty good deal since she had more than me when we traded.

Surprisingly enough, this picture was staged. Haley wanted to do a "mad photo."
Dylan was the only one legitimately mad.

Too many Goodbyes!

Awwww. Mark sharing his all time favorite drink with my man Dylan. I think the only reason he shared is because he knew in a few days he can have all the Root Beer that he wants.

The "last supper" consisted of authentic Chicken Paprikas, Palacsinta, and Goulas. I had our cook/nanny come over to cook for us so that they can have one last Hungarian meal before they leave.

The menfolk. The two in the middle will be the only ones staying.

The two on the right are leaving. :( They will be sorely missed.

We endorse half-naked babies. Two minutes after this, Scarlett had her shirt off since she dowsed herself in an Otter Pop. And yes, I said Otter Pop! Amazon Grocer rules!

Mark is a babe magnet. For real. Dylan has a hard time going to anyone besides me, but he will go to Mark every time. What a guy!

The girls came down in their rock-star apparel and picked up all the Rock Band equipment and sang and danced for us. They truly rocked the house singing ABBA.

These were my nieces REAL dance costumes (minus the Belle costume) that my girls truly adore. Thanks Meech!

"Good friends come and go, but we are never ever the same without them."

PARIS Deux!

Love the art. love. love. love. I don't know the Roman art from the Baroque art... but I finally get the joke in Beauty in the Beast when Cogsworth is giving Belle a tour around the castle and he says, "If it's not Baroque, don't fix it." har har.
It's not that sad.

Monet.

Those Chapmans love their canons! Speaking of which... B got a Canon camera for Father's Day! woohoo! And I think I might be in a movie because they were filming me looking into the military compound there. Watch for me!

The Thinker.

How cool can you make a staircase?

Hi.

I think there are 58 (or so) extravagant fountains in Paris.

Castles are cool and big.

Versailles.

Versailles, again. Just a 45 min. thrill ride, I mean, train ride away from Paris.

Typical American loving the act-it-out statue pose.
We did too many to count.

Versailles. Look at how beautiful the day was!

On every hour, the Eiffel Tower gets illuminated in brighter lights than normal and it shimmers like a Christmas Tree that has those chaser lights. It's awesome. This was taken at 1am. Look at all the people still up! It didn't get dark until 10pm.

I will defintely be returning.
We had some fun times, tough times, crazy times, funny times, hurting times, wet times, and bonding times. It was a well-rounded trip.
I would recommend this place to everyone!
(But not the modern art museum... or maybe I would! Now that was hilarious!
B & Dad, I owe you one.)