I promised you something even more exciting than holiday cheer, and here it is...

Yes, dear readers, IT IS A HAIRCUT. I am still glowing with glee, the happiest mommy there could ever be.

I made the appointment for Liam earlier in the week, hoping that we'd be able to coax him into shedding a few centimeters. I left him with the hair stylist and went for a coffee, thinking that perhaps she'd have more luck and that he wouldn't be so likely to have a meltdown if I wasn't there. My planned actually worked (these results are not typical), and he strolled out of there looking like my long, lost son. I should add here that we really haven't put alot of pressure on him to cut it. We've been trying to endure, and hoping he would outgrow the look, but it was definitely starting to wear on us :) Happily, he made the decision himself, so it worked out for everyone in the end.

So, now that you've seen the 'after', check out the 'before'...

Here are Riley and Liam with their good friend Peti (Peter) afterwards at a nearby cafe, where we toasted Liam's new look with hot chocolate. Yahoo!!!!!

My new ABSOLUTE FAVORITE photo of Keira....

I know, I know. It's very hard to keep my readers coming back to check in when I go for months at a time without posting a single word. Sorry, but unfortunately, what you see is what you get :) As I mentioned in my holiday letter (which you may or may not have received-I'm no better with snail mail), it will be my perpetual New Year's resolution until the end of time to stay on top of the communication efforts.

But let us not dwell on my shortcomings :) Moving on ... happenings since October...

October 7th marked my ten-year anniversary in Budapest. Yes, you read that right... a decade of my life (and more than a quarter of it) has now been spent in Hungary. That, Dear People, is nothing short of kooky. Reflecting back, I wouldn't change a whole lot. I might have spent a few more hours/dollars on Hungarian lessons, but I'm still surviving in my own, deranged version of the language. And, as I've said before, I provide a great service in the way of comedic relief to the Magyar people when I try to express myself.

I went to the US for a week on October 11th, and surprised my mom for her birthday. She was truly surprised, which was fantastic. I had told her I would hopefully come for a week in December, so she had no idea. My stepdad ended up in the hospital for four days, just as I arrived, which was a bummer (mostly for him, poor guy), but I was glad that I could be there just the same. I will stop for a moment and add that I'm not overly impressed with the 'attention to detail' that members of the medical profession seem to possess these days, but that's not just in the US, that's around the world. Don't know if it's too many patients and not enough time, but in this case the whole thing could have been avoided if the doctor had been a bit more on the ball.

I came back just in time for the boys to have their two week Fall break (which is, in my opinon, one week too long). They went to pottery camp in a village nearby for the first week, which they love, and we went to Slovakia to visit friends for the long holiday weekend (Nov.1st is All Saints Day). Got some great photos of them jumping in the leaves (me too), which I have to share.

I had completely forgotten about the simple pleasure of jumping into a big, damp pile of leaves. I'm not sure the boys had ever participated in such sophisticated fun, and they spent hours just raking them back up to jump in again. Love the photo of me, almost horizontal in the air, with little Sophie looking on in amazement, like she is saying 'hey, that's not for the grown-ups'.

We love visiting our friends, Bruno and Katarina, in Slovakia. They live in a little village, where Katerina grew up, and we always have the most relaxing weekend getaways with them. We walked over to the football pitch later that day, and the boys (dads too) had a great time kicking the soccer ball. Keira got a lift from her daddy, of course, her favorite mode of transportation...

What could I possibly add here? How cute are the daddies and their little girls?

Liam taking the shot... Notice how the hair is at least six inches in the air. That's because it's almost a foot long. We're in the middle of negotiations here, I'm hoping to reach some sort of settlement (i.e. cut it) some time next week. It's just out of control.

Love this picture of Riley, although he looks like he is eighteen and that makes me very sad :(

The boys came back from an exhausting twenty minutes on the football field, completely dehydrated, and had to replenish with some Belgian beer (supplied by Dear Bruno, who is coincidentally Belgian and loads the car up when they go back for a holiday).

Oodles of Noodles...

The rest of November was fairly quiet, as it usually is when we start buckling down for the long winter's nap. It starts to get dark here at 4:00 once we hit Daylight Savings, which is a sure sign that the long cold nights are on their way. I'm usually ok through the holidays, but by the end of January I'm already looking for the first sign of Spring/life. We had a great Turkey Day with our friends Curt and Erika, as always.

Curt's favorite part, quality time with the bird...

Here's what a 30 pound turkey looks like in a European oven. Erika is far braver than I will ever be, I have no idea how she gets them to come out like this every year (it hasn't been confirmed yet, but I'm pretty sure she's got some Martha Stewart in her genetic code).

The hostess, with her turkey pumpkin. We all had to write something we were thankful for on painted popsicle sticks and then stick them in the turkey's rear end. The kids thought that was hilarious, but they were really sweet when they read them aloud after dinner.

Here's what it looks like when you're trying to get eight kids to pose for a lovely Thanksgiving Day photo. I've decided that in the absence of grandparents in the background shouting for the kids to sit up properly and smile, this effort will be eternally fruitless. I took at least ten shots, pretty sure Erika took as many, and neither of us came up with even one good one.

So, there's the Fall season in a nutshell. See, there wasn't much to catch up on anyway. Will pop back soon with some Ho!Ho!Ho!

xoxo. K.

Hi gang! Long time, no chat. It’s already October 4th, which means that Christmas is just around the corner. The boys have already started making a mental wish list, looks like it will be a Guitar Hero kind of holiday, with perhaps a scooter thrown in for good measure. Not sure where the scooter idea came from, I was certain we had moved up the transportation (food) chain a bit to ‘skate or die’ mode. They have also gotten back on their bikes of late; it seems to go in phases these days.

Sorry I’ve been neglectful. Same old story, just not enough hours in the day. I think I’m averaging six hours of sleep a night, but I could probably get three and not accomplish what’s on my list. Anyway, when I last left you (Sept.17th), I was filling the page with political incorrectness, so I will try to be good today.

I just uploaded a bunch of new videos from Riley’s birthday party, so I will share a few (see YouTube videos posted separately below). His birthday is August 22nd, but the party was on September 21st. And they say I’m not at the top of my game – only a month behind schedule. He invited eight friends for a pizza-movie-sleepover, which I thought went very well, all things considered. Specifically, I’m referring to the noise level and general state of anarchy in my house for 20hours, 13 minutes, and 28 seconds (but who was counting?). Actually, they are a really great group of kids, no complaints from me. We went to see Rush Hour 3. I hadn’t seen either of the first two, but it turned out to be a pretty good action movie. And we got to see it in English, which was great for Bill and I. Riley’s friend Laci (lah-t-see) brought his Guitar Hero game and controller and they played well into the night.

Here are some bday party photos.

What else in the news? The boys have had lots of fun stuff going on at school this week. You have to understand that they've been back for almost a month now (Use sarcastic tone here), so it's about time they got to let their hair down, poor things. You will notice in these photos that 'let your hair down' is not just a figure of speech for Liam these days.

Last week was the ‘semaine de gout’, when they go on a field trip to restaurants around the city and have a day of cooking and eating. Here are a few photos of Riley – too cute in his chef’s hat.

Somehow I don't remember ever getting to eat like that in elementary school, on a field trip or otherwise.

Yesterday was the annual ‘enduro’ race at school. All the students, from ages 2-18, participate in the event, divided up into groups by age. Riley moved up into the bigger group this year, so he had to run for twenty minutes, which in my opinion is quite impressive. I couldn’t run to the end of my driveway and back at the moment, so I guess it would impress me. Here's a little video of Riley’s run that my friend Erika shot, and a picture of him, face bright red, burning up the track. Erika made the comment that he's got a very rhythmic and controlled style - he's in it for the long haul. I remember way back when he was five, my friend Joy also told me that, to quote the Boss, 'baby he was born to run'.



Here's a shot of Liam, post-run, and another of him from the 2007 Olympic games back in June. He's intense, but in small doses. It's funny, their approach to running says alot about their personalities. Or maybe it's just 12:30am and I'm so tired that I have just started making random off-the-wall analogies.

And now you ask, what about the princess update? She is fantastic. I finally got to have a mommy-Keira day on Monday, which I must tell you was the best day I've had in weeks. We didn't do a whole lot, just hung out, but that was the point. We made lasagna (bizanya) for Riley, painted, re-organized her craft drawer (which meant finding loads of long-lost treasures) and watched the boob-tube. She is so much fun right now I can't stand it. Every thing out of her mouth just makes me smile. And, I realize I'm a bit biased here, but she is incredibly clever.

Will post a video clip from two weeks ago (again, see below). She had a Hungarian friend over for a playdate after nursery, and they set up the My Little Pony and Dora houses in the living room. She plays really well with her buddies, but is also very happy to play on her own for hours on end. I went upstairs this morning so we could start getting dressed and she had these eight ceramic fairies all lined up in a very organized seating arrangement and they were watching a show. No idea what the show was about, as it was pretend and she was far too busy to elaborate, but she was i her own little world. She was talking to them for at least ten minutes before she even realized I was there - listening to her is a total riot.

It's going on 1am now and I'm trying to keep my eyes open, which is probably a good sign that I need to call it quits for the night. Will return sooner or later, I always do. Have a great weekend!

My Little Pony

Keira and her friend Lara hanging out in Ponyland.

Pizza I

Pizza II

Birthday Cake

Riley is eleven! This is the traditional Magyar firework birthday cake deal. Riley's buds are singing to him (very badly I might add) in English, followed by Hungarian and French. The cake, German chocolate from our favorite local bakery. Amazing!

Riley - The Guitar Hero

Riley's first attempt at Guitar Hero. There were nine of them fighting for the limelight. Couldn't complain about the noise, at least they were playing good music - The Ramones, Queen, Black Sabbath... Guitar Hero has now been added to the Christmas wish list.

Hello people. So, today I'm seriously going to get a life and get off of this computer, for at least a couple hours in the evening. I'm just so fascinated by all the things that I can add to my blog, I think I've reached the point where I might have to actually learn about wrappers and widgets and editing HTML. Maybe I'd be better off taking a webdesign class and just having my own website. Or, maybe I should just head back to the original plan of getting a life. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, maybe I've hit the nail on the head here - I want to be a chiphead :)

Anyway, I've posted some new videos of the kids, which are a far cry from entertaining but provide an intimate but sad glimpse into our lives :) After quite a few attempts at uploading the videos using the Blogger software, I've decided that for larger files, YouTube is the way to go. And how friggin' cool is the video bar in the upper right hand corner, which just uses a 'tag' to link videos in from YouTube. You can still find videos in the body of my blog, the video bar is just a nifty little sidenote.

Not much else to share with you at the moment. Oh....actually, there is the joke of the day, albeit it sexist, inappropriate and in poor taste (obviously I'm really worked up about that, since I'm including it for your enjoyment). Apparently it's been nominated as the best short joke of the year:

A three-year-old boy is examining his testicles while taking a bath. "Mom," he asks, "are these my brains?" "Not yet," replies his mother.


I have also decided that it's fun to share things that I find on other peoples' blogs, while giving them full credit of course. As I mentioned yesterday, I haven't acquired the desire for mindless blog surfing just yet, but every once in awhile I do hit the 'next' button up top just to see where I go. Anyway, I found these two photos at http://daisyville.blogspot.com/. Hope it's ok that I'm using it on my blog too, I don't want to offend anyone. If we can all just pass on a couple extra giggles a day, wouldn't the world be a better place? I guess I find myself being politically incorrect again (so much for not offending anyone). There seems to be a pattern developing here. It's not really a statement about Europeans vs. Americans, more a statement about why thong underwear is not intended for really large women.

Even funnier to me is the next one. And it could be that it's not funny at all, but it struck me as such. I do not think the task of locating and eradicating terrorism in today's crazy world should be taken lightly, but someone has to.

On that note, I'm off to pick Keira up from the kindergarten. Hope you all had a super Monday, and I will check back in a couple days. xo.

Supercilious

Riley, trying to get through his reading homework on Sunday. Poor guy, two chapters in French can take him three hours sometimes.

Random Rainy Day Goofiness

Footage from Sept.5th, a cold and rainy day here in Budapest. We had the first fire of the season, which seems weird. Back to business now though, with a bit of Indian Summer happening this week.

Keira Playing and Calling Me Stupid

Here's one I probably shouldn't post, but the fact of the matter is that there's a naughty side to the little angel.

First Day of School

So, here are my little Einsteins, heading off for the first day of school. The biggest problem is that they only function in Hungarian, with eachother and with their friends. Wonder if it will always be their secret language.

Hi kiddies. Sunday evening here, way past my bedtime, but I'm still sitting here fiddling. I think the hubby has had about enough of my quality 'office time' today. I ended up spending the whole day doing various things on the computer. Got my address book all tidied up, downloaded Adobe Photoshop Elements (which I've been dying to do for a long time - now I just need to find some good tutorials), caught up on emails, converted a bunch of video to .avi files, Skyped with my mom for an hour and a half, figured out how to make a new header on my blog (thought it was good to use shots of our home-sweet-home, since this is unofficially our home page). Wow, it all sounds very productive on paper. Truth is, I never actually got out of my PJ's today, I totally neglected laundry duty, and we had leftovers for dinner. C'est la vie!

Yesterday we had a great family outing. It was DHL day at the Ujpest football field and hockey rink. I hadn't known anything about it, but a very nice woman whom I just met at the September NAWA meeting gave us five VIP passes for the football game, party, and hockey game. The kids had a blast. Here are some photos:

Riley was just so impressed with the fact that he was a VIP (everyone had exactly the same tickets/badges), I think it was more exciting than actually watching the events.

I'm thinking that Keira may very well turn into one of those 'football hooligans' you hear about on the news - she has no idea what's really happening on the field, but she definitely gets into the game.

Bill and I had a few of our daily 'points' in the form of Borsodi beer. Somehow it's just not a sporting event for me without beer. I did skip the hotdogs, but am still a bit worried about the weigh-in tomorrow.

The boys spent the two hours in between matches climbing like monkeys and making some new friends.

Here they are with their new buddies at the hockey game. We were at the end of the rink where there's actually a net, I'm just not too excited about the prospect of getting nailed in the head with a puck.

Tomorrow is Monday, back to the business at hand. Bill is hopefully headed to Istanbul on Tuesday or Wednesday to go the next round towards getting this job in Vienna. Cross your fingers, I think we are both trying hard not to get too excited one way or the other. Tuesday is our 10-year anniversary but we don't really have anything special planned anyway. I'm hoping we can organize a getaway weekend in October/November if we have a better idea of where we're going and what we're doing. We have decided to postpone the trip to the US in October, just doesn't make sense to spend the money at the moment.

Riley is having his birthday party next Saturday, a month late. He is having eight friends for a sleepover and we will take them all the movies. Haven't figured out how we're going to swing that yet but that's a project for tomorrow. The boys watched the Simpsons Movie tonight, (I opted out) and they of course loved it. I can't believe that the friggin' Simpsons are still hot, I can remember everyone gathering in my freshman dorm each week to watch it in the lounge when it first aired. That was 1989, and yes we've confirmed once more that I'm getting old.

In extremely sad news, it has been revealed by a credible source that George Clooney is indeed gay. I will absolutely not divulge the source, but I will tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it's a day of mourning for me. Bill will confirm that this devastating news totally put a damper on my day yesterday. I couldn't think about much else, and I keep wondering, 'how could I not have seen the signs'? I mean, how could he, the full package, the epitemy of Hollywood hotties, never have a serious girlfriend. I mean, you can play the eligible bachelor card for only so long. George, I hope you find true happiness with someone in the near future. Don't let the bloodsucking paparazzi force you to live a lie forever. And if you still want to hang out, grab a bite, call me :)

Tomorrow I will post some more 'on the edge of your seat' video footage from home. Note to self - I've discovered that there really is no need to upload to YouTube first, I can upload right into my blog. I'm not terribly concerned about wackos watching the videos and tracking down my children, but it seems safer to just have it here.

After all, how many people randomly browse at blogger.com? Have you ever tried it? Geez, I thought my content was a snoozerama - some people make me look more entertaining than Lucille Ball (what a strange reference, wonder where that came from).

Suppose I should wrap it up and head to bed. Hope everyone is well, and to those of you who have emailed in the last couple weeks and heard nothing back from me, I promise I'm working on it. Ciao!!!