Houston, Round 2

After leaving Harlingen, we arrived back in Houston for more Christmas with my family. 

 Apparently, we were having such fun that I hardly took any pictures. 

Sweet cousins - these 5 love each other and love being together! 

More presents

We have a drum set...he is a happy boy! 

The ping pong gun was a big hit.

We took Chelsea to her first Aggie game as they played a bowl game in Houston.  She liked it - possibly because of the popcorn and cotton candy.  The next day, we went to a Texans game. We got our fill of football!

Our time in Houston is always a bit of a whirlwind.  It's a fun whirlwind, but a whirlwind nevertheless.  In addition to my family, we love spending time with old friends and with our kids' birth families -- who we also consider part of our family. That is always a joy to us, and while I don't post pics on the blog out of respect for their privacy, we treasure our time with them and we are thankful for the visits we have. Our kids are loved by so many people and are blessed to know not only their birth parents, but also birth grandparents, great grandparents, aunts/uncles, etc.  Such a blessing.

Speaking of adoption, we are always happy to answer questions about open adoption...leave a comment and we will do our best to answer any questions.

Now we are back in Hungary...more Budapest adventures to come!

Really Really Big Christmas Show!

We were excited that our time in Houston corresponded to the Really Really Big Christmas Show at Second Baptist. It is indeed a really big show and we all loved it!

Halloween in Houston

Last year, we had a not so exciting and somewhat disappointing Halloween adventure in Hungary. This year, as a result of the great dental trip, my kids were able to trick or treat in Houston. 

Chelsea started out in a "Jasmine" costume we got in Turkey, with a leotard underneath.

 For trick or treating, she shed the dress and went as a ballerina. 

She was accompanied by a cute little spiderman. 

 We trick or treated up and down my parent's street.  The houses are pretty spread out, so my little people had to work for their candy. Many in the neighborhood were trick or treating in golf carts.                    Nothing says America like going house to house for free candy in a golf cart. 

 Spiderman figured it out quickly and was quite the cute trick or treater. 

He usually stayed a little long at each house, commenting on their puppy or pumpkin. 

His cuteness caused most people to give him a second round of candy. 

He got lots of his favorite candy...a successful night!

Trip to the Dentist

And what a trip it was! Long story short - when Chelsea was 2, she fell and hurt her front tooth. It has been fine for 3 years, but started bothering her and then developed an abscess in September. Dental visits here were super cheap, but more painful and different from the US in treatment recommendation. So, we decided to go back to Houston over fall break to get her tooth taken care of. She was a trooper! She is quite proud of her lost tooth and loves telling everyone about it.

While we were in Houston, we all had our teeth cleaned. Following the cleaning, Larry's whole face swelled up horribly and it turns out he had a bad tooth infection. He ended up having a root canal right before we left to come back to Budapest. We were thankful it happened there and he was able to get it taken care of easily. We are now back home in Hungary and hopefully done with dentists for awhile!

Houston vs. Hungary

In many areas, I'd choose Houston.  But not this one...

In 2010, 133 people were murdered in the whole country of Hungary.
In that same year, 267 were murdered within the Houston city limits alone.

Maybe we should stay in Hungary for awhile!

Birthday Boy

Our baby boy turned two last Sunday, the day before we came back to Budapest.  We celebrated with a family party at the Little Gym. We were blessed to share the day with many members of Cade's birth family, as well as my parents and Matt and Kayla. We all had the best time!! 

Chelsea made him a Build a Bear puppy for his birthday. She was so excited to give it to him and they had a sweet little moment together.

It has been fun to see the changes in Cade in just the last week.  His vocabulary has increased exponentially, he copies everything Chelsea does, and today I caught him climbing a set of bookcases. He is so much fun and we love him so much! We are so thankful the Lord blessed us with a precious little boy!

Summer Fun!

We have relished our time in Texas! We have all enjoyed our favorite foods, Target, outlet shopping, our church, our friends, and our families. The kids have loved having spending so much time with family and swimming and swimming. Cade strongly disliked swimming when we first arrived, and now he jumps in from the side of the pool over and over again. I haven't taken as many pics as I should have, but here are a few....

Me and my girl

Her first time to run through the sprinkler....so fun! 

Uncle Matt is lots of fun...he can jump all the way over Chelsea! 

Future Baseball star

Cade says "baseball" very cute!

We got to ride a tractor with Farmer Burns!

Fun times!

"I'll take you for a ride on my big green tractor" - got Chelsea singing that song on the way to meet up!

Yesterday, Cade saw a picture of our Budapest house and said, "home." While there are still friends I wish I could've seen, after a month it is time for us to go home. We will head back on Monday with thankful hearts and anticipation of what God has in store for us in Budapest.

Coming to America

We are so happy to be in the good ole USA! We all flew down last Saturday. It is such a long day, but worth it once we are here.  We continued our tradition with a trip to Walmart in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Walmart is a fabulous place and I would've hugged it if I could have. Larry was returning to Budapest the next day, so we stocked up on groceries to fill his empty suitcases - peanut butter, salsa, barbeque sauce, cereal, muffin mix, cake mix, salad dressing, spices...so fun. After church and Mexican food, we had to take Larry back to the airport - we were sad he couldn't stay and play with us, but thankful he helped me make the trip with the kids. He will join us in a few weeks.

The kids and I have had a fun week of spending time with family, having lots of play dates, swimming, and shopping. And shopping. And shopping. So fun. We love the USA!

Christmas in May

We were all sad that Larry got to go to the US without us this week, and we were so happy to see him when he returned!

Chelsea wrote him a book, The Story of Daddy, about all of our activities while he was gone.

We knew there was lots to look forward to when he returned. He took an empty suitcase and it was quite full on the way back! Christmas is May is..... chocolate chips, barbeque sauce, marshmallows, salsa, peanut butter, brownie mix, kids shoes from Target, Lucky Charms, ranch packets, taco seasoning, syrup, and more.....

He was also able to bring back Chelsea's birthday gift from us...and the airline didn't even charge him the over-sized bag fee!
Happy day in our house!!

Christmas!

Better late than never, Christmas pictures! We had a fabulous Christmas in Houston and beyond. My kids are super blessed and had 8 Christmases! How fun is that? We started off having Christmas with my grandparents and aunt/uncle in Florida when we went to Disney. We came back to Houston and enjoyed Christmas visits with both of our kids birth parents and birth grandparents, and even Cade's great grandparents! What a blessing! We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family in Houston, and then we traveled to Harlingen to see Larry's family and have our final celebration. Thankfully we came to Houston with 4 empty suitcases. We went back to Budapest with 8 suitcases, all expertly packed and weighed by my great husband. Amazingly, we made it back to Budapest with all the loot.

Here are a few pics -







Christmas morning, we led Cade over to see what Santa left him. He saw a lollipop sticking out of his stocking, grabbed it, and walked away happy.

The girls had a blast doing shows for us. Papa is very kind to let them use the pool table for a stage. It is perfect for their dance moves!

First Haircut!

After we returned to Houston from the Disney trip, I gave in and finally took Cade to get a haircut. I got Chelsea's cut once in Budapest with bad results, so I opted to let his wait until we were back in the good ole USA. I was expecting some tears, but he did great!


He looks like such a big boy now!

Whirlwind

What a fun week this has been! Last Saturday, we left Budapest and had a 20 hour journey back to Houston. The kids did well and the flight was pretty easy. We were so happy to be back in the good ole USA!! We all woke up at 3:30 am Sunday morning, so we decided to go to Walmart and get some things checked off our list. So, next time you see small children at Walmart in the middle of the night, don't judge! We headed to IHOP after that - yummy American pancakes! After our breakfast we went back to our Houston home, my parent's house, and got ready for church. We were so thrilled to go back to Second and worship with our sweet friends there. What a blessing that was!
Monday and Tuesday the kids slept a little later - at least until 4:30 or 5 am. We enjoyed seeing friends and family and just hanging out. Chelsea had a special play date with lots of her friends on Tuesday afternoon - it was so sweet to hear them say how they have missed her and to see how happy they were all playing together again.
Wednesday morning we headed back to the airport and got on a plane to Orlando - Disney, here we come! It has been so much fun. We spent a few hours Wednesday afternoon at Magic Kingdom. Thursday morning we headed back to Magic Kingdom and met up with my sis and her family and my parents. Chelsea LOVES her cousins and was so happy to be with them. We got her to ride Big Thunder Mountain railroad - she loved it and it was so fun to ride with her and watch her try to hold up her little arms for the whole ride!
Friday morning we visited Hollywood Studios, then went to visit my grandparents for the afternoon. Today, we had breakfast with the princesses at the castle - all of the princesses were there and Chelsea was thrilled. After breakfast, we met up with everyone at Animal Kingdom. Tomorrow, we are off to Epcot.
It is hard to believe we have only been back for a week - it feels like longer, which is a great feeling. It is weird talking about Budapest - like it is a whole different life! In many ways, it is. The last few months have been so chaotic preparing for the move, moving, and trying to figure out day to day life in Hungary. I am so thankful we have had this time to just have fun together. There are so many cute pics for these few days - maybe I will upload some tomorrow.