Dimples! (day 2)

Alex has been a disaster lately… Yesterday and today he has been rude to most adults who try to talk to him and he wants to hide behind us, and turns his face away and won’t talk to people… it frustrates us, because he is not this was normally! He is usually your best friend in just a few minutes! I think there are several reasons why… he is jet lagged/tired… coughing/sick… and he has been meeting a lot of new people who want to touch him and stuff… I am surprised at him not wanting to touch… he is usually very touchy/feely. I am guessing this has all stressed him some, because his nosebleeds have started again! The minute we got off the plane in Uralsk (we had to wake him up) he got a nosebleed, just before we met Olga, Olga and Misha!! It was a mess… there was blood all over my shirt! Then while we were waiting at the airport for our luggage the babyhouse Director from Babyhouse 2 came over and saw us… she was there seeing off a baby to go to Almaty for some special treatments to keep her alive. Alex was of course very shy there too… almost naughty-shy though… I am not sure what that is all about… It is annoying to say the least. They are all going to think he is a snob! Today Alex had so many nose bleeds, I lost count!!!

When we arrived at the babyhouse, Alex’s old Doctor met us at the top of the stairs! She was so happy to see us!!! She tried to talk to Alex… he did his snobby thing and wouldn’t talk to her! Uhhhh!!! Olga took the diapers and Anthony’s clothes into his group and we talked to the doctor while we waited for him to come to us… Finally he came and we snatched him up and kissed on him!!


It was 91F here today! Which if you know me, you know I don’t like hot weather… so I was HOT! Pretty much sweating all day!!! Ugh… Our first visit today was at 11am, we went outside… with Anthony’s hat on… after a little while, he was so hot he was sweating! We took off the cute little hat! We walked around a little, watched Alex climb the slide, we waited for the other couple visiting to leave so we could take their place under the awning… on a board floor and in complete shade! I saw their baby and thought it might be the little boy that we lost the referral for, but I couldn’t be sure… I just kind of felt that they might have him… they were a beautiful couple and have an adorable daughter that is maybe 4 or so… I was hoping they had him… but I wasn’t sure!!! After they left we took our sheet and laid it down on the floor and spread out our stuff… Anthony is so wiggly when you hold him… it is like he is uncomfortable being held… so we hold him as much as we can and still keep him happy… he was getting pretty restless, so we put him down… he loves to lay on his stomach!! He is just so adorable we can hardly stand it!!! We want to smooch on him all the time!!!! We played a little with the toys… then we set about to try to make him smile… we tried tickling – doesn’t work… then making funny faces and singing… we taught him patty cake… his hands are in constant intense fists! So the whole hand clapping doesn’t work very good… but a few minutes later he clapped his hands! I couldn’t believe it! Maybe he just got lucky, but we think he was trying! He likes the “as fast as you can” part, he smiles for that… it is so funny to see him smile, because he has no teeth on top! He opens his mouth wide and you start to see his dimples!!!!! Which I am working on getting a good shot of… but they don’t come out very strong yet… I am guessing he doesn’t smile too much normally so it will take some practice! Then I remembered Angela saying their daughter liked to be lifted up in the air… so I tried that… he smiled much bigger and after a while he actually laughed! Although it only works a few times and then he gets distracted by the trucks going by on the street and he just tries to see what that is! Alex was able to be out there with us, so that was nice… he plays for a while and then comes over for a while, he hands Anthony toys and plays with them himself! Then he is off again going down the slide or something…


We also did a photo shoot this morning… remember that first photo we took of us with Alex, where we both spontaneously kissed him on the cheeks and he was kind of smiling? Well we decided to do a similar shot with Anthony, then we got Alex to come over and Alex kissed him on the top of his head while we kissed his cheeks! It is pretty cute… We are trying to get a picture of us that we can have the local artist guy paint for us. I don’t think we will use that one, we might go with one a little more formal… we will see. I need a photographer here!!! Then we held him for a while more… and snuggled on him a bit. OOOHHHHH he is soooo precious!!! I cannot wait to bring him home and introduce him!!!! All too soon, Olga had to take him back.


We came straight back to the apartment and Alex went straight to sleep, we checked our emails and stuff, went through the pictures and frittered until it was time to go again.


This afternoon we stayed inside, it was just too hot outside… Olga said that Alex could come in too, since it was so hot… I don’t think the Director was too happy… Olga told her it was just too hot outside… I am not so sure about that… but we really love having Alex with us. So far he is fine with Anthony. He is interested enough in him, but kind of does his own thing. He gives him a kiss when we send him back to his room. Soon we should start talking about when we get to take him home… then things will change!!


We just played on the floor, tried to get video of him laughing… he is so cute… we show him the toys and talk to him. We take pictures and try to make him smile and laugh… We actually started massaging his legs this morning, because his muscles are so tight! The miotonic syndrome… we massage for a little bit and he seems to relax… he is sooo tense! We will work on his arms , too. When he doesn’t have anything in his hands he will frequently clamp his hands together and just hold them there, locked in place, probably doesn’t help the tenseness! Poor baby. He can’t seem to stand upright… too tense and he can’t sit up either. You will notice in the picture of him standing… his head looks extra big… but it is mostly because he is sticking his little bahoney out behind him! Although his body is pretty small… his legs are little stick legs! So funny!

He will lay on his tummy and then roll half over and sit on his elbow watching us or Alex… every once in while he will roll back and if we aren’t quick enough he bonks his head… doesn’t seem to phase him though! We try to catch him though. His little head has hair like Alex’s! There is not much of it! A lot of it is rubbed off on the back from laying in his bed. While he lays on his stomach, sometimes he gets tired of holding his head up and bows it while rubbing his face! It is so cute… Sometimes we even catch him sucking on his thumb a little! So cute! He has not cried yet for us… although I guess that isn’t too unusual… Alex didn’t either. When I go to kiss him on the cheeks, he tries to eat me! He opens his mouth wide and sticks out his tongue! Its so funny! We gave him his vitamins today without any issues! He loves them. Today I would stick him about 3 feet from me and then lay on the floor in front of him… he would pull himself forward with his strong little arms… quick though! He likes me! When he got to me he would just put his head up against mine and stay right there… it was most precious! I think he has his eye on my camera too! He tries to scoot to that too!


We all kissed him goodbye and as we were leaving we saw a caregiver holding a baby waiting for the other couple… we went outside and they were actually all set up in one of the covered outside floors. So I went over to meet them and give them our email so we could have dinner sometime in the next couple weeks! They are from Belgium! They were very nice and they have a daughter from China! As we were chatting their coordinator brought out their baby! It was our first referral!!!!! I was so happy to see him, with his family!!! He is going to live in Europe!!!! They are naming him his original name, Askhat! Which means “the happiest.” How cool is that! He was meant for them! As always everything has worked out just perfectly!! I can tell they adore him, which makes me very happy! Yay!!!!


On our way home we stopped at an electronic store to check out computers… we would like to buy Luba a computer as a gift. Luba will graduate on Monday from College with a degree in management! She came to visit us last night with a friend of hers that speaks English very well, so she could translate. That was very nice! She doesn’t know we are going to buy her a computer yet… she is going to be sooo surprised!


I can’t wait to see Anthony tomorrow! We think he is definitely recognizing us! Every day is going to be such an adventure!!!

Happy Boy!!!

Sharing a moment with big brother!
Alex is showing him how that toy makes noise!






Alex in front of his old wing at the BabyHouse! (on the left side)




Isn't he BEAUTIFUL!?

Do you like the drool on his chin?
Do you see the one dimple... it is larger than the other.

Tiny little legs! The onesies fit pretty good... the pants we brought are awful big!

He is so sweet!

This is it!!! (day 1)

This morning we went to our appointment with the Department of Education, our meeting was at 9am. They asked us some questions about ourselves, how is Alex doing, what kind of child we are looking for, would we treat our adopted kids different from any bio-kids if we ever have any. Stuff like that… it was simple. They even joked about the fact that we have come back to Uralsk and that custom says that we should find a bride for Alex here… the head-guy said maybe he has already found one… Ryleigh. Everyone laughed… I had a cute picture in the album of Alex and Ryleigh goofing off with their arms looped together. They thought it was interesting that Jerry was adopted, and were friendly. The Inspector was there that was here for Alex’s adoption. We were happy to see her, and she was very happy to see Alex! Although he decided to suddenly be very shy around everyone here! Silly boy! And…. He developed a cough on the way over… maybe the cold air on the airplane… who knows… but he was coughing away in the meeting! I was surprised they let him come in to the meeting. But it was nice for them to see him and how healthy he looks and all… although he is completely tired all the time… jet lag! Poor kid! He has already had 3 naps today, and its only 6pm! J

We then had about an hour before we could meet the inspector over at the Babyhouse 2, that one is closest to town, I guess… neither Jerry or I were as nervous this time… I don’t know about him, but I was very calm feeling inside… I just wanted to start visiting him! We stopped by the atrium to buy water… they didn’t have any, and shampoo and stuff like that. The grocery store in the atrium is remodeling, I guess and they have hardly anything on their shelves! Especially the water! However… they do have those crazy yummy coconut puffs! So of course Jerry picked up some of those!!! We thought of Holly and Josh as we were eating them later! We brought our purchases back to the apartment and then headed for the babyhouse!

We got to the BH early and went onto the playground… Alex joined right in and grabbed 4 unused shovels and rakes and started digging in the sand… another cute little boy came over and started playing with him… it was very cute… Then all the caregivers started noticing Alex… they wanted to know his name! They all seemed to remember him! I was surprised… They were all ogling over him and he was embarrassed, so just kept playing! All the little toddlers in the playpen were watching him very closely! Sweet little things! There were so many of them… maybe 7 or so! Where are the families to get them?!!!? Sadly probably most of them are not even available for adoption, because a family member visits them once a year or something like that! But they are all so precious! I could just bring several of them home! Then out came a familiar face!!!! Alex’s favorite caregiver! She called herself his Kazakh-momma when we came to get him! She would kiss on him and he just loved her! She was looking at him and then someone informed her that this was indeed Murat Shalabaev! Her face suddenly lit up and she just watched him and tried to talk to him and wanted to just look at him and see how he has changed! She said he was so big and older looking!! It was a very special moment… just thinking about it now, makes me teary eyed. It was priceless! Then the inspector came and joined in the reunion for a few moments and then headed inside to get ready for our choosing process. We went inside and into the music room, where we spent soooooooo much time a year and half ago! Alex was right at home exploring everything in there and wanted immediately to ride the little jeep thing… Soon it was time to go into the Directors Office to choose a baby! Oh my!!! We are so ready! Alex came with us… again I was surprised! Olga, our coordinator did not come in, and Alex could have stayed out with her, but he wanted to be with us, so I guess that was fine, although he decided that he needed to be extra hyper and talk a bunch and then informed us, in this formal meeting, that he needed to go poop!!!! Oh my word! That really meant that he wanted to leave… that is his new tactic… saying he needs to go potty to get out of something… It rarely works on me, but I always am unsure if he really needs to go or not… He was fine. I was so glad the inspector and the Director couldn’t understand him. First they brought in a baby boy that was born at the beginning of December. He was a cute little guy, and would actually smile at us, but I could tell something was the matter with him… he was very tiny and his head was very large… (that breaks my heart… I don’t really know what that means for him, but it is not good.) We did not even ask to hear his medical information, since he clearly had something “incurable” as they call it. When we ask for a child with curable diseases… here in Kazakhstan those are the “healthy” children, even though their medicals are strewn with words like hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, miotonic syndrome, and “at risk for intra-uterine infection.” Actually it seems these days that most “diseases” are curable, you just need some patience to deal with the process to get there. Of course there are lots of very harsh things. That is very sad and unfair for those children, because it is a huge undertaking for a family that may not be able to afford the care they should receive, so many of them stay in the babyhouse. We held that baby for a few minutes and Jerry and I talked about him a little. We handed him back and were ready for the next one! We were very surprised to see such a perfect little boy come in next! Oh my, was he cute!!! And he seemed big compared to the little boy that just left! He was long and thin! And when we took him he was very stiff… kind of like Alex was and still is sometimes… but we sat him down on our lap and looked him over, we took off his hat so we could see his head. He had dark hair, course like Alex’s. His eyes are beautiful!!!! Huge, dark with long feathery eyelashes! We asked about his medical and then we said we liked him and wanted to visit him! Alex even looked him over and told them that he liked him too. It was cute! They took him away and she finished reading info about him and then we signed a document for the inspector saying that we saw 2 children, and we chose one of them. That was it! Then we went back to the music room and waited for a schedule to visit with him! We will visit every day from 11-12 and from 2-3. We were happy that we get 2 visits like we did with Alex. Not such a good schedule for Alex, but we will make it work and go home immediately after the first visit for him to nap… occasionally we may have to skip it, but once he gets rested and over the jet lag, he will be fine with it!
We went to a grocery store in the brand new mall on the other end of town on the way home. We picked up some bread, cheese, butter, pasta sauce, frozen corn and some other stuff I don’t remember.

Alex is not allowed to visit with us inside the babyhouse, but if we take the baby outside for our visits Alex can join us on the playground. Olga (translator) stayed outside with Alex today so he could play for a while. They came in near the end of our visit and Alex got to see his new brother for a few more minutes again. So we got a quick family picture. So cute!!! Anthony is actually quite heavy for his size, like Alex was… must be those big cheeks! Anthony also has that Orphan grip!!! Goodness! He loves the little baby photo-album that Shannon sent up!!! Thank you! He would not ditch that thing for any other toy! He is a lot younger than Alex so he is not nearly as mobile, so we didn’t really do much… we mostly stared at him and tried to get him to smile… he was so serious! Maybe tomorrow.

When the director was telling us about Anthony, she said he didn’t have any teeth… well… he has grown some!! He has 2 big beautiful teeth coming in on the bottom!!! The right one is in most of the way and the other is about half way in! We also think he has the same issues with milk as Alex does… He pretty much wheezes most of the time. His breathing sounds laborious. Poor little guy! We will try the soy as soon as we get him and see if that clears him up! He does the serious studying that Alex used to do too… he just looks at us and watches everything, especially Alex. Oh… dear… Hahaha!

We had the most clumsy “new” parent moment today ever!!! You know those vitamins that we took for Alex? Well, you know it, we brought them for Anthony too, and I opened the bottle got some out and was giving it to him and he was sucking it down just like Alex did, when all of a sudden I tipped the bottle and dumped almost the whole thing on him!!!!!!!! Oh my Goodness!!!! I was so mad at myself… I am not even sure what happened… I think he was starting to slide or roll or something and I moved to grab him and voila! 2/3rds of the bottle all over him and the sheet we had put on the floor!!!!! It was horrible, and you know how strong smelling they are!!!! What a mess!!! So his cute little outfit was so gross! So we had to have the caregivers put him back in the babyhouse clothes and give us back the outfit to wash right away!!!! We can hardly wait to see him tomorrow!!! He is so pale white! I think he never gets to go out in the sunshine! You can tell he needs more veggies… we can fix him up with that when we get home! He just stares at us, with those big eyes! We laid him down on his back so we could look at him and found that he can roll over and kind of scoot forward on his tummy to get a toy he wants. He can hold his head up really high when on his tummy too… its kind of funny looking! He has tiny little legs and long toes… I don’t really know if his feet are long, because all I can compare them to is Alex’s and his are huge now (7.5-8) We put their feet up together and Jerry took a picture, but it is hard to see how much bigger Alex’s are than Anthony’s, bad angle or something… ok… yeah… really bad angle, since they look almost the same size, but they are so not even close to the same size!!! I will try that again later, but you can at least see how pale he is, next to Alex’s dirty brown toes!!!!! After that we had to let him go back to his group! He is in group 2. We kissed on his cheeks and let him go away.

Olga (coordinator) stopped by the babyhouse to start some paperwork after finding out from us that we definitely want to pursue adoption of this baby! Goodness, Yes!!!

We stopped by the atrium again to buy a hair dryer and a baby hat for Anthony, so he can go outside tomorrow during our visit! Apparently the market/bazaar starts closing down at 4:30ish, so Olga thought it would not be a good idea to go there today. We will have to go another day or two or three or four though! That is our favorite place to shop! We spent a lot of time there last time with our “skolka?” and calculator!

Then we came home and played a little while, and Jerry and Alex went to sleep! They have been sleeping for over 2 hours!!!!!

Oh, in case you haven't figured it out yet... we are back in Uralsk!!!! Which we are so happy about. We did not request Uralsk specifically, but our baby is here so here we are! That means we will get to see our sponsor daughters and all our old friends here! We also know our way around and have a wonderful apartment with AC and "hi-speed" internet!! It is a little farther away from the favorite Atrium and McJohn's but that is ok!

More tomorrow!!!!

We Have Met Anthony!!!

The Department of Education building - the people that over see adoptions here in Kazakhstan!



Alex on the jeep, just like old times!

Can you even believe it!!!!!!!?

He has a big mouth! See the end of that fish? The whole knob on one end goes in, and the other end could probably go in if he knew how to get it in!
His little mouth is open pretty much all of the time!!!
He definately needs to chew!!! He liked the fish for that, too!!

Family of 4!

White foot - brown foot!!!!

New Information!

Well... I suppose I should give you all an update... basically in a nutshell... we received a referral, then travel dates, lost the referral, recieved the intended referral and stayed on schedulae with the travel dates! We leave Monday July 7!!! Woohoo!!! I am still not sure it has all sunk in yet... sometimes i feel very stressed about the whole thing and sometimes... I think 'oh... i have plenty of time!' Yeah right! 4 whole days!!!!!! Holy Moly! It has been a crazy 3 weeks!

Travel in July?

So we have learned that "they" plan on us traveling in July... non of us are sure when in July. We are going to be ready for Week 1 in July!! Then every day after that is bonus time to get ready! We are so excited... we still

do not have a referral though. Funny, huh? That's ok... we will be ready to go when we do get the match though!

Packing...

While we do not have travel dates or referral yet... a couple months ago we started our "travel packing room." Our guest room was filled with the suitcases and anything we "thought" we would be taking with us! It's been a mess! Well... sort of... each person in the family got a corner of the bed, and we would each put our stuff in that area. We had our books and lists in there ready to get going at any time! Well... little did we know we would still be here this weekend! But our friends Anthony and Lianro are coming to visit! We are very excited! But we had to clean out the room! If only actually packing to leave was as easy! We threw everything in suitcases and stacked them in the closet! Ta-da! Clean! I am sure we will not leave our house so clean when we leave for Kaz!

Here is a peak at the stuff we are planning to pack!

Here is the room after about 15 minutes!

LOI!

Oh my Goodness! So we have an LOI!!! We cannot believe it! It seems our final process is going a little backwards! Usually you get a referral and then you apply for the LOI, but us... noooooo, we get the LOI before we get a referral! Anyways who cares! We are just excited to know where we are going and that we should be going soon... in the next month or two... probably.

We have been keeping ourselves really busy around here with a new "business" that we started. It really did keep our minds off the wait a lot! We signed up to be a distributer for some very special Pre-Mixed Soil for raised been gardens! "We" is actually our already standing Corporation, J. L. Cook Construction. We were needing to find some more income for this year since our main customer is not building any gas stations this year... We have built a really nice website to sell our new product and of course have display beds here at our shop. We are hoping that this business takes off and can help pay for our upcoming adoptions! Our new Website can be found at http://www.weedfreegardenbed.com/ We are totally crazy about this stuff and can't wait until more of our friends and family can grow gardens in it! Anyways this has really helped pass the time lately. A friend called me today and mentioned that she checked my blog for an updat, but there was only the May Update on there... I had hardly noticed that May was gone! Its June!!!!!!

We have been eating lettuce and spinach out our garden for a couple weeks already. The other day we harvested our first radish, a Chinese Red Meat Radish. Well... that was one hot radish!!!!! oh my word! I am not sure what i am going to do with all the ones I have planted! Our potato plants are getting huge already! They are a foot tall at least! I have never grown potaoes before and the other day Bonnie and I dug some out of my Kitchen Garden to move to the Display garden (i planted too many, too close together) Well... there were already little tiny potaoes on there! They were hot pink in color, red potatoes!!! The were lovely and the most amazing vegetable i have ever grown in my garden! We were quite excited! It was very neat! In our new garden soil, we will be able to reach down under the plant and pull out a couple potatoes and let the plant keep producing! We are going to have a lot of potatoes!!! I was trying to find a place where I can get sweet potatoes to grow, since that is what babies seem to like most (I am guessing baby Anthony will be no different!), but I have not had any success on that one... I will keep looking.

We will definately share some of our produce on here as it ripens!

Time Line...

June 21,2007 – while discussing the wait for China… we said “why wait… why don’t we go to Kazakhstan again!?” Emailed Jim at WPA for some thoughts on this. Jim was out of the country, so Susan Cotten answered.
June 25 – Reply from Susan Cotten, that concurrent adoptions work all the time… We emailed back that we wanted a contract as soon as possible!
June 26 – Contacted Adoption Options about new homestudy. We can count the Post placement meeting in March toward the 2 HS visits. Sent in I600a application requesting approval for twins!!!
July 1 – Received our beautiful white binder with a contract from WPA. Signed our contract with WPA!!!
July 5 – Bank reference letter & Mortgage letter.
July 30 – Fingerprints for FBI approval.
August 27 – Post Placement Agreement
August 29 – Received Police clearance
September 4 – Birth certificates and Marriage Certificate
September 10 – Final medical forms
September 26 – Received Final Homestudy
October 9 – Sent the Homestudy for Kaz to UCIS, as well as the update for our extension on our China 171 approval.
October 13 – Met Susan Cotten and many other families at the WPA reunion in Atlanta. Learned that if you were requesting a boy, that we could send our Homestudy in early for translation.
October 19 – Faxed Homestudy to Temple at the office for early translation.
October 23 – Homestudy Agency License
October 24 – Received notice of our fingerprint appointments for USCIS! Finally!!!!!
October 26 – Employment letters
November 3 – Fingerprints for the USCIS.
November 24 – Received a letter from the USCIS office that they were confused, did we want to transfer approval from China to Kaz or do a separate approval for Kaz… if so I would have to pay… DUH!!! We paid way back in July!!! So annoyed! I even sent the 2 home studies separate with copies of all necessary documents with each one!
December 19 – New General Power of Attorney.
December 21 – Received I171-h!!!!!!!! Passport copies done.
December 26 – General Power of Attorney for both Jerry and I. Commitment letter.
December 27 – New Bank and Mortgage Letters. New Letter of Invitation, inviting ourto-be child to come live with us in the US. Apostilled, (while we were apostilling, we learned that the notary on our employment letter had not dated it, which was required… so we had to drive an hour and a half back to Kalamazoo to have another notary sign a new employment letter for us! Then drive an hour and a half back to the Office of the great seal and all before 4:30pm. It was 1 o’clock when we found out! We were speeding… :) copied and Fed-Exed everything to WPA. Our paperbaby was 4 pounds!
December 28 – Our paperbaby arrived at WPA at 12:29 pm. Happy 10th anniversary to us!!!! It should head off to Kaz yet today!
January 16, 2008 – New Homestudy Agency License to WPA.
January 28 – Dossier through translation and on its way to the Consulate in NY.
February 6-13? – Dossier left Consulate and went back to Kaz to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)
April 11 – Signed Power of Attorney for the region we will travel to!!!!! Susan was asked about our requests for a baby…
June 4 – Found out we have an LOI already!!!! We do not know the terms yet though. WooHoo!!!! We can’t believe it! That means we may travel very fast when our referral comes!!!!

Waiting Still...

Well… here it is May. I am getting pretty sad over here waiting for a referral. When we turned in our dossier in December, I asked what they thought for a time line for our referral, after checking on some stuff they told me “any time from now until the next few weeks.” I freaked! I was so excited! We started getting ready! Then after referrals came through 3 weeks later they said it would be a little longer, maybe a couple more months. Well, it has been 4 months and no referral insight. Jerry is sure it will be a couple more months. My heart is aching something fierce! I am beside myself with anxiety to go!!!!! We even have our guest room set up as the packing room already! I have been gathering stuff for the trip for months! People ask me almost daily if I have heard anything or if we are leaving yet! Sadly, all I can do lately is shake my head no and walk away as soon as I can or they will start into the “you’d think they would want the kids to find homes faster,” or “why does it take so long?” The thing is, that this is still early in the game… most people have to wait much longer than this. (We have been waiting for our Kimi, from China now for 21 months!) But they said “weeks!” so my brain was ready, and I can’t seem to change it to the new plan! So it could easily be 2 more months. I am sad that we will miss Spring in Kazakhstan. That has been my dream to see Kazakhstan in the spring! Maybe we will have to go back again…

In case none of you know, we are approved for twins in Kazakhstan and twins in China. Either would be great and both would be AWESOME!!! I know, we are a little crazy… It has been a dream of mine to have twins in the family, we shall see!

Alex prays for Anthony daily, as well as our friends’ baby Dylan in Vietnam. Alex happily puts stuff that is too small in Anthony’s bed, that’s where we pile stuff until we decide to clear out his bed and put it away every month. He is so excited and ready for a sibling!

We have many more fears this time around. We have not even put Anthony’s name up on the wall like we did Alex and Kimi’s when we were getting ready for them. I am not sure what I am waiting for though. Although I suppose we could receive a referral for a girl, you never know! We have heard many stories lately of lost referrals and it makes me very nervous! Kazakhstan is getting very busy due to China being a 5 year wait and Guatemala shutting down as well as Vietnam now. I assume that is why our time line stretched… from weeks to months.

Anyways… that is how we are feeling around here! Praying everyday that we will soon know who “Anthony” is to be!