Pictures Again!!!!?

Daddy's kneeding my tummy... I spit on him a little bit later, a combination of vitamins and milk... mmmmm.... yummy!

The boys!

This is Luba at her graduation!!!

The other outfit... which was rediculous large on him...

Resting from all the hard work...

Just being plain stinkin' CUTE!!!



Checking out the texture on daddy's face!

Tech-y boy...

Family Photo Shoot! (day 5)

This morning, I felt better, still afraid to eat though, so we slept in, and then went to the babyhouse. Yesterday, Olga T. brought sour cherries for Alex, today she brought green and red gooseberries and red, white and black currants!

Naturally Alex acts as if he is starved… silly boy. We had our visit outside… our main objective today was to get a family portrait to use for the guy that we are going to have paint our family picture, like we did last time with Alex. So we were all kind of coordinated in blue and brown. We all looked cute! But we were a mess! Jerry and I were perfect, almost, but those boys!!! Oh my! Alex was saying Cheese like a crazy person… Anthony was trying to figure out what was going on, and since he can’t sit up by himself, so one of us has to hold him so he can be seen, just right! Anthony wants to clasp his hands in front of his face of course, so we have to hold those too! Then there is Alex… oh boy! he is a mess… he is all over the place his head goes every direction and he squints his eyes, and that is “smiling!” It was completely comical, we took about 30 of those… well Olga T. did, and then we gave up, we said if there was a couple good ones we could give them both to him and he could make us look good with his paint brush, of course we will have him leave off Alex’s big cheek scrape! Who knows, maybe the artist can even put a smile on Anthony’s face. We meet with him tomorrow and see what we can come up with! We are hoping to go to his studio too and see what he has there that he has painted recently. We are excited about seeing him again and showing him the paintings he did last time and how they are framed and hanging in our house! He will love them I am sure… If you want to see them check out Alex’s blog April 25 posting. http://cookfamilyadventuresinkaz.blogspot.com They are awesome!

So besides that we tried to sneak pictures of the other children on the playground from the babyhouse. But there were lots of caregivers out there though and we didn’t want to get in trouble… they don’t seem to understand the importance of seeing the other children that were in the babyhouse with Anthony. We have a few from our times here for Alex and we love to look at the other kids from his group and we have even located one of the families that adopted one of the children from those pictures!! I doubt that we will get any of Anthony’s group, since they are the babies and don’t get to come outside as much that I know of! And we will probably not get to go inside his room! Which makes me sad, but we will try to get pictures even if Olga just can take my camera in and snap some shots! We’ll see!

Ok… so back to our visit. Remember Alex’s favorite caregiver? Well, she was outside today with some babies, so we thought we would try to get some new pictures of her with Alex. When we adopted Alex we took a bunch of pictures with her and gave her several… she still has them! She always just watches Alex, and wants to touch him… You can tell that she really loves him! In the groups at the babyhouse the caregivers generally divide up the kids and each one’s kids call her something special like momma, but it wasn’t momma… I don’t remember what they said. Alex was one of hers! And she truly loves him, so when she signed the letter she wrote to him when we were here for him, she signed it “your Kazakh momma” It was nice to take some photos! Alex was all over the place though! Many of the photos are blurred of him, because he is a worm!!! She of course looks beautiful and has the same high cheek bones as Alex. She will always be part of our family! Alex even gave her a kiss on the cheek, it was precious!

After all the excitement of picture taking, I just held Anthony for a while… we of course had to play patty cake a little! And we try to sing other little songs to him that we can remember! He is so sweet, he just wants to look at us and definitely wants me to hold him… if I would hand him to Jerry, he would turn and make sure I was still there! Sadly the time went so fast! Olga took him back inside to eat lunch, I suppose!

We went to the Kid’s Café today! Jerry has been waiting all week to go there… they had his favorite salad! And Peirogis! Olga went with us, so we ordered the right thing! But she had to go to church for a friend that died. That was kind of sad! It was a boyfriend from when she was younger! Ugh!

After we ate, we let Alex play a little in the play area. They had those little balls in a pool-like thing. And a rocker and some other little stuff. Not really a whole lot, but Alex was ok with it. After he was played out we walked back to the apartment, where we discovered “Pizza Hot” a pizza place whose sign seemed to say it was open 24 hours!!? Is that right!? Funny! Maybe that means until midnight… not sure, we will have to check in the apartment tip book! Maybe we will have pizza soon. By the time we got back to the apartment we only had 15 minutes until Misha, our driver and Olga (T=translator) picked us up again!

At the babyhouse we waited for baby to come out to us, and chatted with our new friends from Europe. I introduced Anthony to them and they got a little video of the boys together, since they are in the same group right now! We will have to get some pictures together before we all part ways! The boys will someday cherish those photos! Alex ran off to the playground that WPA put in some years ago with their daughter to play. Apparently they were being dare devils and bonked heads a time or two and were sliding down the wrong things, but in the end… they were just fine!

Anthony was just snuggly and we played stuff with him and massaged his legs and arms and tried to make him giggle. I found that if I pretended to nibble on the inside of his arm he would actually kind of giggle!!! It was so cute! We laid down on the floor and played with toys. I put him down and then moved so I could lie down in front of him so I could see him at his eye level. He nearly panicked… it was hilarious… he turned and started coming toward me. I stopped him with all the toys until I was on my tummy too… then he was fine for a while… but pretty soon he was all the ways over there snuggled to my arm! He was quite tired; he nearly fell asleep a couple times. I can’t wait to hold him in my arms to fall asleep. Although if he is anything like Alex it will be a struggle! I hope not! He was so snuggly though! He does not like to lay in your arms on his back though! Maybe because he might fall asleep… We shall see!

On our way home we were stopped by the police! They said that we should be wearing our seatbelts in the back seat and that Misha should have stopped in the middle of the intersection to allow a worker cross the street! WHAT!!!!!!! The worker wasn’t even crossing the street yet!!!! And the seatbelts!!!!!? Are you kidding me!!!!!? What a mess! Poor Misha! He spent about a half hour in the police car getting his ticket! Here if you get a ticket they keep your license! You have to go into the police office the next day to find out your ticket amount and then you can get your license back! I could not believe it!!! Seatbelts!!!!!!?? Oh whatever!!

We went for a walk when we got home, to find the garbage cans and then to the bakery to find something for dinner… we found a box of rice with some seasonings and added a can of peas. It was fine. And then we sampled a few different bakery sweets… sadly we didn’t like all of them… so some of them will go to waste. At least they won’t go to our waist… heeheehee! After dinner, jerry napped, I answered email and alex went to bed. Then we checked out the economic crisis going on at home with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What a mess!

Looks and Goofballs!

Alex and his Special Caregiver! Of course Alex is saying Cheese!!! like crazy!

You can just tell that she loves him!

Kissing his "Kazakh" momma!


ok... this will be fun, lets get a family picture for the Artist to paint! Alex was saying "Cheese" as loud as possible, so naturally Anthony wants to look at him... crazy big brother!


A helpful word...


Oh! Come on....!


I can see it now and forever… Alex is the goofball and Anthony is looking at him, thinking “what in the world?!”

"Anthony look this way...!" Alex was actually trying to turn his head for him!!!

This is how I like to spend quite a bit of time...
This is the "covered floor" I mention that we have our visits in outside.

Think he could "cheese" any harder!!!?
These are the "sensible" walking shoes! everyone else wears tall spiky, or wedged heels! This is what Luba and her friend wear!

Boo-boos (day 4)

This morning, Jerry woke me up at about 7, to try his grapefruit he bought at the store the other day! Oh my! He had hardly slept again, because he slept all day yesterday! I have to admit the grapefruit was really good (I don’t care for regular grapefruit, too sour!) this one was not bitter… it was tangy, but sweet… So I had a few bites! An hour later I felt so sick to my stomach I wanted to throw up! I showered anyways, but felt so bad that I already knew that I could not go to the babyhouse this morning! I couldn’t even stand up! So I lay back down, but soon I did throw up for a couple hours… it was horrible and the only thing in my stomach was that stupid grapefruit! Ugh! By the time the boys came home I was sleeping peacefully and my stomach was no longer churning! Jerry woke me up at 2:30 and I felt good enough to go to the babyhouse… still exhausted though.

Jerry said Anthony was looking for me the whole visit… I am not sure how he knows that, but I like it. Alex fell apparently while he was running and playing and has a big scrape on his cheek right under his right eye. Jerry put the vick's on it right away so I am sure it looks better than it would have.I couldn’t seem to find our Neosporin before we left for Kaz so I will ask Olga to stop at a pharmacy on the way home later.

So we went to get Anthony, inside it was pure quiet it there! I snatched him out of Olga’s hands as soon as I saw him! He is so sweet! He snuggled down on my shoulder and we went outside! We put our sheet down under the roof by the sand box. There was another couple under the other one near us… after a few minutes we discovered it was 2 ladies… they were both fairly young, but one looked somewhat younger than the other… I decided it was a girl visiting her baby in the babyhouse, with maybe her older sister or her mother… I liked that story. :) haha! Anthony was quite happy with me just holding him… I was so exhausted though that I laid him down and played patty cake some more… he really just likes that! He gets big smiles! It is so cute… he even puts his hands out straight for me to clap them for him… he has long little fingers, too! What I am so happy to see is him uncurling those little fingers! His arms are still very stiff when I do the motions with him… Anthony has a little rash on his head… almost blister-like, looks like a poison ivy rash, you know? Wonder what it is… Not really much excitement today, Anthony just gets cuter and more precious every day, that’s all! It will be fun to see what he is like in another week!

On the way home we topped and picked up some antibiotic for Alex’s cheek… almost as soon as I put it on, his cheek looked a lot better! That was some cool stuff! I may have to bring some of that home with us! If the babyhouse doesn’t have some of that, we will have to get them some! Good stuff! We checked out the gym near our apartment that we had read you can get a membership for a month and then you can get massages and such… Jerry mostly wants the massages, but the smallest membership you could get was 3 months and it was about $100 a month! But a massage is only about $12 for an hour at the cheapest. So you can get massages without a membership, so I am guessing that is what Jerry will be doing sometime soon!

We are spending the evening at home again… I cannot even think of eating anything, just the thought makes my stomach turn, so Jerry and Alex are on their own tonight. Luba will come over later too.

More tomorrow!

A Slow Day...

Jerry had both boys in his lap after Alex's encounter with the piece of steel on his cheek! Jerry said he cried and carried on for about a half an hour! Oh dear!

More hand clasping...

This was the result after mommy came to visit today! He was a happy boy! It makes me happy too, because Alex was and still is, a daddy's boy!

Playing patty cake!

My Kazakh boys!

Alex's fall... good thing for vick's vapor rub and antibiotics!

Teethers and Trucks! (day 3)

Day 3! I can’t even believe we are on day 3 already!

Last night Jerry was up almost all night… let’s just say he must have eaten something that did NOT agree with him!! Goodness! The only thing we can think of are some raspberries that we bought off a little grandma yesterday… but Alex ate more than Jerry did… of course Alex “tossed his cookies” later in the evening… and nothing from him since… who knows! I am fine! We travel a lot, too so we were surprised by this attack! Jerry is feeling much better tonight, but has been in bed since about 5! It’s currently about 9:30pm!

At about 5 this morning we had a huge thunderstorm! And then it rained until probably 10:30! So it was wet and cloudy and COOL outside!!! I liked the cool part! We were both very tired this morning when we got up, so none of us showered, we just went to the babyhouse! So there might not be many pictures of us! :)

We went inside this morning… it was still so hot in the room! we were sweating! We opened the window when we first came in but had to shut the door so there wasn’t a “draft.” They seem to believe that a wind will make a baby sick… Anyways… we played some, but Anthony just wanted me to hold him today, although he is hard to hold because he is so stiff and wiggles a lot like he is uncomfortable. But I figured out how to hold him still… I put him up to my shoulder so he looks behind me and I hold my head down against his, then I just pat him or move constantly… (sound familiar, Heather?) The moving doesn’t have to be too much, but just move, so I rock side to side or pat him on the bahoney. He just holds on and looks around… sometimes he sounds like he is trying to suck on my shirt… He wants to suck a lot! Poor guy! Everytime I would put him down so he could graba toy or what ever… he would immediately turn around and look for me! That felt so nice! This tiny little baby, doesn’t even know me and he wants ME!! He would put his hands out to me… he just wanted me to hold him! That was great. And since Jerry wasn’t feeling too great, he didn’t argue. He watched and rested. Playing a little and taking video of Anthony pulling himself across the floor at record speed! So cute! I put him on the other side of the sheet and then laid down in front of him and coaxed him to come to me… no problem! He came right up to my face and snuggled into my neck! Rubbing his little eyes and nose! He was quite tired this morning! I wish I know what was going on in his room! Maybe we are there at his naptime… not sure. Soon I will send the book in with all the questions! Then I will know a ton more! Remember the little truck that Alex got out while we were waiting to meet Anthony? Well.. they have several of them in there, so Alex got out 2 of them today and said one was for Anthony and the other for him! It was very precious, to see him thinking of Anthony! That was neat! So we put Anthony on it… he can’t sit up and can hardly hold his head up when we sit him up, but he grabbed onto that steering wheel and held on! There was a little horn on it too, so I honked that and then he tried to honk it, but can’t hold himself up so it didn’t work too well. We sang more patty cake, and he tries to clap! He opens his hands today to clap! Yeah!!! He is still very stiff in his arms… his legs are already a lot better! Those crazy arms though… Alex had the same issues! Anthony just clamps his hands together though and holds them there, it is hard to actually get them apart! I am afraid I am going to hurt him trying to separate his hands sometimes! But I do see some difference already, so we will keep plugging away on that! Today he started trying to jump up and down when I tried to stand him up! I think he was trying to imitate what we did the other day, when we lifted him up, because he was smiling and almost laughing… a little noise coming out. But he is so totally quiet otherwise, other than his loud breathing! I can’t wait to get him off of the dairy and see if that is what makes him breath like that! Oh! Back to the truck that you sit on… it is a “4WD” little truck… fitting, huh? When I took him off, and laid him on the floor he pulled himself back over there so fast I was surprised, and when he got there he kept pulling to it! He had his little face smashed against the wheel trying to get back on it! It was funny! We just had to put him back on it for a little longer! Sweet little baby! If he is still enjoying jumping, when we get home I think I am going to buy one of those jumper things that you hang in the doorway? I think he would really like that! We didn’t really do much else in there this morning, he was pretty clingy and the time goes so fast! He loves being kissed on… we saw his dimples even more today! Alex played outside for a bit and then came in with his bahoney all dirty, I assume he went down the slide or something, so I made him take off his shorts and run around the play-room in his undies the rest of the meeting! He really is very nice and gentle with Anthony so far! He gave him a big smooch on the upper lip before we sent Anthony back, I have to get a picture of that soon, it is so precious, I can hardly believe it! More on Anthony’s sucking desires… he is trying to suck on everything today! His hands, thumb, finger, my shirt and my finger! I was really scared to let my finger anywhere near his mouth after Alex – the biter! But I wanted to check out his gums and feel for teeth! He clamped down and sucked so hard on my finger, I thought I wouldn’t be able to get it out! Ha! He let go though as soon as he realized there was no food coming out! It probably tasted like wipes too, since I had had those out earlier for Alex’s nose! Yucky! Anthony did not bite at all! He just was hungry I think after all it was almost noon!!

We came straight home and Jerry and Alex went to bed! Olga(t) said if we wanted we could visit Anthony an hour later today since it was the weekend and things are more relaxed there on the weekend… that way Alex could get in a longer nap! That was wonderful, she also gave me a little bottle of hydrogen peroxide and said the doctor said that would help Alex’s nose bleed when is starts again. Just use a q-tip and put some peroxide up in his nostril… interesting. We might just have to try it! She brought Alex some sour cherries today! WOW they are sour!!! Goodness! Alex doesn’t seem to care so much though! He ate a bunch of them for lunch! Yesterday she brought him apricots from her trees. I did not eat one, but Alex sure enjoyed them! Apparently she has a “summer home” it is nothing more than a little “house” without running water or anything fancy… all the old furniture and stuff goes there and they have a little land, this is where they grow as much as they can in the summer months. They don’t really stay there most of the time… I think they just go there to grow stuff and take care of a garden and fruit trees. Her place is on a river bank so they swim in it some. I think the whole concept is neat, really. But then this is garden maniac talking over here! I am not sure about the no electricity and running water part, but I like the gardening part!

So we left for the BH at 2:45 today instead of 1:45, we waited for Anthony to come out… we went outside this afternoon, it was much more comfortable out there! Alex went off to play with Olga and the little girl of the other visiting family! I think they were playing in the sand! He came to “visit” us every once in a while. Anthony just wanted to be held again! Woohoo! We brought the stacking cups today, but those are not that interesting to him yet… what was of interest is the teether that we bought at Walmart for Alex that vibrates when you bite down on it! Oh my! He loves that thing! We spent a lot of time holding it in his mouth and because he can’t quite figure out how to bite down hard enough, we pinch it for him so it vibrates and he just sits there perfectly still, drooling! Poor kid! Those crazy teeth!

Alex is finally warming up to Misha! I don’t know why it is taking so long… usually he is all over the guys! Especially if they are willing to play with him! But today he finally wanted to play with Misha! So later when he was rude again to Misha and I scolded him, Misha had walked away, Alex went running after him and grabbed his hand! I don’t know what has gotten into him! Misha even tickles him and chases him, which usually makes you Alex’s best friend, who knows! It really is annoying and embarrassing though. Alex really is a nice and very friendly kid!

We came home and Jerry checked email, Alex watched a couple veggie-tales, I took a small nap. Then Alex and I ate some noodles and jerry went to bed… that is it! Now they are both sleeping and I am still typing, I also want to finish Anthony’s book for the caregivers and doctors to write in. I might just go to bed!

Drool and Google!

This is the fist clenching, eye-rubbing, I-am-so-tired look!

I love this picture!!!!

Isn't this the cutest little outfit!? The 3-6 month pants and 6-12 month onesie fits pretty good! And he looked soooo cute in it!
I was doing crunches up to kiss on his cheeks... he thought that was funny! See the adorable dimples!!!
Big brother teaching little brother how its done!

The crazy vibrating teether!

I finally got a shot with his mouth closed!
This is the way he prefered to spend his visits with us today... only on momma most of the time!

Ever want to see blogger in Russian!? Good thing I have it memorized!

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!!!!