Anthony at 12 Months.

Anthony At 10 Months!!!

We did a photo shoot the other day! When we started in the morning there was still frost on the ground... But as soon as the sun started really shining it wasn't so cold... the only thing frozen were my feet because I was wearing flip flops!

I am very proud of these pictures and the boys are beautiful...

Home for 3 Weeks!

We went outside one evening last week, just before bed and it was so nice out! We set Anthony in the grass to explore a little before bed! I just had to do a mini photoshoot! Alex didn't want to cooperate too much, but Anthony really can't do much about it, so most of the pictures are of him!

Happy boy and grump boy!

This is his scrunched up scream face!

Was mad because i made him take his thumb out so i could take a picture of him in the little stroller... little squirt is definitely addicted to his thumb!

Anthony has changed a lot already! He is much more comfortable with us! He still looks at us like we are from outerspace when he wakes up, but quickly puts a smile on when he remembers us and where he is! Funny boy!!!

He has stopped the horrible screaming! When he started it, we would quickly take him and put him in his bed, without blankets, go out and shut the door! It was and is hard, but we have not heard him do that screaming in quite a while now! WOOOHOOO!

He likes to squeal... his new favorite thing is to lift his arms and scream while scrunching up his face! It is hilarious! He is even doing a lot of imitating us! The other day, he was scooting around on the floor and rolled onto his side, Aunt Bonnie was talking to him and patted the side of her leg... and he lifted his little hand and patted the side of his leg too! they did this back and forth for a few minutes and then he was tired of being so accommodating and went on his way!

He is still doing the commando crawl, but he can move pretty fast that way! On the kitchen floor, if he is wearing the right thing he can get up some speed and actually slide when he pulls himself hard enough!

He has learned to sit up on his own pretty good. He gets better all the time... the stroller really seems to help... he wants to sit up in that instead of lean back so he works out his little muscles that way!

We took him to the beach last weekend... of course when we got there it decided to storm! well... rain.... no lightning or thunder, but pouring rain! but we drove 40 minutes to get there so we were staying! I forgot my camera!!! Can you believe it!!!? Jerry put it in the closet (helping me, he thought) and i walked out without it, because it wasn't in my bag! I was soooo mad! Anthony was so cute on the beach! Jerry took off his clothes and laid him on the edge of the water lapping up... he LOVED it!!!! he squealed and smacked the wet sand... and scooted toward the water! filling his diaper with wet sand of course! what a mess! :) So we will have to go back soon and stage the photo shoot! haha! Alex of course was practically in heaven!!! He loves the sand so much and someone had dug a huge hole on the edge of the water so he was just playing like a crazy person in there, rain and all!

Next week we will be seeing Jerry's sister and kids and also next weekend my grandparents are coming for a visit! We are really excited about seeing them all! What a fun week ahead... i will post pictures after it all!

Anthony At Home!

Playing in my new Highchair!Ready for bed!

On Our Way Home... (day0)

Finally we got on our plane! Yay!!! We are going home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our flight left at 1:35am on Thursday! We flew to Frankfurt first. The flight was fine… we mostly slept! I hardly remember the flight! Alex and Anthony were fine too… I am pretty sure they slept too… I do remember waking up and the flight attendant asked me if it was ok if she gave Alex some water. We were in the center isle Alex was 2 seats in, Jerry sat on the isle side and I sat in the middle… then I laid Anthony on the other isle seat and put pillows on the edge and held onto him with my hand! It was a pretty good arrangement. We actually had an extra seat that no one sat in so we were able to spread out a little. We actually made a stop in Astana! We did not know we had that stop. Go figure!! People got on, but no one got off. We were glad the extra seat in our row stayed empty!
It was on this flight that I must have lost my zippered pouch that I carried all of our traveling documents in, like our itinerary, and our ticket receipts from all the flights and the last of our calling cards… I never saw it the rest of the trip… and I realized it way too late… we would have missed our next flight if I had gone back to look for it! Frankfurt is the most messed up airport right now! Oh my! We walked and walked and walked! The board said our flight was at c1 or something… well c1 was not really anywhere! So we walked to a bunch of other gates looking for a person with United! Finally we found some Lufthansa people and they looked up and it was actually supposed to be gate c9!!! Grrrrr….. we were so exhausted! Who knows, maybe I lost my pouch in there!!! Anyways we were just glad we made it after all of that!

The next flight was soooo long! 8.5 hours! We had the very last row on the plane! That worked out pretty good actually… even though we had hoped for bulk head. The united planes are a lot smaller! We put the carseat in and Alex couldn’t even fit in it! His knees were up by his ears, because they didn’t fit between the carseat and the seat in front of him… so Anthony sat in the carseat for most of this flight! When he got scream-y and tired I just cover the carseat with a blanket and he fell asleep, then I uncovered his face, I was paranoid of him not being able to breathe or something… mostly I think he just got hot under there though… It worked! Alex hardly slept on this flight he was very busy! Jerry and I were so tired though! We both dozed off quite a few times! Alex was pretty good though most of the time! Jerry let him watch a few Mickey Mouse videos that he had on the computer.

When we finally got to Chicago, we had to go through passport control and customs… it took about an hour in the passport line… Alex got pretty naughty in that line… and then he had to go potty!!!! Oh no!!! I thought he wouldn’t make it! I thought he was definitely going to be wetting his pants! I was not looking forward t that one! I was starting to get mad that it was taking so long! They had 2 people working for several hundred people in line!!!! But they had just one other person working the line for the people in wheelchairs… there are not that many of those!!!! Good grief!!! The non citizen line was even moving faster than our line!!! So annoying!!! We finally made it and then we picked up our luggage, went through customs, and dropped our bags off again and then…. We had to go tot eh ticketing counter, because Almaty never gave jerry a boarding pass for the last flight! It was a mess!!! So we had to leave the security and then go back through with all of our computers and camera equipment and all! It was a disaster! Come to think of it, we had to go through security in Frankfurt as well… They should know we are safe by now… plus we have been FBI checked at least 3 times! (for the dossiers, you know) We were so frazzled by the time we got on the next flight, we were sweating and so tired!!!! But next stop was Kalamazoo!!! WooHooo!!! We begged them to be very very very careful with our paintings… they wouldn’t let us bring it on to the plane, we had to check them with any other large carry-ons. We relaxed a bit, but the flight is only about 30 minutes in the air, so as soon as we got up in the air we cleaned the boys up and changed them out of their pajamas and into some nice, cute clothes for coming home!

When we landed the pilot met us outside the plane with our paintings, he was assuring that they were safe! We thought that was sweet of him, since they are so important to us! We hurried through the airport, and got to the revolving door and we could see all of our friends and family on the other side… Alex ran in the doors the wrong way!!!!! The alarm went off and the doors shut down! And we stood on the other side! Just looking through at everyone! We had to wait for a security guy to come over and unlock the door and put in a code… then Alex started to run in again the wrong way! We all screamed “no!!!!!! not that way!!!!” it was kind of funny… but embarrassing at the time!!! We got through and everyone was there, they had balloons and they were all excited to see Alex and Anthony! At least 3 of the people coming to meet us got behind a huge 8 car pile up on the interstate coming and never did make it! Mostly Bonnie! She had my truck and Anthony’s carseat and the keys to get in the house!!! Ha! :) so we barrowed a seat from Janelle, who didn’t bring her kids with her this time, and we had Alex seat already and we went home in 2 separate cars with Jerry’s parents and Heather! As we got closer to home we called Bonnie again, and she had been able to sneak around on the interstate and head toward home! So we waited about 15-20 minutes for her to get here and then we were able to go in OUR house!!!! Oh my! It was sooo nice to be home!!! Ruth, Jerry’s mom had made us dinner and Heather had also brought us a dish and so we had dinner together. Then we just chatted a while and the kids played… Anthony and Dylan looked at each other on the floor and reached toward one another some! We took some pictures. Then our luggage came! I forgot to mention that 3 out of 4 bags did not get to Kalamazoo when we did… we were so glad that they came that night though!

Soon everyone left and we all went pretty much straight to bed! We were soooo tired! Alex slept like a champ! Anthony screamed like crazy at 1, 4, 5, 6 and then we got up and got him up… Alex slept through it all! They are in the same room! Can you believe that!? I am not used to waking up to blood curdling screams in the night! Goodness! Makes me about have a heart attack! I hope that goes away soon! Oh my!

We're home!!!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Home!

The very second Anthony became a US citizen!!Chicago!!!!
Almost home!
HOME!!!!
Likes his bed!
Checkin' out Ryleigh!
Anthony and Dylan!
What in the world?
Beautiful!
I am not sure about all this...

What is he doing?
Out like a light! In his very own bed!!!
Out like a light! In HIS very own bed, too!!!

Woohoo!

Last Day in Almaty! (day1)

We left the apartment at 9:30-ish… we were going to check our email first and then go to the green market… Well the internet café was not open until 11 so we headed over to the market… The green Market was not what we thought it was… it was like the bazaar in Uralsk only a little fancier of course. Last time we were here we went to a market… like a mall and they had souvinirs there… this was not that same place… somehow in my head I had it pegged as the Green Market. Anyways we walked around and I got to take Alex to the squat pot bathrooms… that was fun! Yuck! I think I bought a couple magnets! Then we went back to Sasha… he knew where the souvenir stores were… they were the same ones we went to before! They are on the 3rd floor, and there are a ton of them! We bought a camel, some hats, a vest, some pillowcases, a (Christmas)stocking, a pair of dolls, maybe some other little things I don’t remember… we were there a long time! Alex had a meltdown, Anthony fell asleep! We finally left… we would not have time to go to Kok-Tobe before our embassy meeting! Maybe after. We went to the café for lunch and checked our email… nothing from our friends we were supposed to meet… oh well… we were all busy! :) Then we went to our embassy appointment! There were 3 other families with us with WPA. The 2 we knew and one more… she was here with her daughter getting the twin to the son she had already adopted a couple years ago!!! Amazing! The appointment is really not a big deal… as in hard… they are friendly there and it doesn’t take very long… they basically check your paperwork and give you the visa, of course after you pay $400! :) Alex had not napped all today! So he was getting tired and naughty! He dumped a glass of water on the floor there! Oh dear! After that we went back to the office and met with Gulbanu… she gave us a few last pieces of paperwork and we chatted a bit about things and the painting! She loved it! She was very surprised it was so large! She now has to figure out where to put it! She asked us for a favor… she said that Uralsk is basically shutting down… not accepting new dossiers until Post Placement Reports have been turned in! She asked us to talk about this on our loops and see if we can just bring more awareness to this problem, since she has 12 families that have not turned them in and so far have refused to do it… they say they have fulfilled their obligations to WPA and refuse to do more PP Reports! Basically because these people refuse to fill out a simple worksheet and send it in, many people will not be able to go to Uralsk and find their children! So sad! The thing is… is that this is a law in Kazakhstan that you must send post placement reports until the child turns 18, only the first 3 years have to be done by a social worker, but the rest can be this simple form where you basically fill in the blanks! That upset me! Basically these children will stay in the Orphanages because some people won’t spend 20 minutes a year, a couple pictures and a postage stamp to WPA, who will send it over for free for you! It’s not that hard!!! Ugh!!! So we promised we would see what we could do. And of course we would be sending ours in! There are many more people that have not sent in PPRs as well, not just those 12 with our agency. I hope we can help… there are so many precious kids in Uralsk! There was several at our babyhouse that I could have just brought home! We hugged her and took a few pictures with her… Alex was smooching on her and told her we hoped to see her again and then we left! We were done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We can go home!!!!!!!

While we were showing Anthony off to Gulbanu we made him smile big and we noticed a top tooth had poked through… just a few days before, we didn’t even see a tooth thinking about coming through! So that was exciting. He looks so cute with his 2 bottom teeth and his one top tooth!

We stopped by the grocery to get some formula and while jerry was in there grabbing that… Alex got out of control and after a few times of telling him to stop hitting and grabbing stuff he wasn’t supposed to… I made a very sad decision! I told him that would not be going to the top of the mountain to the playground! Almost as soon as I said it I regretted saying it!!! Oh I was mad at myself… and wouldn’t you know it… Alex was an angel the rest of the time while we waited. When Jerry came out I had to tell him that we would not be going and Alex started crying and begging please to go to the “playground on the mountain.” It nearly broke my heart! I felt so bad… but I just couldn’t go back on what I said! He cried pretty hard all the way back to the apartment… about 20 minutes! Oh I felt bad! Such a mean momma! So Alex and Anthony went to bed almost immediately… Alex woke up after a about 3 hours and Anthony slept until we got him up to go to the airport at 10:30!

We finished packing everything up and cleaned up the apartment and took showers and were 100% ready when Sasha arrived! We hauled everything down and off we went to the airport!

We checked in and then waited to get o our flight… I got in trouble for taking a picture in the airport of Alex… grrrrr…. What is with these people… it’s not like there is anything top secret going on in there… there wasn’t even a sign saying no photography! Silly people!

Finally Done!!!

Eating Anthony's puffs!This is Gulbanu! Isn't she cute!?
At the airport, ready to go, in pajamas and all! This is the picture i got in trouble for!