Happy Easter

We hope that everyone has a Happy Easter today. We had a nice Easter visit with Bryce today. We took him a stuffed Easter rabbit & chick. We had a nice outfit picked out for him to wear today to take an Easter picture. We had nice pants and a long sleeved nice onsie top. So, when Aliya brought him out to us today we just looked at him in puzzlement because they had his pants on and his onsie top but, his longjohns were on over the top of his onsie top. It was pretty comical. So, we had to take in a sweater during our afternoon visit to put on over top of his longjohns so we could take a nice picture. :)

People have been crazy at the bakeries this week buying up the Easter breads by the box full. It's bread with raisins in it with a marshmellow frosting & sprinkles. Our adoption coordinator, Olga, gave Wayne & I Easter bread this morning along with dyed Easter eggs. Here's a picture of an Easter bread along with Bryce's first Easter Card...

Scenes from around town

It was another quiet visit this morning. We brought out some new stacking blocks for Bryce to play with but, he didn't show much interest in them this morning. Wayne was rubbing his feet for a little while and it nearly had him in a trance. We could tell that he was tired so I picked him up to hold him and it wasn't long before he was sleeping in my arms. He was still holding his purple stacking ring in his hand as he slept. We let him sleep for about 15 minutes before waking him up so that he would be awake for his morning snack. Hopefully he got a good nap in this afternoon so that he's ready to play when we got back for our second daily visit.

We bought Bryce a little rubber ball with little rubber spikes on it. That was the hit of the afternoon. He was working pretty hard at chewing on it. We were also playing with stacking blocks that also rattled. Wayne was rattling one and Bryce was studying him pretty intently, then Bryce started to shake his too. So we had a little game of follow the leader going on. He was cracking us up because he was working so hard at having his hands placed just so before he would start shaking his rattle.

We set out on a mission for diapers this afternoon so we walked around town for a little while. Here are some of the scenes from around town today...

We call this the "slinky" bus

Going into the babystore

Looking for Easter bread at the bread stand

Not too much to write about today. Bryce was sleeping when we went for our morning visit so, he was pretty calm today. Hopefully he'll shake his cold once we get to bring him home. We had our list of questions answered by the caregivers so we were able to review that yesterday. One of the questions we asked is "What solid food are being fed to him?" We thought you might find what he eats interesting:

breakfast-milk cereal with butter, cocoa or tea, bread with cheese and butter

at 10 am-juice, cookies

lunch-meat soup, vegetable puree with a meat loaf, tea or juice

snack-milk with a roll or cookies

dinner-milk cereal or milk soup, bread, juice

So, we think that adjusting to American food will be a big change for him.

It's cold today so we didn't do much sightseeing. So, the only pictures that I have to offer you are of Wayne's dream van. They're everywhere and he's trying to figure out how he can get one back home to Okinawa with him...

Just when we think the Little Man is getting over his cold, he runs a fever last night. They let us have our visits with him today but said if he started to seem like he wasn't feeling well, we would have to cut our visit short. He was his same feisty self so, guess he wasn't going to let a cold ruin his fun. He's still enjoying his stacking rings and his beach ball and makes a break for the door when he spots our bag that we bring his toys in. Wayne had him laughing today just with the thought of being tickled. Everything is ticklish on that poor kid. We put his first pair of shoes on him today and when he realized he had something on his feet, he immediately bent over and started to chew on them.

This is our translator Aliya...

She comes with us on every visit to the BabyHouse and takes Bryce's clothes in to change him and then brings him out to see us. She usually just hangs out in the room with us and reads a book. I think the past week that she's been with us, she's already read 2 books. She challenges us on a daily basis on our vocabulary skills. She reads books in English and wants to know what certain words mean and if we use them in everyday language. We told her that she needs to come over one night to play Scrabble with us. I'm sure she'd give us a run for our money. She's also our unofficial "tour guide" of Uralsk. I told her that she needed to work part time at the museum's because she did such a good job on giving us our tour and it seems that all the staff there know her. She's a resident of Russia but is in Uralsk going to school. She's currently going to school to be an English interpreter and is also learning German and wants to master Italian next.

Our first week in Kazakhstan

Well, we've already been here for one week. Only three weeks left to go. Visits are still going good. We took an inflatable beach ball with us today to play with that he liked. The big hit now are his stacking rings. He can take them off the pole but, we haven't mastered putting them back on yet.

After our visit this morning, Mischa (our driver), wanted to take us to a convent that is a neat newer building here. There are "dorms" next to the church that the nuns stay at.

We really like our driver Mischa. He always arrives 5 minutes after he's supposed to be by to pick us up but, we somehow manage to always get to where we're going 5 minutes early. He loves classic rock so we've been listening to The Beatles, The Doors, Rolling Stones, Elvis, and the other day he was playing Johnny Cash. Much to Wayne's dismay (and probably Mischa's) I had to sing along to Johnny Cash. Wayne and I crack up because it seems he only knows one phrase "Okay, you're welcome" We got out of the car the other day and said "We'll see you in a little bit" to which he responded "Okay, you're welcome"

We're trying to eat in our apartment as much as possible. It seems like we make daily trips to the grocery store to get food & juice. This past weekend while we were at the grocery store, we were in the wine & beer aisle and ran across a nice kid who spoke a little English. They sell beer separately so, he was helping Wayne to pick out Kazakh and Russian beer. Then he helped me to pick out a bottle of Kazakh wine.

At the grocery store, there is literally a whole aisle dedicated to mayonnaise. Aliya said that the Kazakhs love mayo and they put it on almost everything. And the milk, well that's not sold in the refrigerated section but rather on the shelves. Really, the only thing we're using the milk for is cooking. We tried it with our cereal but, neither one of us was too crazy about it.

Then of course there's the bakery down the street & who could resist buying fun breads like this...

Little speed demon

We've known that Bryce can crawl but, most of the time he's content just sitting with us and chewing on his toys. Today, we learned that when he has something in his sight that he wants, he can crawl after it like a little speed demon. We bring his blanket and bigger toys in a large grocery bag. He saw that I set it by the front door of the playroom today and the next thing we know, he's taking off across the room after it. It was pretty funny to see just the speed he can crawl at. So, we had to make things more of a challenge for him and place the bag at different locations in the room just to get him crawling some more. We're making more progress with him because today when we came into the room, he was smiling when he saw us.

Thought I would show everyone some more scenery from around town. Here are what the typical houses around here look like...

The pipes that you see are hot water pipes.

Feeling better today

Bryce was feeling better today. We only used one Kleenex during the day compared to the usual one packet of Kleenex. We bought 2 new teething rings today and put them in the fridge but, he didn't show much interest in those. He still enjoy's his Taggies blanket and little balls from grandma. We went and bought stacking rings today for this afternoon's visit and he enjoyed those too. We're starting to figure out that he likes when we make weird noises with our tongues. He just stops what he's doing and stares at us. Our homework today was to prepare questions for his caretakers for Aliya to translate to give them. We asked questions such as: what is his bedtime routine, what does he do during the day, what soothes him, is he still on formula... So, hopefully they can answer some of those questions for us to make the transition easier when he comes home with us.

After our visits each day, we are given his outfit from the previous day to bring home and wash. We then come home and get his backpack ready for the next day with his toys, 5 diapers, and a new outfit....