April 2007 Week 1

April, Week 1 –
Alex loves chap-stick and smelling things… and carrying around bags. He is scared of the fork-lift noise… but loves the quads! This week Jerry bought a “new to us” quad that he is going to race in the Baja 1000 in November down in Mexico! It is really loud, but Alex was only scared of it for minute! Good thing… because he already has one of his own! A little 50cc one, that Jerry picked up at an auction months ago! We played at one of those wooden fort-like playgrounds this week; he loved it, though it was hard for him to climb things. It was spring break for Bonnie’s kids this week so they came over and spent a day with us playing… Kierra taught Alex how to give a baby a bottle, so he was practicing for Kimi! Daddy also taught Alex how to open a can of mandarin oranges! This week he finally decided to say mama! However most of the time it was a yell, “mama mama mama!”
Our new furniture came this week!!! Oh my! Is it ever beautiful! It is just perfect! That also means that our frames came for all the paintings that we bought in Kazakhstan! They all look amazing! Jerry actually had to cut some of the frames down to fit the paintings, but he did a perfect job and the look so good hanging around the house!

His cry is a terrible looking one!!!

March 2007 Week 4

March, Week 4 –


Alex helped Daddy a lot this week… he put stones in the holes for the bird feeder poles… and sniffed flowers and helped celebrate Daddy’s birthday. We had Aunt T, Lanphears and Bergmanns over for some pizza, cake and ice cream, we watched Jerry’s latest favorite movie… “Dust to Glory” about the Baja 1000.



In March, I took just over 450 photos!

March 2007 Week 3

March, Week 3 –

Alex started smacking his lips when giving us kisses! (The cutest thing ever!!) He received his first real haircut, or rather, buzz! He wasn’t quite sure what was going on, he kept turning to try to see the “buzzer.” He looked so cute when he was done!!!! Jerry taught him to poke things like snow and dirt with sticks!

Before the haircut...

After...

Birthday party for our friend Paul at Red Robins... St Patrick's Day night...

March 2007 Week 2

March, Week 2 – March 8 is Woman’s day in Kazakhstan!!

Alex tried the potty out for the first time, successful a couple of times. He actually likes it, but I don’t think he really understands it! It got surprisingly warm this week so we spent some time outside, we hung his swing from a tree and tried that out. He has fun in it for only a few minutes and then he wants out, fast!


Does this pose look familiar to anyone?

March 2007 Week 1

March, Week 1 –
On our way home from Florida, we stopped in Georgia and visited our friends the Trawicks. They arrived in Uralsk the same day as us and we had court the same day and everything. They adopted a little guy who was around 2, whom they named Jon. He is the sweetest little boy! He has Cerebral Palsy, but is doing very well and is in the perfect family. He is to have surgery soon on his little legs to help him walk better. Alex and Jon played nice together and that is where Alex learned that mom and dad didn’t just make the “sign” for “more”! It was so wonderful to see them! We had our 6 month Post Placement meeting with our social worker, Jamie, Alex loved her, he talked her ear off. Who knows what he was telling her. Probably about how much he loves his books, since he emptied his whole basket of them in the living room in a few minutes! Alex tried corn on the cob… he enjoyed that. He also tried his first M & Ms, he really loves those!!


the hair has got to be cut!!!This is what we had to do to make it go down! Steam it!

End of Week 3!

Haha! This week we (Jerry) decided that Alex can probably handle playdough if we show him what to do with it and we will watch him carefully while he plays! Jerry is itching to play with it too... Alex sure enjoyed the box so far! Check out the crazy hair, that is after a nap, before it... the hair was laying down all nice-like!

This week we spent time in Orlando, near the Florida mall. We have a favorite store here called World of Decor, they sell amazing stuff from all over the world that is priced reasonable for what you get! We found out that as a contractor we were eligible to shop where World of Decor shops! We saved about 25%!! So that was cool! Here is their website...

www.shopworldofdecor.com


We decided that it is time for a new sofa set at home!

We also ordered a bed for us! We have wonderfully comfortable mattresses and the metal frame that goes under it, but no head/footboards, we thought it was time, plus we found one we LOVE!

We ordered several picture frames, we need to frame all the paintings from Kazakhstan and some others that we have around the house! The frames we bought ranged (in picture size) from 8x10 to 36x48. The prices varied, but averaged out it was about $100 per frame!

We plan on posting pictures of our Kazak done paintings when we have them all framed and such, so you can see how beautiful they are!

Paintings from foriegn countries!



In the future, we suggest that anyone travelling to Uralsk (or anywhere) where you are planning on having art made for you, take a US tape measure and get your painting made in the standard US frame sizes! That has been the biggest challenge in framing our wonderful art! It was done in centimeters and completely different sized... some typical sizes here are 16x20, 20x24, 30x40, 36x48. Much more cost efficient for framing!!!

Week 3... Part 1...

Notice that Alex's crazy hair is actually laying down... it is quite a procedure to get it to lay down... we have to put a very warm wet wash cloth on top of his head for a few minutes... I don't know... it works though, and it looks so cute! However we can't decide if we liked it sticking up better or not! Either way he is adorable to us!

His laugh is the sweetest sound to our ears!

He thinks he is hot stuff now, because he can walk for a long way before falling!

This his standing-back-up-from-a-fall-stance!

Alex and the amazing Belly Dancer at Morocco! He was thinking about grabbing her earrings!!!

Our Chinese New Years Celebration as a family at China in Epcot! Next year Kimi will be with us! It is the Year of the Pig now! *snort snort*

Watching the fire works at the end of theday at Epcot! The really big bangs would make him jump and grab for mama!

Week 2... Part 2...

Isn't he BEAUTIFUL!!?

Beach LOVER!!!!

The birds were practically attacking us, because we took some bread out to feed them so Alex could watch them, we under-estimated these crazy birds!!!

Mr. I-Can-Walk-Now!!
I can't help being so cute!

Week 2... Part 1...

More pictures...

Week 1...

Playing at the Atlantic Ocean!!! We LOVE sand!!!

We have been having so much fun!!

Vacation!

Week 1 of our 2007 Winter Vacation

We left on Thursday and headed toward Chattanooga, TN area. We arrived Friday afternoon and, Boy!! was Grandma and Grandpa Cook happy to see Alex!! They had been in Florida for the month of January, so they were missing Alex something fierce! Jerry’s sister and family were also quite anxious to see Alex, since they had not met him yet. Of course they love him, they can hardly keep their hands off him! Alex was especially enamored with Uncle Greg, and would go to him… climb up him to a standing position and then beg for him to pick him up! It was very sweet! We finally headed South and spent some time with Kami and her new baby then had dinner with the Stegarp family near Atlanta. On Wednesday we drove to New Smyrna, FL. We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast there called Night Swan. It was a very comfortable place to stay. The next morning Jerry introduced Alex to “relaxing in a hammock” Alex actually fell asleep in it and he looked adorable lounging on that hammock. Later we shopped nearby, where we bought Alex a little shovel to play with at the beach. We also bought Kimi her very first Tea Set, with Ladybugs on it! It even has tiny silver ware! Then we drove on the beach there and let Alex play in the sand and water. Oh Boy!!! Did he LOVE that!!! He went crazy and ended up all wet and then covered in sand and eventually almost naked. I can’t even explain the joy of watching him play. He went nuts! He even tried to eat shell full of sand that we showed him. It was GRAND! I took almost 200 pictures. Shocker… Finally we went to Blue Springs State Park and looked at the Manatees that hang out there for the winter. Alex also has gotten his first “cold” too. Yucky!!

Friday, we checked out and headed down to the Kennedy Space center. On the way, Terri called to check on us, a tornado had gone through New Smyrna at about 4 am. We had no idea. We are just thankful to God that it didn’t get us!!! We had a pretty good day at Cape Canaveral. We took a tour and saw a ton of stuff. We moved to a resort for 4 days, so that will be nice we can settle in for a while. Ron Jon Resort near Cocoa beach. It is beautiful here and we are going to rest and have a fun time playing here.