Saturday, February 23, 2008

Everyday we do a family photo, this is from today.








I am working on teaching him to kiss. He smacks his lips but I am working on teaching him to pucker up.









This is the look of "What do you want me to do with this thing?"












Learning to push his car.








Riding the toy tiger. We are teaching him to pet the tiger instead of grabbing at its fur. We are sure our fur babies will appreciate him knowing how to pet before he gets home.


This is his, I am getting sleepy look. Usually by the end of each visit he is ready for a nap.





Waiting for our court hearing day 3

Saturday’s are our busiest day all week but usually always the day we have the most fun too. Today was no different it was a great day all together.

We did get both our visits in with Lincoln today. He was in a really good mood. Just adding the one new family and their translator to our playroom adds a ton more activity. Lincoln of course, has to constantly be checking out what is happening. He even got up and walked with us around the room a bunch today. We mostly played on the blanket and with Gabe. The two of them are getting much better at learning to play with each other. At least Lincoln is getting better at not whacking him in the head with a toy or head butting him. He is also learning not to take toys out of Gabe’s hand. Even though he is getting better with Gabe, our Lincoln is still the biggest toy thief in the playroom. We gave him bananas and apples jar baby food this morning for the first time. He loved it. He is a really good eater. He did make a couple funny faces for the first few bites but he didn’t complain. Eric bought him a ball at the mall today. That toy was a hit with Lincoln, Gabe and Maria. This morning he did a great job learning to push his toy car with him while he is crawling across the floor. He seemed to prefer pushing it then crawling after it then pushing it again.

You know the old saying actually I don’t know how it goes but something like if you spend enough time with someone you start to look like each other. While anyway this morning when our coordinators were in to visit with us Eric was holding Lincoln on his lap and they made the comment that Lincoln and Eric have the same hair cut. Everyone got a good laugh out of that one. I need to take a picture of the top of their heads together. They are similar. Then this afternoon, Biyanna (who was not there for the hair comment) says to me “Kami, Lincoln really looks like you.” We all just looked at her and she says “no really he looks like you; you both have the same shaped face.” Smarty, Eric then says “Yeah their eyes are exactly the same.” So yup, it has been less than a month and we all ready managed to get our Asian baby to look just like us.

In between our visits today we went to the new mall with Gen and Joel. We had lunch at the food court. Eric and I had a pizza which was really good. Gen and Joel got the burgers again. The burgers are good except for all that mayo they cake on them. We need to learn how to order them without it. We shopped around the mall. Picked up the ball for Lincoln at the toy store and then we did our grocery shopping. There is a nice big grocery store with a lot more of a selection then at our local market. It is a little more expensive for some things but worth it for the conveniences. We are all getting tired of going grocery shopping a couple times a week so today we stocked up. We have enough baby supplies to last us for at least a couple weeks. We should be all set till next week. Of course, we may need to go back for more water or food for ourselves. I told Eric today I might start eating the jar baby food myself. I am getting so tired of eating pasta and chicken. I told him it would be more nutritious for us if we did. Unfortunately the baby food is pretty expensive.

After both our visits we went out to dinner at a Russian Cuisine Restaurant. As always we had a great time with Biyanna. The food was excellent. It wasn’t too expensive but it was more than some of the places we have gone too. We might go back once more before we leave, Aktobe. It was a nice relaxing atmosphere. The only problem was the bathroom was outside in a small building but you had to go outside to get to it. That wasn’t much fun since it is way below zero here. Plus the bathroom was unisex again, not fun to walk into a bathroom and have some guy standing there doing his thing. J We were out past our 8pm curfew for our driver so we had to take a taxi back to our apartments. Biyanna called one for us; she uses the same guy for all the families. It was nice to finally meet the guy so if we want to go out without Biyanna and stay out past 8, we will feel more comfortable doing it. We went out to get into the taxi, all five of us, only to realize the car is a hatch back. Biyanna jumps in the front seat and says you girls can just sit on the guys laps. What?? We were all laughing so hard, it was a sight to see all four of squished in this tiny little back seat. Thank goodness we did not have very far to go to get to Gen and Joel’s apartment.

It is crazy windy out tonight. I have no idea what the temperature is. It is definitely far below zero. We keep asking what the temperature is factoring in the wind but they have no idea what we are talking about. Apparently they don’t do the “real-feel” temperature here. The only reason why we ever even know what the temperature is is because there is a digital sign out on the main road in front of our apartment building.

Tomorrow is Sunday and we only get the one visit. Instead of going in the morning we will be visiting in the afternoon. Yeah we get to sleep in past 7:30am for the first time since before we left home.