We are officially bonding!!

I thought maybe you'd like to see the rest of the apartment. Here is our kitchen! The cabinet you see is a dish drying rack. To the right of the picture is one other cabinet and across from the stove is another. This would be nice if we had things to put in them:o) LOL! All in all, it's a pretty nice kitchen. We like it. Here is our bedroom. Not too shabby. Stay tuned for a picture of our apartment building and the spare bedroom. Wooooo, you don't want to miss this, LOL! I know you all just want to see Alea, but we can't show her to you yet. I'll post pictures of Turkistan next time. It should be more interesting than our apartment. Hello all!!!

It's been forever since I last posted. We lost our internet connection for about a week and it was torture:O) I know, pathetic, but it is our only link to you all and I was dying! LOL!!

Once I got to open my email, I had messages wondering what was happenning over here. We are officially 7 days(half way through) our bonding process!!!! We will finish on the fourth of JULY! How cool is that. Independance day will have new meaning for us. Of course we still have to go to court and then have our 15 day waiting period and then two more weeks of waiting for her visa and passport and other official documents, but if all goes smoothly, I may just barely make it home for my sister in law's wedding. I'm not counting on it because nothing here seems to go all that smooth, but I'm praying. I'm trying to get there Amanda:O) Warren will be leaving as soon as possible after court. We hope to get him out of here at the latest, on the 15th. We'll just have to see. He has to get home for work!

Just thinking about him leaving me here for a month is overwhelming. I know that it has to happen this way, but I sure don't like it!! He's also going to be mourning leaving his daughter. She is definitely in love with her daddy. Yesterday he even put her diaper on her!! He was sure that he wasn't going to have anything to do with that, but he did it. They bring her to us without a diaper on and then we have to put it on her. I was speaking with her doctor and couldn't get it on her so he had to. He gave me a look like, "I can't do this" but ended up doing it with no problems. He had plenty of experience with our boys, but in his words, "she's a girl!!!!" He did a fabulous job, except the diaper was a little too loose, but all's well that end's well!! The doctor realized what he was doing and was very impressed. I have to say, so was I:O)

Alea is doing well, and getting stronger every day. We just love her little smile and how she just lights up every time she see's us. She giggles every time her daddy holds her up in the air and then brings her in for a kiss. I have a great picture of her moving in for a kiss from me. Warren caught it on camera. I'll post it when we actually get custody of her. She knows now and leans in, it is absolutely the cutest thing. Her hair has started to sprout. It's amazing what happens when a child is loved. I wouldn't have thought it would even affect hair. She's starting to try and do squats now. Her legs are very weak, but in the past two days, she's actually trying to stand on them. They give out pretty quickly, but she tries to squat herself back up. We found out that she is also rolling over now both ways. She also likes to suck her thumb to go to sleep. It is so cute.

Tomorrow we will be going to Turkistan. It is a muslim mosque here in Kaz. It is very special to the Kazakhs and is supposedly something we don't want to miss. I have to make sure that I take a scarf to cover my head, and I'm pretty sure Warren will need to wear pants to cover his tattoos:O) I'll post pictures when we get back. I hear it's beautiful! We'll be going with another American couple here who is adopting a baby.

I'll try to keep you all more updated on the happenning over here. Now that we are bonding, there's more happenning, but for a while there, we were just completely bored. There was nothing to write about. Take care and we'll post again soon!

Love,

Warren, Jenn and Alea