Enjoy!

When Larry does this with Adam it's tough to tell who enjoys it more!

Go Gators!

So, really, who had the UF/FSU party at our house yesterday? Tiff? Jonathan? Mark? Fess up. We know somebody did. Hope you all enjoyed the game. We didn’t get to watch it, but we woke up to the 45-15 win of the Gators over FSU. Even Adam got in on Gator Fever. Amazingly, they happened to have a Florida hat in the Baby House. Now we know that this was meant to be. Larry is hoping that his first words will be Go Gators!

Things here are good. Not much changes on a daily basis. We visit with Adam for about 2 hours a day. During our visit, we take turns feeding him. We have learned that he loves bananas and apricot juice. We have also learned that when he doesn’t want more to eat, he makes his feelings very clear and just stops eating. He is scooting around the room better every day. We are now working on sitting up. Apparently, as soon as that happens, they start to potty train the kids. We will try to get a picture of the kids in Adam’s room in the bathroom. Essentially, each kid has a plastic potty. Every once in a while, the caretakers take the kids to the bathroom and put them on their respective potty (each kid is assigned a number for their potty). After we put Adam down for his nap today, we walked by the bathroom with about 5 kids under 15 months old sitting on the potties. It was adorable. Until he can sit up, no potty. After that, look out world.

The weather here is still amazingly mild. The highs have been anywhere from 32-41 and the lows have been at least in the 20s. It was supposed to get very cold this coming week, but the highs are still supposed to be in the high 20s and 30s, but the lows may go into the low teens. There hasn’t been much snow. Just the first day or two we were here and flurries the other day. It seems to be just as cold if not colder in the Northeast of the States than here. We feel lucky.

We hope everybody had a Happy Thanksgiving and we hope to be home in 2 weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving

Larry and I have a lot to be thankful for this year. After three long years, we have finally found our son. Boy, was he worth the wait! He is thriving during our visits. From the first day we visited with him, he could roll from his back to his front and his front to his back. He can’t sit up unassisted yet. But today, he reached another milestone. He crawled (just about)! I posted a video below. He scoots his feet under him and goes forward! He did this at the end of our time together today, so we will continue to watch him and soon he should be scooting and crawling around the room!


Believe it or not, we are more than half way through our first visit. On Wednesday, December 10, we should get our preliminary court date. We hope that the date will be Friday, December 12 or Monday, December 15. That Tuesday and Wednesday are holidays here and the courts are closed. We can come home the day after our preliminary court. We would return to Kazakhstan about 4 weeks later for our final court date, which puts us in mid-January. After final court, there is a 15 day appeal period for the biological mother, judge or prosecutor to change their minds about us adopting Adam. If there is no appeal, on the 16th day after court, he is legally ours!!!!! Then, in-country workers get his new paperwork … passport, birth certificate, etc. and file them where they need to be filed. That takes about 3 weeks. Then, we apply for a visa for him to come to the US on his Kaz passport and home he comes! This puts his arrival towards the end of February, just in time for his 1st birthday on March 1.



We hope that everybody has a Happy Thanksgiving.

Larry's Turn

As promised, here are pics of Larry feeding Adam. He did an AWESOME job! Not much to write today. We visited with Adam in the afternoon since he had to go to some doctors to get clearance for the adoption. Everything was good and clear. We had a great visit. He is really connecting with us and we are loving our time with him.

Enjoy the photos and we want to wish all of our friends and families a Happy Thanksgiving! Although we are on the other end of the world, we will be with all of you during this holiday for which we are truly thankful for finding Adam.

The Good, The Bad and the Messy

It finally happened. Adam has been released from the infirmary and is in a regular room. The only down side to him being in a regular room is that we don’t get one-on-one time with him. However, this change means that there is A LOT to tell today. There are a total of 9 kids in the room with 2 caretakers. The “room” is actually two rooms with a little kitchen area. One room is lined with cribs. They are nice wooden cribs with brightly colored blankets. Adam’s crib is near a window. If he turns himself around, he can look outside, through a sheer curtain. The other room is a play room. There is a lot of floor space, a small playset with swings and a slide. The large floor area is a great place for us to do Adam’s exercises and massage with him. They have a couple of walkers and even a piano which the caretakers or the kids can play. There is a large play crib where they are enclosed but have lots of room and toys. There is a smaller crib and a couple of tables and chairs.

When we got to the room this morning, Adam was in the play crib. I went up to him and his face lit up. I picked him up and he saw his dad and his face lit up again. We had a great time playing with him on the big open floor. Lots more room for him to roll around. He isn’t crawling yet, but he wants to. For the first part of our visit, he was all laughs and giggles. Then, I got to feed him!

At 9:30 am, he gets a bowl of milky baby cereal. They feed them with a regular sized spoon. The kids with teeth got an apple slice. Adam, who does not have teeth yet, got grated apple in his cereal. Whoever does the feeding has to wear an apron and a handkerchief on their head. Yes, Larry’s turn is tomorrow, complete with photos! If it’s not challenging enough to feed a 9 month old with an adult sized spoon, they also get a shot glass full of fresh juice. Today, the juice was apricot. You read correctly, ladies and gentleman, the kids are fed from a shot glass. What fun! No sippy cup, an actual shot glass. I think I did pretty well today. Most of the drink went into Adam, not onto him.

Adam is the youngest kid in his room. 6 walk. One sits up and we don’t believe that the other little one sits up. I think the oldest in the room is about 14 months old. The “older” ones took a nap right after feeding time. The other 2 younger ones played in the play crib and Larry and I played with Adam on the floor and the swing after breakfast. It is certainly a nice change and a wonderful experience to be able to feed him. I’ll be sure to take lots of pics of Larry’s turn tomorrow.

Sleeping Beauty

Things from Kazakhstan are good. There isn’t much to report. We get to see Adam for about 2 hours every day, even on the weekends. He is still in the infirmary, but his chest seems less and less congested. The baby house masseuse came the other day to teach us how to work with Adam. She showed us lots of ways to move his arms, hands, fingers, legs, hips, feet and toes. This is an especially good thing since he does not get a lot of activity time in the infirmary. We have been doing the massage with him for a couple of days and he LOVES it. He smiles and laughs and lights up the room. Unfortunately, he has learned that the red light on our camera (to prevent red eyes) means that his picture will be taken any moment. He plays shy and stops smiling when he sees the light. We figured this out today and took the feature off, but it’s been hard to get those precious pictures of his smile.

After he ate today, he decided to take an early nap. With 45 minutes left in our visit, he zonked! Out like a light. He decided to wake up when we were getting him ready to return to the infirmary. We hope for more awake time tomorrow.













Many of you have been wondering what it is like here, other than visiting with Adam. I have said that the food is great. The weather has been amazingly mild. It snowed the first day we were here, and a little the other day. Other than that, it’s been cold, but not much below freezing. We will try to take more pictures of the city and things here, but here is a picture of the grocery store (the Gros). A bit different from the supermarkets in the States, huh? The Gros is on the first floor. On the second and third floors, there are small stores. On the fourth floor, there is a play area for little kids as well as an arcade and a few more stores. A couple of times a day, music plays from the clock on top of the building, the clock turns around and a figurine comes out and “dances.” It’s fun to watch.

Please keep the comments coming (especially the Saturday football reports). Go Gators. We love reading them and hope that everybody is enjoying the blog as much as we are enjoying our time here with our precious little boy.

What is in a Name?

Some of you have asked how we came up with Adam Garrett Belyeu. Larry and I decided to follow a Jewish tradition and name our child after people who were close to us who have died. Adam Garrett is our way of honoring two important people in our lives.

Ma Belyeu (Gloria) was a very wise and down to earth woman who loved her boys (especially Larry, the baby of the family). She was the anchor of the Belyeu home where family came first.

My Grandpop Shor (Artie) was a strong and passionate man who, no matter how much he worked, always made time for his family. He was heavily involved in his community and was a friend to everybody.

When Larry and I met, Larry said that he always wished that I had met his mother. I told Larry that I always wish he met my Grandpop Shor. And had they met each other? Now, I would love to be a fly on the wall for that one.

So we decided to use an “A” and a “G” for our child’s names. We both loved the name Adam Garrett. We have not yet decided on whether we are keeping Adil as a second middle name, but we are told that it means fair and honest. Whether or not we keep his given name, we are sure that he will keep the qualities that his name has given him.

And what does Adam Garrett Belyeu think of his name and of those it honors?