Brussels

We started our day with a quick trip to the Horta Museum with our friend Agnes.  In case you don't know (and who doesn't know this???), Horta created Art Nouveau.  This is one of the places that I really wanted to see while I was here.  To make a long story short, the museum is only open in the afternoon and we were there in the morning.  A friendly high school student took our picture in front of Horta's mansion (now the museum).   Erlan was none too happy when Ben put Sacha on his shoulders.  He kept saying, "My daddy shoulders!  My shoulders!" He also suggested  that Sacha ride on Agnes' shoulders.  He even told Sacha in the car, "My daddy shoulders!"  I guess that Mommy's shoulders were a poor substitute for Daddy's shoulders.  

We then journeyed on our own around the Grand Place in Brussels.  With the help of locals who 

took pity on the hapless Americans, we made it from Agnes' house to the Grand Place via the local bus system.  I was so happy to have the help b/c we had to transfer busses on the same line.  I don't think we would have figured that out.  Riding on the bus, by the way, was the highlight of Erlan's day.

We made it to two chocolate shops, one restaraunt, and one waffle place.  Ben was the official photographer for the restarant, so a friendly Spanish tourist took our picture.  Erlan took the picture of Ben alone. The chocolates are melt in your mouth good.  If you love dark chocolate, then you will be in heaven in Belgium... at least I am.  Erlan was in overload in the candy shop.  He could not believe that all of the chocolate was  within his reach... He almost pulled over a display.

When we came back, the boys played together and were in bed by 8:30.  We then had tonight with Agnes' boyfriend, Jean Pierre (yes, he's French).  I thought our fellow Aktobe adopters would be interested to see his picture.  The big boys made dinner. 

Tomorrow we are off to Liere and Michelen (sorry if I misspelled) with our favorite tour guide Emil.  We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends.

Belgium

We are in Belgium!  Our trip across the pond was uneventful, which always makes me happy.  Erlan was extremely excited about riding on the airplane.  He also told everyone around us, "Daddy is on a different airplane."  Ben took a separate flight over (b/c the ticket was 600 dollars cheaper).  Erlan & I flew on my miles.  Here are two of the only pictures I took on the flight.  We were on one of the lovely trams in the Dulles aiport, which Erlan thought was great.  He's telling me "No cheese!"  He was too busy enjoying his "school bus ride."  In the 2nd, Erlan is totally engrossed in the Jungle Book.  The ear buds provided by the plane were horrible and didn't stay in his ears.  I must have put them in 100 times during the movie.  It really didn't matter b/c the jack had become unplugged and he couldn't hear anyway; however, he wanted the stupid things in his ears.  Agnes' father met us at the airport and took us to his house for breakfast complete with Belgian pastries.  Delicious!  

While we are here we have the luxury of staying with our friends Agnes and Sacha, whom we met through adoption.  We haven't seen Sacha in a year, and he has changed so much!  He was a baby when we last saw him, and now he's a toddler.  He's such a happy boy,  and he and Agnes clearly bring each other much joy.  Sacha is a year younger than Erlan, but he is almost taller than Erlan.  Here the boys are hugging each other good night.  Erlan is behind Sacha.  Notice that Sacha almost blocks Erlan from view.  In the nextpicture, you'll see that Sacha is almost bigger than Agnes.   

We 

did our first bit of sightseeing by walking around Agnes' neighborhood.  You'll notice that parking can be a bit of a problem here.  I'm so glad that I'm not driving.  We are standing outside of Agnes' house in the picture with the red car.  I will need to take pix of her house.  Ben and I both love it.

Today we enjoyed our first day of traipsing around Brussels with our own private tour guide, Agnes' father Emil.  He has an incredible depth of knowledge of Brussels and of the European Union.  He also speaks 7 languages, which has nothing to do with our tour but I think it's an incredible feat.  The pictures that I will post do not begin to do justice to the splendor of this place. I love walking around the city and

 seeing the mix of modern architecture with historic

 building. The red roofed buildings give a quaintness to this metropolis.  

We ended tonight's dinner with some chocolaty goodness.  You'll see that both boys loved it.  When Sacha saw it, he said, "Ooh, la la!"  We walked off our dinner later.  My boys took their color coordinated umbrellas and jackets.

Tomorrow we plan to go back to the Grand Place to look around some more.  I think I will have a waffle and a piece (or two) of chocolate.  As Erlan  would say, "See  ya later alligator!"

Easter Scenes & An Update

Erlan had a big time at our 2-day Easter Eggstravaganza.  We spent Saturday at Aunt Debbie's with my family.  We spent Sunday at our house with Ben's family.  We colored Easter eggs and did Easter egg hunts both days.  I attended my yearly professional conference with dyed fingers.  

Scenes from Easter Saturday

On Saturday, Erlan colored eggs with his cousins.  The older ones were very patient with the younger ones, especially Erlan who liked to take all of the eggs and drop them into the dye.  Erlan really didn't care if someone else had already dyed the egg.  

The adults hid about 100 eggs for the kiddos to find in my sister's yard.  Erlan LOVED the Easter egg hunt.  My favorite part was when I'd lead him to an area with an egg and ask, "Do you see an egg?"  He'd respond, "Nope."  He drew the word out with two syllables as if I were a dullard.

We then had races with the Easter eggs and any other game I could invent that involved the Easter eggs.  We broke lots of the eggs that way.  

As if the kids didn't have enough candy, my niece made rice-krispie treat eggs for the kids to dip in chocolate and decorate with sprinkles.  Erlan decorated way more than his fair share of eggs.  Every time I looked up, he had cut in line again with a new egg.

The last picture is of Erlan putting Mikayla's bib on her.  She looks terrified.  He was closely supervised, and she was in no danger.  I just think that the picture is hilarious.

Scenes from Easter Sunday

On Sunday, we decorated and hid eggs again.  The kids then went outside to play baseball (despite the football like stances, they were playing baseball).  Erlan also took the opportunity to show off his new bike riding skills.

An update 

Without further ado, Erlan's latest tricks:

• He can count to 30.  He misses a few numbers, but he does really well.
• He is using 3 and 4 word sentences regularly.  He was evaluated through Parents As Teachers, and they said his language skills were on track.  He did not qualify for intervention.
• His spoken language has made amazing progress in the past couple of months.  He repeats everything now.  
• He loves to act out the "Itsy-Bitsy Spider"
• He loves to sing.  His favorites are Twinkle, Twinkle; People on the Bus; ABCs; Little Bunny Fu Fu (he does the hand motions for this one too); I wanna be like you song from the Jungle Book (I have no idea what that song is really called).
• His favorite video:  The Jungle Book.  Aunt Amy has Bare Necessities and the I wanna be like you song from the Jungle Book on her iphone.  Erlan knows this and demands that she play the songs for him.  He will act like Blue as Bare Necessities plays and like a monkey when the other song plays.
• He loves to say, "See ya later alligator! After while crocodile! See ya soon raccoon!"
• He has a bicycle now.  We got it at Wal-mart, and he rode it around the store, through the checkout, and to our car.  We walked to Granny Jannie's for breakfast and let him ride the bike.  He figured out the brakes pretty quick.  
• He loves to go "feed cows" with Daddy, and he can identify certain cows by name. 
• He can finally wear 3-T shirts; however, he's in 2-T pants.  
• He loves to pick out his own clothes and to dress himself.  Almost invariably, he will put his pants on backwards.  It doesn't seem to bother him.
• He loves to read.  His favorite book is Ten in the Bed, which is actually a song and I sing it to him every night now.