First Things

The last few days have been full of firsts. When we brought the babies home from the hospital it was their first time out of doors, first time in a carrier, first time in a car. Everything is new for them--and much of it for us too.

Here's a sampling:

Goodbye to the nurses...

Hello to the party!

This is the first evening at the cottage and Evelyn and Jess's first Fourth of July BBQ.
We now have a total of 7 American families here in Kokshetau (not everyone is pictured).
So, we had quite a crowd for the July 4th/Dylan B-day/Court Day BBQ.

Playing before bed the first night.

First sleep at home. We only have one crib right now so they are sleeping together--it's not perfect, (see pic to the right) but it works. (We'll get the second crib from another family who's going home tomorrow.)

First Bath

Evie really enjoyed the bath... So did Jess. In fact, when we were toweling him dry we must have hit the "off" button, because he just went lights out, couldn't even get him to eat. But then he must have turned over at 4 in the morning and hit the "on" button ...

Here's our first shot at solids. Evie didn't even want to have a spoon in her mouth. But, this evening (two days later) she ate almost a half of a serving all by herself. Jess is a little slower to take to the stuff, but he will eat several bites...

Well, speaking of firsts, we're going to have to be up first thing in the morning. (Even though they can go about 6-7 hours at night that only gets us to about 4-4:30am.) Fortunately, Brent is still jet lagged, so he doesn't yet feel to bad being up that early so he stays up with them while I go back to sleep. Then he takes a long nap in the afternoon and I take my solo turn with them. We need to work on finding some kind of schedule. These last few days it's like we all look at each other and say "what comes next?"