Completed Quilt #1, Kazakhstan 101

Oh joy, joy, joy!  I finished quilt #1 in time for Christmas.  It is going in the mail today sent with love.

I learned how to do the binding last night.  So glad I chose to do strip quilts for the first two quilts.  I hope to make major progress on my log cabin quilt over the holiday.

Last week we had an assessment for our toddler.  The woman assessing asked us, what are some things that are positive about him.  I started by saying, "His tempermant is perfect.  He is happy."  I then looked over at him and said..... "well really everything is wonderful about him."  My wonderful little man will be 3 next week.  In a little over a year he has learned so much, grown at least 2 years developmentally and continues to make me smile on a daily basis.

In honor of our son, who is just so amazing I am going to give you a tour of Kazakhstan, his country of birth, for the next few posts.


Kazakhstan is ranked as the ninth largest country in the world.  I find that to be incredible as we have had very few encounters with people who have any knowledge of this enormous country.  It is actually the world's largest landlocked country.  Kazakhstan declared itself and independent country on December 16, 1991.  It is said to be the home of the first domesticated horse, and thousands of year ago scientists say the first apple as we know them today appeared in the Tien Shen Mountains.

The Kazakhstan flag is fairly artistic.  The blue color stands for the "great sky" in which they lived under.  The center is a  a golden sun with 32 rays above a golden steppe eagle in flight. These two symbols stand for the freedom and high ideals of the Kazakh people.  Along the left edge is traditional Kazakh ornamentation.  Originally the edge design was in red, but it was switched to yellow so the flag would have only two colors.

The president of Kazakhstan is Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev.  Dmitrii loved looking at his president's picture in the baby house.  He would calm down when we would bring him up to it.  By the way, that hat, I called it the muffin man hat, was not our choice.  This was one of his outfits in the baby house.  He had lots of fun hats on during our months visiting him.

If this Kazkahstan 101 peaks your interest, I highly recommend the book Apples are From Kazakhstan.  Our library had it, yours might too.

If at any time you find yourself curious about adoption we have an adoption blog that is password protected that I would gladly share with you.  It tells of our time before, during (4 months in country) and a bit after.

To be continued.........