Moose and Trains

Yesterday there was a moose browsing on the willow trees in our yard.  Awhile later I heard a dog barking so I opened my front door and there he was.  He trudged out to the street once the dogs left him.  My neighbor was skiing down the road and called to me to call our other neighbor up the road because she was about to ski down the road towards the moose.  Kind of like whisper down the lane now isn't it.

Yeah the little guy is not so little anymore.
I set up his new train for him to wake up to this morning.  Oh so exciting!  December birthday's are challenging.  I like the idea of a 1 gift birthday.   I hope to always make this day special and to not have it blend into all the other holidays.

I do love this time of year.  I have to admit the Solstice is my favorite day of the year.  Welcoming back the sun can never come to soon for me.

Kazakhstan 101 continued

I am feeling so sentimental as my son approaches his 3rd birthday.  I have been going through old photos of our trip to his birthland and find myself thinking.... I want to go back.... right now.

Kazakhstan has amazing outdoor and indoor markets where you can buy just about anything.  This is where we would buy our nuts.  I know folks say watch what you eat when you travel, and we did.  We watched it go right in our mouth.  Aside from an inititial stomach flu, we survived and were healthy.  Compared to Alaska food was very inexpensive.

This is where we spent 3 months visiting our son.  We entered that door no less 100 times.  He first came to this baby house when he was 26 days old and stayed until he became our son at 19 months.

We took a 28 hour train ride to Southern Kazakshtan and went backcountry camping in Jabagely which is an amazing place.  Each train stop has local folks selling steaming hot meals.  And yes... we ate those too, straight from someone's house.  A no-no in the travelling books, but who can resist homemade dumplings?

We saw wild tulips which was one of my goals because Tulips actually originated in Kazakhstan not Holland.  They were so big and magical.

We ate lunch beside this wild apple tree in full bloom, and drank from the stream beside it, because as the book says Apples are From Kazakhstan.

We went backcountry camping in land where we only saw herdsman.  We saw a tornado form and felt a strange energy before it happened as if something were about to go wrong.  We ran from said tornado.

The people of Kazakhstan were so nice and inviting towards us.  Like this big man in a little car.  Jonathan and I found ourselves hitchhiking a lot.  Well, before we gained custody of our son anyway.

Kazakhstan has beautiful old structures like the Yasaui Mausoleum. The mausoleum was built in the 15 century by Temir.  He is somewhat of a cultural hero, but in the west he is looked at negatively more of an Attila the Hun.  There was a small mausoleum there for centuries that was a pilgrimage site for Sufi Muslims. It was neglected under the Soviets like most religious monuments, but after independence the Kazaks arranged a lot of international financing primarily from Turkey to fix it up.  While visiting the Mausoleum we were invited to attend a Surfi changing session.  We of course had to go, how could we miss an opportunity for such a cultural experience.  

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.........

Brrrr.......

This morning our homeschool group met at a families house to make healthy holiday treats to sell at a local bazaar.  Although I am the homeschool coordinator I was more of a student today.  The families in our group are very health aware.  The father of one of the families chose the recipes for the treats we made which were RAW and so super yummy.  Raw food is a new topic for me.  Our family eats healthy, but we do not focus on raw foods.  After tasting raw chocolate chip (not really chocolate chip) cookies cooked in the dehydrator and gluten free brownies I am hooked!!

It is 0 degrees.  That just seems wrong!!!

Quilting and Creative Space

Our 720 sq. ft. is feeling very tight right now.  I was cleaning our bedroom/office/ creative space today and found the Aug.-Sept. issue of Where Women Create.  The beautiful photos in this publication must leave my house at once.  It is not because I don't enjoy the inspiring photos.  Don't get me wrong,  I love looking and learning about the creative women that grace the pages, but it leaves me feeling very crowded.  At this present moment, the space that we have is what we have, and dreaming too much about a larger space with a creative space is just not healthy.

Do you want this issue?  It is really eye candy at its best.  If so just leave me a note with your address and I will gladly mail it to you.

The hum of my sewing machine has been music to my ears lately.  Here is my latest quilt for my sister and brother in love.   The little guy is fascinated with the swirls and stars.  The connections that toddlers make between objects and real world, star patterns and stars in the sky is magical

I am going to attempt my first stitch in the ditch pattern on this quilt. The hour drive to purchase a waking foot for my machine is delaying progress a bit.  Sigh... advantages and disadvantages to living an hour away from the store.

My son's new beginning quilt is back from my ever so generous artist friend who quilted it for me.  All I need to do is add the border.  I am just in love with it.

I have been enjoying reading about all the creative endeavors of other bloggers.  The cooking, sewing, felting, ..... is just so inspiring.  Hoping to make a blogs I read link soon.  Soon is the key word.  Happy creating.

This Moment

{This moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. An idea from Soulmama.

Designer Trainers

I believe that living a natural life is about doing what you can, and not feeling so bad when a way of life does not fit yours.  I  swore that I would be a cloth diaper gal when we I became a mother.  We came home from Kazakhtan with our son and one of the first things I did was purchase cloth diapers.  The experience was interesting on many levels.  My son's legs are fairly lean. For some reason his cloth diapers tended to leak especially at night.  It was not from not changing him enough.  I think his bladder must be close to a 50 gallon barrel because I am not sure where all the urine came from.  I was working full time, daddy was home, and well, he just never go the hang of keeping up with the diapers. We tried for a few months, then did a hybrid of cloth and disposable, and then we just had to let it go.  I made peace with the fact that between working full time, all the medical that was needed when we returned with our son, and the leaking it was just not a good fit.

Now it is potty training time.  I went yesterday and purchased some cloth training diapers.  I am going to try again.  Who knew that there was a fashion industry around diaper patterns.

Last night.... well, again same problem.  I watched like a hawk, and the first pee of the night was a pajama soaker.  Does anyone have any insight on the cloth diaper use.  Is it possible that my son's Kazak. legs are just not as plump as these American made diapers require?

We are a sheet of ice here in AK.  School was cancelled for the past 3 days because the roads are so bad.  I braved the storm and made it to Anchorage for the little guy's appts.  

Thank you again my delightful cleats.  You make my world a better place.