Our second day at the baby house was very special. We were so excited when they brought Katie to us; it was fun to see her fully dressed in the outfit we brought, including the cute hat Sarah's mom made. Katie was a little more mellow today. After lots of hugging and laughing, she started getting weary and cuddled up with Momma. A few minutes later, she was fast asleep. It was so cute to see that she was comfortable enough to sleep in Sarah's arms.
While we were visiting, a bunch of the 1-3 year old children came out to play. One girl, Mira, stole Sarah's heart when she grabbed onto her hand and led her over to the swing that all the Mommies and Daddies sit on with their newly adopted children. It was heart-wrenching to see that this little girl practically begging to be adopted as she crawled up in Sarah's lap and cuddled with her.
After our visiting hours were over, Dinara took us to the local market. In Kazakhstan (as in most other countries), the market is very different than what we're used to in the states. Each type of food item was separated into different rooms. The biggest difference was the meat section. Kevin, who is very much a neat-freak, thought it was interesting how the butchers would cut your meat and handle the money at the same time! We also found that cereal is a luxery item; Dinara thought we were crazy for wanting to spend $3.50 on a small box of honey flakes. Overall, we really enjoyed the experence of shopping at the market.
When we got home, we had the chance to go visit with another family we met at the orphanage. They had already been here four weeks and gave us lots of pointers (including a bunch of unused groceries since they were flying home that night).