She's walking!

Aleigha has been taking a few steps every night this week and getting stronger and stronger!

Baptism and Mom's bday dinner

Aleigha was baptized today and she was such a good baby. She laughed and smiled the whole service (except the part where the pastor drenched her head by accident!) :) She was over it in a minute though. My Aunt Jackie and Uncle Paul are her Godparents and stood up with us during the baptism. I wish someone would have taped it because I couldn't see Aleigha's face since I was holding her but saw everyone smiling and laughing at her. Her Baptism outfit was made for her in China by a woman in Nanchang that we met through our tour guide.

Look how much fun Grayson is having in this picture!! ;)

Did you notice Grayson in the back entertaining himself???? Pastor Elyse was holding Aleigha.

After church, we had a cookout at our house. I think we had around 15 people and the food was really good. Jeff made Aleigha's baptism cake! It was BEAUTIFUL!! He was up until 1am making it the night before.

Aleigha in her baptism outfit before we changed her for the afternoon...

Johnny and Aleigha "playing" with the same toy..... Isn't Johnny's outfit so cute?!

Here's Aleigha after she opened her gifts...

Then Johnny and Aleigha played in the water and sand table and got soaked!
After her outfit got soaked, we thought this would be easier... :)
What a cool baby - hangin' out in her swing..

Last night, we ate at the Ribeye in Champaign to celebrate my Mom's birthday. We all LOVE the Ribeye. It was very good food!

For some reason, Grayson wanted Mom to read him an "after-dinner" book at the table. It was a book she gave him when he was a baby and we just found it because she gave Aleigha the same book. :)

We had a very busy weekend and we are all very tired! Now we have to get ready for Monday...

Aleigha at 15 months!

WHAT?! TWO blog updates in ONE DAY??!!! I must be crazy this weekend! haha We took Aleigha to Ewing Manor in Bloomington today so Jeff could take a few snapshots in her Easter dress that we bought her in China. She wasn't very cooperative but you couldn't tell by looking at these pictures!

This is what she looked like in the other 50 photos that Jeff took!

a lot of stuff.....

i can't believe it's been two weeks since I've updated this! I'm just so exhausted by the end of the day that I haven't been able to download any pics and everyone knows that you can't blog without pics!! :) So this will be a monster blog post with pics!
I actually have to go back in time to our China trip first. I was finally able to download some pictures from Jeff's camera (since I was banned while in China after the camera meltdown!)

Here is downtown Guangzhou. it reminded us of Times Square in New York!

Here are a few pics of the Chinese Acrobatic Show. It was amazing! If only I wasn't so tired by the time we got there but Jeff took enough pictures to remember every act! :)


Here are some pics from the Olympic Village in Beijing.... this is the "Watercube" where the swimming events took place. (This was Jeff's favorite part of the trip -except getting Aleigha!)
This is the "Bird's Nest" where the Opening Ceremonies took place...


Here we are inside the Bird's Nest...



Here are some pictures we took on the infamous "Red Couch" at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou. Every family who adopts from China knows about this couch and takes pictures of their babies on it. (even if they don't want to!! ) This first picture is with our guide, Zhou...

Aleigha DESPISED the red couch and let everyone know about it! Here she is with Lily - who didn't mind sitting there at all. Lily is also wearing the same dress that Aleigha wore for Easter.


Here's Aleigha two minutes after we took her off of that couch!

Now back to more recent pictures. Here is Grayson decorating Easter Eggs...

This picture is of Grayson and Aleigha with their cousins, Calvin and Kaitlin, after their Easter Egg hunt at Grandma Bittner's house...

I tried getting a good picture of Aleigha with her Easter dress but she wouldn't sit still long enough! She did love her bunny ears though. :)

Grayson had a good time pulling Aleigha around Gma Bittner's house...

Then he wanted her to pull him!! :)

Here's Aleigha with a new bath towel. It's a pink flower! Toooo cute!!

That's all I have for now.... Aleigha is waking up from her nap now! gotta go....

the weekend before Easter

We had a very busy weekend! On Saturday, we had State Farm's breakfast with the Easter Bunny at ISU, then an Easter Egg Hunt at church, then Grayson had a soccer game.

Here are some pictures from yesterday. Aleigha did NOT like the Easter Bunny!!!!!!

This is State Farm's Easter bunny...

Here are our friends, Hannah and Erin, who had breakfast with us before seeing the Easter Bunny.

This is our church's Easter Bunny. This was as close as Aleigha got to the bunny!

Grayson is getting a bunny painted on his face at church....

Thanks to Kathy Rodeen for giving Aleigha such a beautiful dress and cardigan. She received many compliments on her cute outfit!